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Letting her go would be the hardest thing he would ever do.
Rukia’s eyes were closed, full eyelashes resting daintily on her cheeks. Her hair lay in a silky wreath around her head, one hand resting under her cheek where she slept atop his chest.
He felt claimed by her. She was the only one in the world who could genuinely make him smile. She saw him for who he truly was, beyond his power and status, and didn’t treat him with deference. To her, he was more than a Raeth or a sovereign or a man. He wasIsaiah.
She was everything he’d ever wanted in a mate and more, and he yearned to complete their bond.
But if he claimed her, he’d be placing her in mortal danger for the balance of their shared eternity. Isaiah was a weapon. His very DNA was stamped with an incurable, existential predisposition for destruction, and his very nature demanded it.
He wasn’t safe. Isaiah would do to her what he’d been built to do: he’d destroy her.
Bitter memories plagued him as their screams reverberated in his ears, their deaths brought about simply by their proximity to him. He’d been their judge, jury, and executioner before they’d even known he was awake.
At his self-loathing sigh, Rukia’s eyes lethargically opened. The keen intelligence behind her gaze pinned him with a curious look.
“Melancholy in the morning, Isaiah?”
He narrowed his eyes. “I’m being held against my will.”
“Oh yes?” Rukia lifted her head off his chest as her lips curled into a sarcastic pout. “The all-powerful sovereign of the Sylth, held in bed by a little water Elemental?”
“Precisely.”
“Boo hoo.” Rukia laid her head back down on his chest, once again rendering him into a glorified pillow. “I guess you’ll have to deal with it.”
Isaiah tugged the Elemental firmly onto his chest. Then, in a move too fast for her to block, he rolled them over so that she was on the bottom, and he hovered above her, his arms bracing on either side of her head.
“I guessyou’llhave to deal with it.”
Without waiting for a response, Isaiah’s mouth claimed hers in a no-holds barred, gut-wrenching kiss. He was riveted by her presence, every fiber of his being attuned to hers.
And when she suggestively stroked a hand over the hard muscle of his pec, he shuddered, collapsing into her so that the lines of his body met hers.
Her hand fisted in his hair, one leg wrapping around him in an unadulterated claim. Nerves firing as his pulse beat through him, Isaiah claimed her lips aggressively, taking everything she gave to him freely. The tips of her fingers dug into his abdomen while she arched into him.
Lustful anticipation lodged in his gut, the blood in his veins burning with need. Yearning for her took on new meaning as he fought against the impulse to claim her as his in more ways than one.
It took everything in him to pull back from her, to break the passionate kiss with this Elemental who’d broken down the icy barriers he’d painstakingly erected around his heart.
Isaiah shook his head, his eyes yet locked on the tempting lips of the woman underneath him. With every breath, he realized how much he needed her, but it could never be.
“Rukia, we shouldn’t do this.” The truth surged out of him; his expression tight as he looked down at the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. “I’m no good for you.”
Something broke in her eyes in that moment, hurt crossing her features before the fierce female he knew and loved resurfaced. “Whoever said I wanted anything more from you? You’ve got some nerve to kiss me like that and proclaim we’re doomed in the next breath.”
Her palms collided with his chest in the next moment, hard enough that the sound slapped through the room. He ceded her the space immediately, separating himself from the intimate position they’d just been in.
Rukia leapt up from his bed, the shirt she’d borrowed from him pooling at her thighs. When she jerked on her jeans, Isaiah intentionally looked away.
Her fury stabbed at him through the nascent bond he’d sensed last night, but he could no more speak of it than he could redirect her rage. He’d expected anger; he’d expected her fury. He hadn’t expected the hurt that subtly rode beneath them both.
Rukia was out the door in the next instant and pounding down the stairs. Guilt was a shameful weight upon his chest that pressed at him, eating away. But this was the best course of action—for both of them.
Manifesting new clothes onto his body, he slowly descended into his living room to hear angry sounds emanating from the kitchen. Isaiah silently came to stand in the doorframe, watching mutely as a belligerent Elemental tore through his kitchen, query unknown.
“What are you looking for?”
“A knife to stab you with,” came her irate response, the female purposefully refusing to look at him or acknowledge his presence.
