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NAKOA
Mareina’s lips parted in shock before her features hardened into something that promised violence… Faster than she could conjure a venomous response, I closed the distance between us, fisting her hair in my hand. Her entirebeingwas an all-consuming force that beckoned me. Demanded me to claim her. The bond demanded it. As if her soul was seeking a way to return to mine, its other half.
“I have spent a lifetimehauntedby you.Achingfor you no matter how I tried to run from you. No matter how many pretty faces or cunts I tried to lose myself in, I could never free myself from you. And now that I’ve finally tasted you, I wouldn’t want it any other way. So hate me as much as you want,lohane thili,but I willneverlet you go.”
Rage and anguish mingled in the shadows of her gaze.
I’d felt the pain tear through her chest when I admitted my manipulation…And now I could sense that pain mingling with fury. Standing this close to her, I could feel it as though it were my own.
The hairs on the back of my neck rose as a vision of the future seeped onto the canvas of the present.
Mareina’s gaze hardened. Her wet, nude form standing in the bathing pool momentarily shifted to dry and clothed in a darkest red silk dress. The bathing pool was replaced with a large bedroom, and a flaming hearth behind her cast her in a dark shadow. Her voice, both present and future, layered one over the other. The effect served to double its vehemence and the violence it promised. Her eyes glowed with menace.
“You will let me go, or you willwishfor death.”
My grip on her hair loosened as my anger evaporated along with the vision. Swiftly replaced by a hollow feeling in my gut.
I managed a sad, mirthless laugh. “I have no doubt,maha mo’ina li’ili.”
She reared back in confusion.
Shit. She had only spoken those words in the future.
I was… Losing my grip on reality.
I cleared my throat, shaking my head as I stepped back from her.
“Nothing… Just…”
I looked up to find understanding had already dawned on her face. I didn’t bother finishing the sentence.
The sudden look of compassion on her face just about broke me. She knew I was losing my mind.
Before I could say more, she turned and hauled herself out of the bathing pool with feline grace. Wariness had my muscles tightening as if readying for another chase.
“Where are you going?”
She didn’t bother looking back as shewilledher body dry. My cock, along with every other part of me, ached at the sight of her. Lush and soft yet firm in all the right places.
“I have a feeling our host can officiate our vows.”
Despite how many times it had happened, it never failed to shock me when my visions began to unfold into reality. Her words were laced with grim resignation, but the tension in my body still slackened. My heart leapt. Both at my own selfish need - the ever-increasing desire forher - andmyendeavor to overthrow Zurie and liberate the Kahlohani Islands and its people.
Mareinawilledher fighting leathers over her body before she reached for the bell beside the bed.
“Well?”She asked impatiently, scowling at my nude form, still submerged in the pool.
I leapt out of the water, sloshing water all over the floor, and stood in front of her, dried and dressed in a matter of moments, staring down at her with an intensifying heat that she refused to surrender to.
The hours I’d spent walking in the rain, Mareina clutched tightly in my arms against me, praisingAkashthat Mareina was safe and had been relatively unharmed, had done little to assuage the tension in my mind and my body - my soul - at just how closely I’d come to losing her… Least of all, because of my endeavors. It was in those moments that I’d finally allowed myself to admit that she was the most essential thing in the realm to me and a vital part of my existence.
Whether that was because the bond demanded it, I didn’t actually care. Just because my blood demanded oxygen didn’t make me question my gratitude for air.
I’d been gifted first-hand with witnessing her capacity for selflessness when she rescued that human male. And I’d come to know her fire, passion, strength, and tenacity… Even her softness and vulnerability… How far she’d come despite the adversity I’dexperiencedin her memories… My heart swelled at the very idea of her. Not a single female in Atratus could make a better Queen.
And now that she was safe and at my side, where she fucking belonged, I refused to waste another moment of it. I may have had ends to meet, a Kingdom to conquer, but… Despite everything I resented about her past… I couldn’t fathom a more perfect person to do it beside.
Her expression almost always remained hardened and utterly closed off to the world… But in fleeting moments, I had witnessed her softness and openness. Hervulnerabilityin the sweetest and most delicate way that told me I would burn the fucking world down to protect this female. This battle-hardened warrior turned assassin and executioner that had suffered at the hands of so much violence it was a wonder that she had survived. I would do anything to get her to be open and vulnerable with me again.
