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Obsession, or a claim. It was the most I’d ever had to offer.
So having Vex dog my every thought wasn’t a sweet fuzzy experience that made me want to bake cookies like it was in the movies. Instead, it was unfamiliar. She was in every waking moment. Something that should be mine, and wasn’t.
She was perfect. Even right now with sleep in her eyes, and messy bedhead. Her cheeks were rosy, face free of makeup, summer freckles uninhibited. She wore one of her long sleeved shirts with the embroidered sleeves. Sitting on my lap as she was, I was all too aware she wore nothing else but lace and socks.
“You’re mine, and that will never change,” I told her, drawing her closer.
“Is that love, to you?” she asked.
“I think…” I considered that. “For me, love is claim. I don’t think it can be any more.”
She cocked her head.
“Then… would you letmeclaimyou?” she asked.
I paused, brows furrowing. “What do you mean?”
The vision of her crouching over Rook’s body, eyes feral, flashed in my mind again.
I’d wanted that since the moment I’d seen it. She couldn’t do that for me, not in the way she had for Rook, but…
“I mean…” She leaned up and I felt her teeth graze my neck. Then she drew back, her eyes twinkling.
I reacted instantly, lacing my fingers through her hair and drawing her back to my neck. I felt the warmth against my skin as she breathed a little laugh.
Then her teeth sunk in.
An omega’s bite.
The world shifted.
Briefly, it was like the bond I shared with Drake when he was struggling. When he gave me his pain. Except then…sheflooded my mind. So much more than I’d ever felt.
It wasn’t permanent like an alpha’s claim, most often it was an act of healing or intimacy, but it created the echo of a bond. It didn’t matter: an echo of Vex in my silent mind was like a flash of fire in a void. Vex flooded my soul in a way even my brothers never had.
I leaned back, taking her in. She might as well have glowed for the way she stole my breath. It wasn’t just that, either. The discomfort I’d felt since the moment I’d first seen her, slammed in.
“This.”I shut my eyes, trying to manage it. “This is why I hated you.”
She paused, brows drawn.
“I heard you… singing.” I’d heard her singing a lullaby through the door, and this was what I’d been faced with. At the time, I had made her the enemy for how I’d felt. I’d held onto that ever since.
She frowned.
“The day you arrived,” I said. “I heard you singing and it… it made me feel like this.”
“And you didn’t want that?” she asked.
I shook my head, unsure of why tears were stinging my eyes.
Inevercried.
“I didn’t know what it meant. Or why…” I paused, trying to navigate what it was. “Why it hurts.” But… hurt wasn’t the right word. “It… aches like something is crushing my chest and I can’t breathe.”
She considered me, and that mischievous smile crept onto her lips. She pressed a kiss to my cheek and leaned back.
“What?” I asked.
