Page 76 of Mate of a Monster

I keep her pinned anyway. I keep my stare locked on hers, and I force my voice to stay buried while my body screams to do something that will ruin us both.

“Legend.” Her voice raises with confidence.

The sound of my name on her lips only winds me tighter.

I inch forward.

Haide’s eyes drop to my mouth. Then back to my eyes. “Ask me what I learned.”

Zevryn shifts on the floor and I stiffen. Is that why she’s prolonging the conversation? She thinks she can wake up her friend to help her?

“He,” I begin, voice low, “won’t save you.”

She swallows. “I’m not the one who needs saving.”

A scowl builds across my brows.

Lights stutter in the wall. One dies. Then another. Darkness pools deeper as shadows stretch from corners, bleeding outward.

Zev sits up.

“Luda?” He murmurs, voice rough with sleep.

She doesn’t answer. She keeps looking at me. Waiting.

I should leave. I should let her go. My hips shift, barely an inch, but enough that I know she feels how much I want her. Because I do. I fucking want her like I never threw her against that wall and exiled the exile.

A low, vibrating hum rolls down the length of my spine, settling deep in my gut. Like a current, it’s a feeling that you can hear. Or maybe it’s just me fucking growling because I’m about to fucking snap.

I grind my hips against hers. All the tension between us finally snaps when my hand finds her neck, fingers pressing into the damp skin at her hairline.

“Fuck,” I gasp, her pulse hammering against my thumb in a frantic rhythm that matches the one in my head.

Her legs widen and I drop my full weight against her. Just as she leans up into me, something crashes on the floor, startling us both. Every fucking light turns on, and I flinch at the sudden brightness.

“Can you not fuck with me in the room if I’m not invited to join?” Zevryn calls out from the floor.

I growl, ready to slit his fucking throat, but Haide’s legs lock tight around me, forcing me still.

“I should kill you right here, right now,” I force past clenched teeth.

“You could have killed me the second you stepped in here,” she points out. “You didn’t.”

My muscles tremble and I feel a little crack somewhere in my gut. “That doesn’t mean I won’t.”

“Maybe not, but you know what it means to me?”

Tell me. Please. Tell me why I can’t kill you. Explain to me why it’s all I can think about but the last fucking thing I want to do?

Tell me what’s wrong with me and why everything leads back to you.

A tenderness I didn’t think her capable of falls over her. She stares like she can see into my fucking soul. Like she heard my fucking fears and wants to answer them.

How can she be my biggest fear, worst regret, and most uncontrollable desire all at fucking once?

“Wait—” Haide shifts. “Who turned the light on?”

I blink.