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Her tear-filled eyes look up at me. “No more worrying about me, Keri. I'll be okay.”
“Okay,” I whisper. “I love you. I have from the moment you opened these beautiful eyes and I always will.”
“I love you.”
We put our foreheads to each other's and stay like that until a hand on my forearm is pulling me away. I look over my shoulder at Leah, at her wrapping her arms around herself, tucking her lips into her mouth, surely holding in a cry. Then, we're turning down hallway after hallway, my anxiety taking off now that I don't need to pretend it's not overwhelming me for Leah's sake.
“Here we are,” the woman says gently.
I look at the open shaft, knowing where it's going to take me. Knowing this will be the last place above ground I'll ever be.
“Don't make this any harder,” she murmurs.
“How can you even say that?” I snap back.
I should feel bad for the anger rising in me, but I won't let myself. This is all their doing. The people in this center. The government. My anger is reasonable considering what they're about to subject me to as far as I’m concerned. And I'll need my anger for where I'm going. So, as I step into the shaft, I let my anger encompass me, overtake me. As the gate closes, locking me in, I narrow my eyes at the woman, at this place, at all of it, really. As the shaft begins to lower, I let Leah's word echo in my mind.
Give that monster hell.
I plan to. What do I have to lose?
Chapter 4
I pace the width of the tunnel again and again, since I already know sitting down is damn near impossible as I wait for midnight. Even my tail refuses to remain still. Certainly not my mind, not with all the advice I've been given leading up to this moment running through it over and over again. What to do and what to say, every little thing that will get her to want to stay. I have thirty days to convince her to remain with me, to make this her new home. I tell myself once more that the first step I took in doing so was justified, even if some in my village clearly still haven’t forgiven me for it.
It's been almost a year since I'd realized Keri was my mate, back when I'd gone with my brother Olex to check on his mate's sisters…and ended up experiencing something I'd doubted I ever would. The thoughts of my mate in my mind, what she was envisioning in my head, beckoning me forward until I was looking at her through a window. I'd been above ground, watching her through that window more times than I probably should have, but how could I resist? I needed to know she was okay. I needed to listen to her thoughts to know how she was. It was an all-consuming drive that had me at her house night after night. Sometimes, it seemed she could sense me, would look towards the window where I was, brows furrowed, head tilted, but she never came closer. I don't know what I would have done if she had. Might I have stayed right there for her to see me, or would I have fled?
In the beginning, I surely would have fled, if only because her hatred for monsters knew no bounds. One had taken her sister from her, killed Grace, for all she knew. She’d cry late at night, long after her younger sister Leah had fallen asleep, mourning Grace, her tears full of grief, and her screams into the pillow full of anger. Her rage burned so intensely that I didn't know how I could ever hope to extinguish it, never mind get her to see that she belonged with me. So, I did something I wouldn't have ever considered doing before. That would have made me hate anyone else in my village for doing, had it been them. I gave away some of our secrets.
I left information for ten different news agencies in the dead of night. They all woke up to packets with my brother's Kayo drawings that he'd done of different monsters, and the knowledge that there were more than one of us. I knew it had spread like wild fire when the human leaders demanded our presence above ground, in their processing center for answers.
We cannot lie, so I had to use some very wise and cunning words to act like I had no idea what they were talking about. My father never outright asked if it was me, nor did my mother or brothers, but some in our village look at me with disdain now for exposing our secrets. Yet, I would do it again and again if it means that when my mate gets here I have a better chance of getting her to stay. If she believed I was the same monster who,she thinks,slaughtered Grace, there wasn’t any way she would ever let me into her heart. I did what I had to, and I don't regret it. I also like to think I've made it easier for future monsters going forward.
The thud of feet stepping into the shaft makes me go utterly still. Already, I hear her thoughts, and they make me almost chuckle. She promises to give me hell. I wouldn't have her any other way.
The shaft begins lowering and my heart thunders.This is it. The moment I have waited, what feels like, a lifetime for. My mate is being lowered down to me. As of this moment, I have thirty days to make her say that she wishes to stay here with me forever. Or I will lose her. That's not an option.
Her scent reaches me as she gets closer to the bottom. Roses, always roses. Bravado failing her as she's lowered further, her fear and dread coat her every thought. She's envisioning all the ways she thinks I'll kill her and I flinch at each image. If only she knew I would die before I hurt her. There's a chair a few feet back that I should go sit in so I can watch every movement from there, but I find I want to stand instead, to be ready for the fight I know it still coming, despite her being afraid. Keri is a fighter, always has been. That much I know. That won't change now.
The bottom of the shaft comes into view, and I easily see every detail in the absolute darkness down here. The metal gate trapping Keri inside, the black fabric of the bottom of her dress. Then she's lowering, lowering until I see...her. She takes a shuddering breath as the shaft softly hits the ground. The gate slides open immediately, and she steps out, no hesitation, even though I can hear her thoughts to know the truth.
She's absolutely terrified.
“Here I am, you bastard!” she screams.
I can hear the way fear makes her voice hitch at the end, but her expression shows nothing but anger, chest heaving, her nostrils flared. It brings a smile to my face as I stalk towards her in the darkness, silently putting one foot in front of the other until I'm just a few feet from her. She peers all around, although I'm sure she can't see a thing. Then her head snaps forward and she looks directly at me. It stops my next steps, that I can hear her thoughts, so sure in her belief that I'm right in front of her. I close my eyes, the red orbs being the only thing that can give me away right now.
“You're right there, aren't you?” She seethes, hands balling into fists as her side. “What are you waiting for?”
I open my eyes and shoot forward. Before she even has time to gasp from realizing just how close I am, my hand closes around her throat, pushing her back until she collides with the wall of stone behind her. Her pulse beats frantically under my hand as she tries to pry my fingers off her.
“I won't die that easily,” she grits out.
I don't speak, instead, stepping forward and bringing my nose to her jaw. She goes still in my grip, confusion filling her. And then a scent is filling me, a heady mixture of fear and arousal.
“You're.Mine,” I growl out, my restraint hanging on by a thread now that she's finally here.
I've waited eleven months for her, and now that she's in front of me, I find I don't want to wait another second before sinking inside of her, and finding out if all the things I've envisioned about her are true.
