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o;Show me.” His gaze burned with intensity as he pushed her higher, ever higher. “Let me feel it too, Brynne. Let me taste it, right now.”
She frowned, uncertain she understood. Afraid to hope.
But the truth was there in his eyes. It was in the emotional connection she had to him now—the one he was asking her to complete with him. He wanted this. He wanted her bond.
Would he want it when she was at her worst?
The question scraped at her coldly. Yes, he had seen her in the throes of blood thirst. He knew what she became then.
But to feel it in his own blood? To know the savagery that filled her when she was less Breed than monster?
Bonding him to her meant bonding him to everything she was, including the part of her that was Ancient. How could he ever look at her with desire—or with any kind of affection—if she let him take that hideous part of her into his own soul?
The fear that he would regret it made her veins freeze up.
The very thought that he might one day look at her in revulsion or loathing was too much for her to bear. Especially now, when he was holding her so lovingly, making her wish for things she could never have.
“Zael, no.” Extricating herself from his embrace, she pushed away from him and scrambled to the edge of the bed.
“What’s wrong?”
The concern in his deep voice made her wince in misery. When his hand came to rest gently on her shoulder, she flinched. Stood up abruptly and moved out of his reach.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I can’t do this. Neither should you. Please… You should go.”
“Go?” So much confusion in that one word.
He got up from the bed and walked toward her. His face was drawn with bewilderment, and with tender affection. Seeing his care for her now only reinforced the dread that if she let things go any further with him, that love would turn to disgust.
“I can’t do this, Zael. Drinking from you was a mistake.”
“It sure as hell didn’t feel like a mistake to me,” he shot back, anger overtaking his disbelief. “It felt right. And I know you felt it too.”
She shook her head. “I can’t do this, Zael. Not here. Not now. We shouldn’t even risk being together until after the alliance is decided. You said that yourself.”
“Fuck the alliance.” His reply exploded out of him, his voice clipped and harsh. “This is about you and me, Brynne. Nothing else matters to me.”
“Not even the colony?”
She knew it did. And if he tried to deny it, she could see that he knew she’d call him on the lie. She had only been on the island for a few hours and she could plainly see that for all of his wandering, this place and its people had been his only semblance of home. His infrequent returns and brief stays hadn’t diminished the fact that for most of his immortal life, the people here had been the closest thing to family he’d ever had.
He would never truly turn his back on them, and she would never belong here.
No matter the outcome of the alliance they had been entrusted to make happen.
“I shouldn’t have taken your blood, Zael. It was selfish. The most selfish thing I’ve ever done. I can’t let you make it worse by shackling yourself to me too.”
“Are you joking?”
His anger and confusion had now hardened into pain. She felt it vibrate in her veins as he stepped closer to her. She retreated deeper into the shadows of the small room.
“Zael, please… I want you to go.”
“Brynne.” He reached out to her.
“Go!” It was the beast that lived inside her that shouted the command at him.
She felt her nails harden into black talons as her misery morphed into desperate fury. Her skin prickled with the eruption of her alien dermaglyphs, the tangled patterns rising to the surface to cover most of her body.
