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“I like how it makes you feel to have it that way. You stood taller once it was cut. You felt more yourself.”
For a long moment, I open and close my mouth like a fish, words sticking in my throat. Then I turn to him, press a hand to his chest.
“Honestly, part of the reason I wanted to cut it was because I thought it would make you see me. The real me.”
“It did.”
“Not in the way that I was thinking.”
“You thought it would make me think you ugly? That I would stop talking of you as my mate?”
I wince, but nod.
“Because you did not want me to speak of you that way?”
“Yes. But no. I…”
“You desired it, but you did not trust it, because you thought you knew that no one would speak of you that way and mean it?”
How does he always seem to cut right to the heart of the matter? Primitive my ass. This guy has a greater understanding of me than any of my peers or supervision did, and he’s not even the same fucking species.
“Exactly,” I say, then put on my big girl panties and be as honest and truthful as I can. “I wanted you to want me, because it was flattering. No one has ever looked at me like I’m beautiful, and what person doesn’t want to feel attractive, desired sometimes? But I wanted you to show me the way one of the guys I knew would have, because it was the only way I understood. And when you didn’t, I felt confused. Hurt. Cross with myself for ever wanting you to want me in the first place, because I should have known better. And it only got worse with time, because the more I’ve got to know you, the more I’ve grown to want you for you. Not because you looked at me like you wanted to devour me, but because I like you.”
“Because I am nice?” He gives me a wicked grin that is very far from nice.
“Because you gave me a weapon instead of trying to protect me. Because you ask what I want instead of steamrollering over me like my thoughts and feelings don’t matter. Because somehow, despite not speaking my language or knowing anything about me, really, you’ve always seen me.”
“Because I have felt your spirit, linasha. You are my mate - this is a deep connection between us. So deep we join in dreams.” He brushes a hand over my cheek. “But you have fought it, as have many of my other sisters. It is something humans can do. Resist the dreamspace, resist the connection. We have been in dreams, but you have not felt the connection, or you have not trusted it.”
“I didn’t understand it.”
“And you did not think to ask me questions to clarify?” That teasing tone is back, and somehow, even more than him calling me beautiful, or his declaration of wanting to taste me, it makes me squirm with need.
I look up at him, expecting that same heat and need to be written on his face. Instead, he gives me an expectant look.
“Well?” he says, humour sparkling in his eyes. “Do you have any further questions you wish to ask me?”
There’s something a little smug about his bearing, and it shouldn’t be as adorable as it is. No guile, I think. It softens everything that has even the slightest potential to be sharp-edged about him.
I consider the question.
“Do you want to put your cock in my cunt?” I say, throwing his own crude language back at him.
I hope it unseats him every bit as much as it did me.
He growls low in his throat, dragging me flush against his body, his hands gripping my ass as his erection presses into my stomach.
“Always,” he says, voice so hoarse with want there’s no questioning its honesty. “And when we wake, I will show you exactly how much I have wanted that.”
He draws back from me, and I can see the effort it takes him in the way his features tighten.
“But,” he says, and this time his voice is brimming with regret. “You had something you wished to remember.”
Brannigan’s office reappears around us, her hand poised over the drugs she had just pushed towards me. At first, disappointment curls in my belly, but then sense wrests control from my suddenly hyperactive libido. Brannigan, the drugs, Mercenia, fangs and claws and cowering, naked. I need to know. And not just because I hate the fog in my head. It feels suddenly much bigger than just me.
I nod, then turn back to the memory. Brannigan remains frozen as I square my shoulders, prepare to dive back in. Maldek keeps close behind me, his fingers resting lightly at my hip, his tail curled around my calf.
“Okay,” I say, then take a deep breath. Step into the memory. “Have I got no other choice?”
