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I hurried inside before he could change his mind. I knew he’d only allowed me inside because I had taken him by surprise, startling him with my disheveled, strung out appearance. He probably thought the school was under attack or something.
Shutting the door behind me, I dragged in several long, deep breaths. When I had myself back under control, I looked at him.
“I will literally do anything. Whatever you want. Just please help me.” God, I hated asking for help almost as much as I hated needing a man.
His expression flattened, his dark eyes turning hard. “You want me to drink from you again.”
“No! I don’t care how you touch me, just touch me! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” I grabbed handfuls of my hair in fury and frustration, the sting in my scalp a sharp contrast to the dull throbbing at my temples. “I have died a little bit more every single day since we first bonded. Having this connection, needing you, and not being able to touch you—it’s killing me. It’s making me weak. I can’t be weak down here, Kai. Don’t you understand that? We’re in the fucking underworld! What if we get attacked?”
He was watching me with wide eyes, but I couldn’t read him. I had no goddamn idea what he was thinking. In all honesty, there were other reasons for the pain that seemed to live in my chest all the time these days. Other pleas I could’ve made besides just the practicality of not wanting to be weakened while we were stuck in the underworld.
But I didn’t dare say them out loud to Kai. I could barely acknowledge my feelings to myself, and I knew if he got even a hint of the fact that I needed him beyond the succubus bond, beyond the blood bond, I’d find myself alone in the room with a Kai-shaped hole in the door.
He didn’t need to know about the mess of confusing emotions ricocheting around in my chest.
He just needed to know one thing.
I let my hands fall to my sides and calmed myself again, straightening my spine and lifting my chin to meet his gaze.
“I’ll do whatever you want. I know you hate me, but I… I can be whoever you want me to be,” I whispered.
Then I closed my eyes and focused on the face of the Asian woman who worked behind the bar at the little pub on Mönkh Saridag. Groups of students had snuck off school grounds often to go drink there, and Kai had spent hours just nursing a beer and watching her with nostalgia and pain floating in his eyes.
I wanted to give him what he missed so terribly, if only to make it easier for him to give me what I desperately needed. I felt my face and body shift, and when it was done, I opened my eyes.
“Is this what you want, Kai?”
His entire body jerked as his eyes widened. I braced myself for his expression to change as he took in my false features, for longing and desire to steal across his face—and for the inevitable pain I would feel when they did.
Instead, he scowled at me.
“What are you doing?”
“I know you still love her, Kai, whoever she is or was. I never meant for this bond to happen, but I thought maybe if I—”
“No.” He blinked, his face going oddly still. “That’s not… that’s not right.”
I swallowed, my stomach churning as I forced words I didn’t want to say past numb lips. Goddamn it, why does this hurt so much?
“I was just doing my best. If you show me a picture of her, I can—”
“No!” His voice was more forceful, and he took a step closer, staring at me intently as if he was trying to see through my shifted features to the truth underneath. “It’s not right. That’s not what I want. Change back.”
“Kai, please—”
“I said change back!”
“Fine!” I started to shift back to myself, wild with fury. “Have it your way then. Just stand there and let me fucking die. I’m sorry about the goddamn bond, all right? I don’t know how many more times I can say it. But I need you, and I’m trying to make it easier on you. Fuck. I thought your heart had been broken, but now I’m wondering—”
I cut myself off before I could finish telling him he was heartless, because what I saw on his face as my features returned to normal was something almost exactly like… relief.
It was so unexpected that it stopped me cold.
He stepped toward me with some kind of fierce energy I couldn’t define, and for a moment, I didn’t know whether he was going to kiss me or kill me. I stood rooted to the spot until he grabbed me around the waist and cupped the back of my head in his hand.
His fingers trailed over my neck and down the line of my jaw, brushing over my cheekbone and lips as if he was mapping my features. Memorizing them.
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