Page 70 of Haunted Nightmares
Beads of water dot his porcelain skin, streaking the shadow-stained sections as they roll across his muscles, collecting in the dips and grooves of his body. My mate lookshealthy. He’s filling out quickly, having only had twoproperpost mating feeds—not in the heat of the moment—and a brief one before shouldn’t do that but Wraith is looking closer to one hundred percent than he has in ages.
Even though I knew this would happen, that he needed to not only feed but to take frommein order to begin healing, I had no idea it would happen so fast.
“As much as I enjoy your eyes on me,” he says, drawing said eyes to his as my wicked king smirks while he aggressively dries his hair with a towel. “If you keep looking at me like that I will have no choice but to take you again, and since we have business to attend to, I don’t think it wise for me to brutalize your cunt now, especially after doing so countless times already. Keeping to schedules, making sure you can walk, that kind of bullocks.”
I roll my lips between my teeth to hide my grin. “Five.”
“Pardon?”
“Five times in roughly thirty six hours.”
Wraith pauses, a barely there brow lifting in my direction. “You kept track?”
“Aren’t I supposed to? Or did the rules change once I...”
With a growl, my mate tosses the towel over his shoulder and stalks toward me, his ebony eyes flashing his approval as he backs me into the shelf. “They have not.” Wraith lifts my chin before he drops his mouth to my throat, dragging his fangs along my flesh until we’re eye to eye again. “And you are such a good little mate for following them without my having to remind you.”
Well, I felt those words directly in my clit.
What were we supposed to be doing again?
“Getting ready to meet with my inner circle.” He plants a hard kiss on my lips before he spins away from me, quickly moving to the smoking jacket draped on the end of the bed. “Afteryou sate my curiosity about our time apart.”
Right.“I don’t really know where to begin.”
I’m at a loss, to be honest.
There is so much to tell him, so much to explain, but figuring out where to start without any negative feelings or regrets resurfacing is going to be tricky.
Thankfully, my mate has been poking around my brain since we did the deed so he doesn’t hesitate to get things started for me.
“Clearly you were with Lorna in the bayou because you’re working with her as a healer. Between the new elements I taste in your blood, and the fact that I keep hearingHekainside that pretty head of yours, it’s an easy conclusion to draw.”
“Yes,” I say, almost surprised by his accuracy. “Plus, we have a history, and the bayou is full ofmyjak.”
Wraith hums thoughtfully as he sits, widening his legs before he pats his thigh then reaches for me.
I go to him without hesitation.
“I imagine that’s why she’s always insisted on that area for her commune.” He tugs me down into his lap and pulls me close, the fingers of one hand slipping under the side of my tank top where he begins caressing my skin, the other now open in front of me.
“It is, but Lorna wasn’t the one who picked the location.” My eyes well with tears as my mate slides his signet ring on my finger, an act he doesn’t have to carry out but was important enough to him to do anyway, and my wicked king’s stare stays fixed to mine while he does. Which is when the full weight of everything I’m about to tell him starts to bear down on me.
He is going to have a hard time believing all of this.
He might even think I’m delusional.
“Who was it that chose the bayou?”
“Notjustthe bayou, but New Orleans. Well, the territory, anyway. It was definitely not known as NOLA when it was chosen as sacred ground but that’s what this place is and has been for centuries.”
“Chosen by who, my love? I don’t mean to rush you but we’ve been holed up in this decrepit building, hidden away from everyone for far too long already. When the sun sets in a few hours, not only will we need to empty this room of what is important for relocation purposes, we will have to contend with many idiots who are coming to fetch us as well.”
He’s right about that, too.
Not about the idiots. Orion and Aries, Declan, I’d never think of them as idiots, but we may have indulged in our second mating a little longer than acceptable considering the circumstances, and those malesarecoming for us.
In my defense, it didn’t help that we finally walked into the panic room and I saw my dress from the Great Counsel meeting hanging against the wall, my box, all kinds of little reminders from our past life decorating a space my wicked king clearly hadn’t been inside for quite some time, and I was completely overcome with emotion.
