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If everything he and Dale said was true, then he was into me. Like… really into me. The kind of into me that wasn’t possible with other humans. It was the kind of thing that you found in romances.
The “til death” kind of thing.
Except, of course, there was no death.
Just bone-deep love followed by endless grief.
I felt another stab of guilt before I reminded myself what Dale had said. About letting him suffer. About not letting it impact my personal decision.
As much as I didn’t want to hurt Bael—hell, I never wanted to hurt anyone—I did have to try to at least keep some of my wits about me. I couldn’t be melting into a puddle of mush because some guy was in love with me.
No woman made good decisions based off of what a man was telling her at the moment.
But normal men could change their minds.
Bael, if everyone was being honest, simply couldn’t.
Which presented its own issue, didn’t it?
If he wasn’t actually choosing to love me, if he had no say in the matter, was that really even love at all?
Hell, I barely even believed in love. At least that, you know, big sort of romantic love. I believed in the love you felt for someone after knowing them for a long time, spending time with them, having that give-and-take with them.
I loved my father.
I loved Imka at the library.
But as for romantic love? No. I’d never felt that. And as much as I loved to read about it, I had sort of resigned myself to the idea that love was just fiction.
So it was even harder to accept that love of any sort was possible after knowing someone for so short a period of time.
All I knew for sure at the moment was that I feltsafewith Bael. And when the world seemed to be imploding on itself, safe was not something to snub your nose at.
Then, of course, there was the whole… attraction thing. Yes, even after the whole… seeing the horns and talons thing. I couldn’t explain it. That was the thing about attraction. It wasn’t rational. It was why so many of us rarely felt attraction to the people who were good for us, and usually made us want the ones who would only bring head and heart aches.
I was reminded of that attraction when I was startled awake at the end of the drive by my door opening. My eyes just barely opened before I found myself pulled into Bael’s arms, then cradled to his chest as he carried me into the house.
“Just sleep,” he suggested. “I’ve got you.”
That weird fluttering in my belly was something new, something a little too appealing.
I curled my face into his neck and let him carry me. Into the house. Up the stairs.
I didn’t even stop to question him as to where the heck he was taking me.
But the next thing I knew, I found myself lowered down onto the side of a king-sized bed covered in sheets so red that they were almost black.
“I’ll take the couch,” he said after whipping the blankets over me.
Gentlemanly, he was not. But I found his sort of reluctant kindness all the more appealing. Perhaps because it wasn’t in his nature. Because it was unfamiliar to him, but he still wanted to do it. For me. Because he, as much as it was hard to wrap my head around, had Claimed me as his.
Bael moved back out into the hall. As I sat and listened, I heard his footsteps retreating down the stairs, likely off to tryto find Ace and let him know what he found out—which was, unfortunately, very little.
Alone, I reached over to turn on the light on the nightstand, letting me get a look at what was clearly his room.
It was about what I expected, I guess. Nothing very personal, but everything quite put together and neat.
The bed was a dark wood massive feature with matching nightstands and brushed gold lamps. There was a large red and black carpet taking up most of the room, and a black leather couch lining a wall between two windows.
