Bound in Sin (Bound #3)(25)
A dark admission.
His head bowed. “I want to make it up to you. I want to make everything up to you.”
And there, in the snow, with the lake behind her and too many memories around them, Drake dropped to his knees.
Her breath rushed out. An alpha should never submit to another like this. It wasn’t the way of the pack. It wasn’t–
His hand clenched around the necklace. “I thought you didn’t want me.”
She’d always wanted him.
“I never loved anyone else. All those years…the only one to ever touch my heart…was you.” He looked up at her. She saw the beast and the man in his eyes. “Stay with me.” A plea, from a man who’d never pleaded for anything before.
Paige couldn’t speak.
“I can make things right for you. I’ll make you happy, I swear. Just give me a chance.”
She licked her lips and tasted the sorrow from the past. “I’m not the same…”
“You’re stronger. More beautiful. And I f*cking love you even more than I did before.”
Her hands touched his shoulders. Hesitant. Hopeful. “You…do?”
“Yes.” Said with a growl. Said as he stared into her eyes. In his gaze, she saw–
The future.
“I want you to be with me, for as long as I walk this earth.” Now his words came faster. “I won’t live as long as you, I know that. Just give me those years, just give me–”
She sank to her knees before him. Kissed him. Kissed him so hard that they tumbled back onto the soft snow.
And he tasted so good. Like forever. Because that was what she could give to him. Her head lifted slowly. “I can give you more.”
If he’d let her.
His brows pulled low. His arms were around her, holding her so close. “You’ll stay with me?”
“The pack–”
“They want you to stay. They want you to come home.”
Home.
“Fifty years,” he told her, “sixty. Give me that, give me–”
She shook her head and saw the stark pain flash across his face.
“I love you,” he told her but he sounded…lost.
She knew because she’d been lost for years. “I can give you more,” Paige promised him. Because she’d learned so much from the vampires who’d helped her in Florida.
Down there, another werewolf had paired with a vampire female. They’d discovered that if a vampire’s blood was shared, the wolf would become stronger.
Aging stopped for the wolf. Death was put on hold.
Jeremiah had thought that he was cheating death by drinking from a vamp, but that blood had been poison.
She’d never poison Drake. She’d give him her blood, and she’d give him… “Forever,” Paige whispered and kissed Drake again.
As she kissed him, she heard the howl of wolves in the distance.
She wasn’t afraid of that sound. She wasn’t afraid of anything. Not anymore.
Because she wasn’t lost now. She was home and safe…in the arms of her wolf.
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Excerpts
If you enjoyed this novella, you may also like Cynthia Eden’s BOUND BY BLOOD, a sexy paranormal romance novella that is also available now for .99.
Excerpt from Cynthia Eden’s BOUND BY BLOOD
The sexy little vampiress walked into the bar as if she owned the place.
Since Howling Moon was a low-rent dive hidden on the shadier side of Miami, a bar that catered to werewolves, well, the lady was very much out of f*cking place. And, if she wasn’t careful, she might just become the night’s entertainment.
Jace Vaughn tensed when he saw her. He wasn’t as drunk as the other wolves, not yet anyway, so he recognized the deceptively delicate woman instantly.
He could see the hint of her small fangs peeking out just behind the plump fullness of her too-red lips. Vamps’ fangs always came out when they were about to fight or f*ck.
So which one was the vamp about to do?
She stilled inside the doorway of the bar. Her long blond hair tumbled behind her as her gaze raked to the left. To the right. Huh. Looked like she was hunting for someone–or something. In this place, the only thing she’d find was a pack ready to rip her to pieces.
Vampires and wolves weren’t exactly playing nice these days. Or any days.
She should know that.
But then her gaze swept by him. Swept by, then came right back. Her blue eyes–bright with a vamp’s power–caught his. She stared at him, and Jace found he couldn’t look away. A vampire’s trick of compulsion?
Nah…more likely just his own lust. Because the lady was hot. Most female vamps were, those pureblood ones anyway. And Jace knew he was looking at one of the elite pureblood Florida vamps.
A pureblood, in a werewolf hell.
He smiled. Fate must be laughing her ass off somewhere.
Then, she smiled too. A lick of heat shot straight through his body, and the beast that he kept chained inside stretched and growled.
Want.
She started walking toward him in her high, f*ck-me or f*ck-off black boots. Jace shoved away from the bar.
But the others had noticed her now, and they were closing in.
Three males. Big and hulking because that was the way of the beast.