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“We’ve had this discussion before, and I’m not sure I feel like having it again. I am not your wife. ” Points for me for not reminding him whose fault that was.
“You are, and it’s about time for you to stop ignoring your duty and come back to the pack. ”
I wriggled, making it clear I had no desire to be in his arms, but still he held me. “Lucas. Let me go. ”
“Not until you’re willing to listen to reason. ”
“Reason? You’ve got to be kidding me. You’re the one who isn’t getting this. You and I aren’t mates anymore. My wolf wants nothing to do with you. If you’d take two seconds to actually feel for her, you’d realize that. ”
“What are you talking about? Of course we’re still mated. We completed the ceremony. ”
“But that was before. Before the fairy king made me human. When he gave me back my monsters, something changed. It’s like a blank slate. I don’t know how it works, or why, but my wolf doesn’t respond to yours anymore. ”
He dropped his arms but loomed closer, sniffing at me the way an animal might. What he was trying to glean from scent alone I wasn’t sure, but maybe his wolf was more finely attuned to that sort of thing.
“What about Desmond?” he asked.
“I can taste him again. The lime. And she wakes up for him,” I told him, hoping to get rid of him. He looked so crushed by that tidbit I almost wanted to touch him, to hold him and comfort him. But I fought against the urge, stepping as far away from him as the narrow hallway would allow. “I’m sorry, Lucas. ”
“You’re lying. ”
“Lying? About being sorry?”
“No, about all of this. It’s bullshit. A soul-bond can’t be broken. It’s a lifetime commitment. It’s not logical or decisive. It can’t choose to stop working. It’s magic for God’s sake. ”
“And magic can’t be understood as easily as science,” I reminded him. “Magic made me human, and then undid it. So who are we to say the bond can’t change? All I know is my wolf isn’t drawn to you anymore. ”
“Kiss me,” he said.
“What?”
“Kiss me. ”
“No. ”
“Secret, I need this. ” He stepped closer again, his big body taking up more space than I recalled. His normally blue eyes had gone yellow, taking on a feral quality. His blond hair was longer than it had been the last night I saw him. Right after I’d had him kill five werewolves for me.
He looked wilder now, like he was coming unstrung.
“I don’t care what you need. ” I moved to leave the hall and return to our table, but his arm shot out, blocking my passage.
“Just kiss me so I know. ”
“Move your arm. ”
“Not until you say yes. ”
“And what is it you think a kiss will tell you, huh? Do you think you’ll kiss me and it’ll be like I’m a princess in a Disney movie? Somehow one smooch is going to be all it takes for me to love you again? Get a clue, Lucas. I’m never going to love you again. Not ever. And no kiss, no matter how good, is going to make me—”
His lips crushed against my mouth as he held my jaw still, stealing the kiss I hadn’t wanted to give. He tasted like desperation and longing, and when his tongue caressed the seam of my lips, instinct commanded me to open for him. Sexual compatibility hadn’t been a problem for us. I’d wanted his body since the first night we met.
But being good in bed didn’t mean we should be together.
The problem was, as he kissed me my wolf responded. She stirred. At first the response was bristling and angry, like she wanted to claw through the lining of my stomach so she could attack him.
Rip out his throat, she commanded. He betrayed us.
He deepened the kiss, leaning the weight of his body into me, and I tasted it. The cinnamon. It was buried deep, so, so deep, and it came to me like a memory of a dream, dull at first but then roaring up to the surface.
