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Her arcana suffused the air, but I reared back and shook my head. She needed to think of herself right now. There were still pale blue circles under her eyes and a white cast to her skin telling me that she wasn’t in any position to help me. She needed to help herself first.
I sat on the floor and gathered her into my arms. Before I could stop her, Addie grasped the sides of my face and pressed her lips to mine. Her arcana slipped between my lips as easily as her tongue did. The gesture disarmed me. I couldn’t defend against two things I wanted more than breath itself.
Addie filled me in every way. Her presence, her love, her power all sustained me and made me stronger. I gripped her and pulled her tighter to my body like we could melt into one being.
Barely a breath later, Addie pulled back. Her gaze dipped low, not in anticipation but in fear. My heart stuttered.
“Tell me what’s wrong so I can fix it,” I said, desperation nearly reaching my voice.
I’d never been so afraid to lose anyone in my life. Sure, there’d been plenty to worry about when Fenrir had shown up at my uncle’s, but this fear was something else entirely. It was like my entire mortal soul was in peril.
Addie pulled back from me like she couldn’t bear touching me. Panic hit my system, but I managed to keep from showing it. Though my beast thrashed inside me because it wanted nothing more than to comfort Addie and convince her all was fine, I held it back and kept my breath steady.
Finally, after several heart-wrenching moments, she spoke. “Would you…would you love me if I was part monster?”
I nearly laughed in her face. That wasn’t the reaction I wanted to show, but my relief was so strong that it almost came spilling out of me.
“Woman. You remember who you married, right?” I brushed her cheek with my fingers. “I’m the monster in this relationship. There’s nothing you could say or do to be a bigger monster than me. And I say that having witnessed your power firsthand. Believe me when I tell you that there’s nothing you could do to be a monster.”
She didn’t look convinced. Lips twisted in indecision, she refused to look me in the eye. It was then that I knew she’d learned something while we’d been separated. Whatever she’d learned, it wasn’t good. At least, she didn’t believe it to be good. I, however, wasn’t convinced that this would ruin anything between us.
“Hel and Fenrir…they…” Her voice trailed off like the words refused to reach her tongue.
“They what? Hate each other? Want to kill each other?” These were things we both already knew, but I couldn’t figure out what she wanted to say.
Addie finally met my gaze. Her eyes were red-rimmed and filled with fear. “They had a child. The two have a bloodline.”
It took several heartbeats for the meaning behind her words to sink in. At first, the words seemed harmless. I couldn’t fathom what that would have to do with anything. Maybe there was another threat that we would have to hunt down, but there was nothing else I could think of that would connect the dots.
Then, it hit me. I threaded her previous concerns with this new statement and realized what she meant.
“Hel’s line...your line…It all started with Fenrir.”
Addie’s lips formed a flat, grim line.
I tilted her chin up so that I could look her in the eye when I said, “Do you really think that means anything to me? Me, who was created the same as Fenrir? Why would I care if your bloodline runs back to him?”
She recoiled. “Because that makes me his great-something granddaughter. The same blood that makes him an asshole monster runs through me, too. That should be cause for alarm!”
“Hel said the same about me when I became a shifter. Do you see me running around, trying to destroy the world? No. She was wrong about me. You don’t have to be what others expect you to be. I thought that you, of all people, would understand that.”
I bent my head and pressed kisses along her temple, down her cheek, and all the way to her neck. Addie was stiff, at first. Then she melted beneath my touch. Though she’d revealed her biggest fear, I wanted her to know that it would never bother me.
“I’ve been a monster my whole life,” she whispered, her hands clinging tightly to my arms like I might vanish. “I hated my arcana and what it created. I could barely control it, and I hurt so many people in my life with it. This control I have now is recent. I don’t want to go back to being a threat.”
I breathed in the scent of her skin, like fresh earth and moss. There was a wild natural aroma to her that reminded me of the open mountains and all that was buried beneath the rocks and soil. Addie’s arcana had bothered me at first. Now, I knew that she was doing her best with what she’d been given.
As we all were.
Lifting Addie, I lowered her to the floor so I could cover her body with my own. Her scent made my beast wild. I wanted more. I needed her skin pressed against mine. The beast liked to think that would convince Addie that I would love her no matter what, while I knew that declarations of love were a bit more nuanced than that.
I chuckled to myself.
Fingers threaded through my hair, Addie froze. “What’s so funny?”
Unbothered, I continued leaving a trail of kisses down her neck and along her collarbone while my hands roved along her thighs. I lifted her legs to silently ask her to wrap them around me. She hesitated, likely because I hadn’t yet explained myself.
It was hard with the fluttering sensation of relief and joy inside my chest.
“Others can put all sorts of labels on us,” I said once I managed to find the ability to speak again. “That doesn’t mean those labels are true. Even the ones we put on ourselves can be false.”
Paige had been wrong about me. I wasn’t a horrible husband. I wasn’t smothering or distant. Addie gave me the opportunity to show that I could be a good husband with the right partner, one who wanted everything I had to give.
My beast wanted me to roll my hips against her core so I could savor the moan that left her. I wasn’t going to do that unless she wanted it. So, I held myself aloft and waited for Addie to reach for me.
She grabbed the front of my shirt and yanked me down for another deep kiss. Maybe we were monsters because of the horrible things we could do, but we weren’t the kind of people who would use that power to hurt others. That was all we needed to remember.
