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Finally, Gahn Errok broke the strained silence.
“What is your name?”
I blinked in surprise. I hadn’t even realized that with all the commotion we hadn’t had any sort of normal introduction.
“It’s Stephanie,” I said.
“Zzzzteph... Zuht... Zuh-Tephanie.” He grunted, his tail jerking on the sand behind him, a curving, muscled line of indigo contrasting with the shimmering copper sand. “Your name is as impossible as you are.”
“I’m being impossible?” I said, rage turning my voice to a low murmur. Gahn Errok must have recognized just how pissed I was, because his sight stars pulsed, his brows rising at my tone.
I jabbed a finger at him. Anger never made me shaky and flustered. If anything, it was the opposite. Made me smoother, harder, more competent. Some people got all stopped up when they were angry. Couldn’t get the words out, couldn’t say what they meant and then agonized in the shower later about how the conversation could have gone. Not me. Anxiety could shut me down and take my voice, sure. But I didn’t feel even a whiff of anxiety now. Just the sluice of cold fury in my veins.
“I will tell you this once and I expect you to listen because I have no intention of repeating myself,” I said, my voice venomous. Gahn Errok’s eyes grew wider and wider, his sight stars misting across his gaze as he stared at me.
“I had little interest in being someone’s mate before this and I have absolutely no interest now,” I continued. “I already had my doubts about love being true and lasting on Earth, and now I can see that the so-called mate bond is just as flimsy and unreliable since it’s bonded you to the last person who would want you. I don’t feel it and I will never feel it. Not for you. You have proven to me, without a shadow of a doubt, that I will never,couldnever, love you.”
Gahn Errok reared back as if I’d swung my fist at his nose. Not that my human fist would do anything to him. But clearly, my words had.
The truth hurts, bud.I didn’t want to be an asshole or anything, but I had to get it through Gahn Errok’s thick skull. I had to be clear with him. Set this boundary now so that he didn’t keep peacocking around, expecting me to melt into his big muscly arms.
Gahn Errok took a heaving breath, his chest inflating. His abdominal muscles tightened, crunching inward as he let the breath out in a harsh growl.
“Despite the assurance of your speech, you have gotten two things wrong,” Gahn Errok muttered darkly. The shock from my words was gone from his face, replaced by a stormy rage that mirrored mine.
“Oh, really?” I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms. “Enlighten me.”
His lip twitched at the same time his tail did, his entire body thrumming with barely controlled tension.
“Firstly,” he hissed, “the mate bond is notflimsy.To say so would imply that I am weak for succumbing to it. Which I am not. It is sacred and strong and impossible to shake.” His voice turned flat. “Though I am now questioning the Vrika’s judgment in bonding me toyou.”
My mouth fell open, but he continued before I could come up with a reply.
“This leads me to your second error.” He raised his chin, looking down at me with imperious confidence.
“Which is?” I sighed.
“That you will never love me.”
“Are you serious?” I said, balking. Had this guy disregarded everything I’d just said? “What, just because you always get what you want, you think that’s going to be the case now?”
“Precisely.”
“I really don’t like you,” I muttered.
“And I love you with everything I have, to my own heart’s detriment” he shot back. “And I vow, my stubborn little Zuh-Tephanie, that one day very soon, you will feel the same.”
I snorted.
“Wanna bet?”
His brow furrowed.
“What is bet?”
“It’s like a deal. If I win, you give me something I want. And if you win, I give you something you want.”
His gaze grew heated. “There is only one thing I want.”
