“Are you attracted to me?”
His eyes flared, and a pulse of pure, raw energy coursed from him. Along with images of him writhing into my hand.
I blushed crimson, but I had little memory of it. It had been my beast that had ridden him to completion, not me. But I was desperate—if we left here without him, it wouldn’t just be us that suffered.
He hid his issues well, every inch a warrior—his broad shoulders looked as though they could carry the concerns of all the realms. They didn’t come any more stubborn than this one—or any more independent. He’d rather walk around with a bleeding hole in his soul than admit we were his future.
And I had an inkling of what his issue might be. “Matt and Talakai are part of this bond,” I stated.
The surge from him almost took me out at the knees. I’d been right, then. He wanted me, but me alone.
“I don’t share well with others,” he growled.
“You would get accustomed—”
“I. Do. Not. Share.” Each word was snarled, rage racing through them. A muscle jumped in his jaw, and I sensed his struggle for control.
He took a deep breath, freed a hand, and raised trembling fingers to my jaw. Traced the edge of it with a touch so light, and yet it sent frissons of electricity surging through me.
But the set to his mouth, the muscle jumping in his jaw, spoke volumes—so stubborn. He’d rather not have me at all than accept Matt and Talakai as our mates.
Mere words were not going to cut it. If I was going to bring him into this, we needed to show him. I reached up, buried my hands in his hair, and pulled him down to me.
At first, he resisted, but then he let me tug him lower. “You aren’t sharing me now,” I whispered, and kissed him.
For a second, he remained rigid, unyielding. But the touch of my lips unleashed something. His strong hands came around and pulled me close, and his reserve cracked. I gasped at what flooded from him—he craved me so powerfully he shook with it. This was the molten lava beneath the cold exterior—what I’d always glimpsed in his eyes, and then doubted.
Yet if I let him, he would walk away.
And it would destroy both him—and us.
63
Sebastian
I fully intended to walk away. To politely but firmly reject Anna and everything she represented.
But she’d pushed a warm, healing power into the raw chasm within my soul. Something I’d tried to do on my own for a month now. And failed, utterly. It be a sign, but I didn’t want to acknowledge it. Because being part of a multiple-male quad be not something I would do.
Not even for her.
And she couldn’t leave them for me. I would never ask that of her. So there we be. We needed to go our separate ways. But when her lips touched mine, every iota of resolve vaporized. It be more than my beast craving her—my soul reached with a desperation that shocked me.
I gathered her softness against my hard body. Her scent flooded through me, igniting me from feet to eyebrows. My breathing hitched, one hand sinking into her hair as I plundered her lips.
MINE, my beast screamed at me. OURS, my soul demanded. And the stubborn, independent part of me protested, but it be swamped by the power of what had hold of me.
Anna.
Her talent reached again for me. It be not in my nature to just give in, and I wrestled with it, pushing back even as my body responded, growing so rigid I trembled. But then it wrapped around the rift within me, and its healing warmth eased the rawness. A few loose stitches pulled the fractured bits of me together. It gave me a glimpse of what it might be like to bewhole again. No longer broken.
Be it really that simple?
This would remake me into something else. If I let it.
Anna pulled her lips away. Her eyes glowed up at me, and she smiled. She be so beautiful. So powerful. And she could be mine if I accepted the other males into the equation.
The concept outraged my beast. But be I beast? Or man?
