Lexi’s heart swelled with love as she gazed at him. Words of love were on the tip of her tongue to utter, but she didn’t get them out before he spoke again.
“You’re my mate, Lexi.”
Her words died as confusion, joy, and then a cold dread crept through her. His mate? His lycan mate?
That meant when he said she was it for him, she really was it. The bond he felt toward her wasn’t complete in the lycan way, but he was bound to her.
That meant she wouldn’t have to share him with anyone else. He would always be loyal to her as no lycan ever strayed from their mate. Her joy returned, but then a cold dose of reality doused it again.
It also meant he didn’t want to be with her because he loved her as she loved him, but because his instincts told him to claim her.
The words she’d been about to utter withered away.
“You think I’m your lycan mate?” she asked.
“I don’t think it; I know you are,” he said.
• • •
She didn’t look relieved as he’d expected. Instead, she appeared… annoyed. He frowned over this response, and his hackles rose. Did she look annoyed because she didn’t want him for eternity?
They’d never spoken of love or their future, but he believed she cared for him. Was he wrong?
He retracted his claws when they lengthened, but he couldn’t get his fangs under control. She might not want forever.
He believed it was forever for them, but she was young, and she didn’t feel the pull of a bond between them like another lycan would or a full-blooded vampire toward their consort. She could walk away without consequence.
“You haven’t completed the lycan bond with me,” she said.
Was that it then? Was she afraid about how the bond was completed?
That would be a good possibility, but Lexi wasn’t one for fear. She’d run toward the marketplace when the dragons destroyed it. She wasn’t scared to go home, even if Malakai remained a threat and would until he died.
“Do you know how it’s completed?” he asked.
“I’ve heard the lycan bite their mate while having sex, and that is how they claim them.”
“Yes.” That was some of it.
“They say a lycan loses control when it happens,” she said.
“I won’t hurt you.”
“I know.”
“I haven’t completed the bond because I couldn’t claim you without telling you about this first.”
“And you waited this long because…?”
“Because I didn’t think it was appropriate to dump it on you after I was called back to the Gloaming.”
“But now that you’re about to face the trials, it’s fine.”
The irritation in her voice was unmistakable. Gripping her chin again, he lifted her face to him once more.
“I am going to survive the trials,” he said.
She nodded, but his words didn’t ease the sorrow in her eyes.
“And I won’t claim you before the trials,” he said.
“Why not?”
“Because others cannot know what you are to me until the trials are over and I’m around to protect you. They’ll see you as a weakness to me, and they’ll go after you to get at me. And I will not let anything happen to you.
“When the trials are over, the throne is mine, and I can protect you better, I’ll make sure every immortal knows what you are to me and that fucking with you will equate to a swift and brutal death. Until then, only Brokk can know what you are to me.”