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Alek gave me a slow nod. “Of course,” he said, matter of factly. “But I’m not prone to doing so. And with humans? Their thoughts won’t reach you if this shield is in place. You’ll have total control then.”
I swallowed hard, my bones feeling the weight of the training. “And how soon will I be around humans again, you think?” I tried to ask the question casually. This was Alek’s estate, and Ajax served him. I highly doubted he took kindly to having dying quarter-breeds infiltrating his home.
“I’m not sure,” he answered honestly. “You are not a prisoner here, Grace, but you must understand the danger you pose to us.”
“Me? A danger?” How could I possibly be—
A pressure sliced through my dragon shield, turning it to ash in a matter of seconds.
Because you know the truth of our kind now and you’ve become important to one of my hunters. We take great strides to not expose ourselves to the human population, for their safety and ours. If you were to tell anyone—
“I have no one to tell,” I said aloud. “And I wouldn’t even if I did. Ajax is…he’s important to me too. I would never risk any harm coming to him.”
Ajax is my mate, I said silently into Alek’s mind, trying to put all the emotion I had around that statement. I may not understand it on the vampire level, but I understood the feeling in my soul whenever Ajax was around. He was vital to my survival, my happiness, my existence.
The corners of the king’s mouth ticked up as he nodded, and I felt his mental retreat as he slid out of my mind. “That’s enough training for tonight,” he said, rising. I followed him to the study’s door. “It’s nearly sunrise, and you look like you could use some rest.”
I nodded, feeling a bit wobbly on my feet. “Thank you for taking the time…your highness,” I fumbled over the title and even did an awkward as hell curtsey that brought a genuine laugh from Alek’s lips.
He waved me off. “Gods, if only Lyric had seen that,” he said. “She’d give me such grief over it.”
I laughed too. “I’m sorry, I don’t know the etiquette.”
“And you don’t need to,” he said. “You’re not a vampire, so technically, I’m not your king. But I appreciate your respect and your kindness, especially toward my hunter.”
I nodded, taking his smile as a dismissal as I made my way back to Ajax’s room.
He was already in bed, half naked under the covers, sleep clinging to his body. He looked downright peaceful as I climbed in next to him. His breathing was deep and even and his features didn’t carry the heaviness that had been there before.
I settled on the pillow next to him, Alek’s words flashing through my mind.
You are not a vampire, so technically, I’m not your king.
Why did that make my heart so heavy?
I looked at Ajax, the realization unraveling inside me.
I was willing to risk death to try and earn more time with this male.
I was willing to alter my life entirely for him, and I’d only known him a handful of weeks.
I wanted tolivefor this male, even if it meant dying first.
My pulse skipped as I tried to breathe evenly around the absolute certainty storming my soul.
I was one hundred percent, full-on, head over heels in love with him.
13
AJAX
For someone whose biggest problem had always been having too much time, it wasn’t lost on me that now I couldn’t get enough of it.
It had been two weeks since my mark had appeared on Grace’s chest. Two weeks that I’d had her in my bed, waking with me in the evening at the residence and welcoming me home before the sun rose in the morning. Two weeks that should have been a preview into our forever, and instead, marked what Gabriel estimated to be about a fifth of all the time we’d ever have.
Fuck time. It was betraying me when I needed it most.
I brushed my lips over Grace’s cheek, a little less full than it had been a few weeks ago, and sneaked out of our bedroom, armed to the hilt. She’d give me shit when I got home about not waking her before I headed out for the evening, but she needed all the sleep she could get now.
