Page 182 of Unravel Me

I stare and stare.

His face, tanned by the polar sun, is decorated with a tattoo whose shape I cannot make out, something like a dark streak running across his temple and along the edge of his cheek. His beauty is somewhat… austere, his features regular, with nothing ostentatious about them, yet possessing something that immediately catches my attention. I can’t seem to take my eyes off him, feeling a wave of fascination spreading through me like a warm surge down my spine. I know he got out of prison three years ago and has lived here ever since.

Shivering in the gusts of the icy wind, with tiny flakes of snow dusting me, I can’t seem to take my eyes off this man, analyzing every detail.

He has strong black eyebrows, a slightly aquiline nose, and a triangular face with high cheekbones. Dear Fate, to me, he is… perfection. Maybe not everyone’s type, perhaps a little too severe, but my eyes linger on him because I feel an immediate, inexplicable attraction, as though something inside me is already clinging to him, yearning to know him, to learn every story his life has written into him, every pain he has endured, every little smile that has ever touched his lips.

There is also a note of melancholy in that face, some kind of sad… resignation. Acceptance of the isolated life he has here?

It is as if I can feel it, as if I know that he is living his life on the edge of the human world because he is… ashamed of his past.

Oh, how well I understand him!

I am ashamed of what my ‘evil’ version did. It terrifies me, closing in around me like claustrophobic walls, and there is nothing I want more than to forget those horrors, erase them from my mind, from my energy.

My eyes trace the lines of his face and body, filled with a hunger born of hope and longing.

But do I deserve this perfect man?

Standing there, I know the only thing that can make me worthy of him, that can set me free.

I need to break my bond with Rocco. It scares me, but I need to create myself anew, far away from him, and discover… who I could have been if Rocco had never ended up with Tito.

I am a washed-out shadow of what might have been, but I want to pull myself out of this nothingness, to tear myself away from the world of ghosts and half-existence, of indistinct forms and barely formed shapes, and finally become something whole.

A powerful blast of icy wind makes me lean slightly against the door.

All three men look up and see me through the glass.

The pale-blue one immediately gets to his feet. He is an alpha, so his instincts are working flawlessly, but I am no threat to anyone. Truthfully, I am barely steady on my feet, but I ignore him because my eyes lock onto Roberto’s chocolate-colored eyes.

"Don’t, Thorn. Let him in," he says to the mutant guy.

He gets up himself and walks toward the door, slides the bolt open, and lets me into the office.

I step inside, trembling with anticipation, anxiety, and excitement. Partly because I know that I have very little time left, that my other dark half is nearing the end of his destined path, and the other reason is… I need to know.

The moment I stand beside him, I take a deep breath and catch his scent immediately.

Yes, this is it!

Mauro was right. It’s him.

I have found my True Mate.

His Allure leaves no doubt. He smells like hot coffee with milk, like warm cookies, the kind my granddad Silvio used to bake for me when I was a little child.

The memory is like a brief flash that fades inside me, and I know it will soon disappear completely, cease to exist. I will be erased in a matter of minutes.

"Help me. Only you can save me," I whisper.

All eyes are riveted on me, everyone’s gaping as though I’ve just materialized from the swirling snow, some apparition emerging from the blizzard.

"Save me from nonexistence…" I whisper to him, probably adding even more of a ghostly atmosphere to the scene with that melodramatic line.

Roberto seems almost paralyzed by my strange declaration, but he doesn’t take a step back. Instead, he watches me cautiously, his brows drawn slightly together, as if he’s trying to make sense of what I’ve just told him. There’s curiosity in his eyes too, a hesitant hope…

Then his nostrils flare, and he takes a deep breath.