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“At Her insistence, yes. I have no choice in that.”
Fucking deities. “Does your coven know what you are? And no, don’t call them a crew.”
Wynter rolled her eyes. “They know. They saw my monster in action when I was taken by the same bounty hunters that caught them.”
“You freed them, and they chose to stay with you,” he guessed.
“Yes. A seemingly bad idea, really. But none of them have a strong sense of self-preservation, which I’m sure has not escaped your notice.”
No, it hadn’t. “I caught a glimpse of your monster when you woke just now. I wonder what Kali put inside you. Nothing harmless, I’d imagine. Did it kill the keeper who was told to execute you?”
“Yup. I don’t know exactly what it did to him, though. It’s like I black out whenever the monster takes over. I can only try to piece together what happened.”
“Guessing games are no fun.” Cain knew that well—he’d been playing them since he first met her. “You’ve kept many, many things from me, little witch.” He pressed a kiss to her throat. And another. And another. He scraped his teeth over her pulse, wanting to feel it beat against his mouth. “Hypocrite though it makes me, I find myself wanting to spank you for it.” He palmed her ass and gave it a squeeze.
She blinked. “Are you … are you thinking about sex right now?”
He felt his mouth curve. “Do I find it strangely arousing that you could kill me if you so wished? Yes, I do.” As did his monster. And they both needed to remind themselves that she was here, alive. “So I’d say it’s time that I fucked you.”
She gaped at him. “You can’t honestly be serious.”
“Oh, I’m very serious.”
“But … you’re supposed to be weirded out. Freaked. Put-off by the fact that I’m not even really alive—at least not in a natural way.”
Cain almost snorted. She might be a revenant, but he was afarworse creature. In any case … “Nothing about you could put me off.”
Her mouth bopped open and closed. She put her hands to her head. “I have no clue what to say to you right now.”
He cupped her jaw. “Did you want me to be ‘freaked,’ as you put it?”
“Of course not.”
“Then all is good.” He took her mouth, swallowing anything else she might have said. “Get naked. Now.”
Giving him a look that called him crazy, she nonetheless began to strip. “You need help. Like professional help.”
“I warned you that you’d one day want to run from me. You told me it wouldn’t happen. If you truly believe that there’s nothing I could tell you about myself that would make you no longer want me, why can’t the same apply to me when it comes to you?”
She stilled, her expression pensive.
“You don’t have the same faith in me that you have in yourself?”
“It’s not that, it’s … ugh, you know what? Fine. If you say you’re not freaked, I believe you. But I still say you need professional help.”
“Noted. Now you’re still not naked. Let’s fix that.”
Silence fell in the cottage the next morning after Wynter dropped the “Unfortunately, the Ancients now know what I am” bomb on her crew. Sprawled around the living area, they shifted uncomfortably and exchanged glances.
“It goes without saying that this isn’t good,” said Anabel.
“I had no choice but to come clean. There was no way I could pretend I hadn’t just died, or any way for me to hide Kali’s mark.” Cradling her cup with both hands, Wynter sipped at her tea. “I told myself when we first came here that I’d be able to keep the truth from the Ancients, but I knew deep down that they would likely find out sooner or later.”
“I suspected they would too, but I was all for ‘later.’” Anabel nervously rubbed at her shoulder. “At least we now know that an Ancient can’tpermanentlykill you—I know you worried they could.”
“I don’t know for certain that they can’t. Ishtar’s strike wasn’t meant to be fatal. It was more like a swat. An Ancient would have no more than winced. I freaking died. If one—or all of them combined—really put their back into it, they might well manage to wipe me out for good.”
Hattie flicked her hand. “They’d be fools to harm one of Kali’s Favored.”
