Before I Let Go (Skyland #1)(3)

“I don’t want you.” I shook my head even as pressure built between my thighs. Being this close to him was bad for my head. The smell of him overwhelmed me. The feel of his magic flooded my senses. There was a familiarity that made my marks buzz along my skin, but his magic also felt like phantom hands that were trying to discover every inch of me.

It was hard to remember why I hated him when he was near. It was hard not to reach out and move into the small space he had left between us.

“You may not want me, but gods, I want you. I love fucking you.” His nose ran along my jaw, and he inhaled a sharp breath. “It makes me so fucking hard to carry your scent on my body and to know that every male around me knows that you belong to me.”

My stomach tightened at his words, and I tried to swallow down my need for him as I continued to shake my head softly.

I didn’t belong to him.

I never had. Not really.

But every part of me was begging me to let his words be true. I couldn’t see his betrayal when he was choking me with desire. I would suffocate on it, and he would make me thank him for it with my last breath.

My fingers trembled as I raised them and pushed against his chest. I needed space.

Space he wasn’t willing to give me.

“Don’t push me away, princess.” His words were soft and vulnerable as his hands grabbed mine and pushed until my fingers dug into his chest. They were branding his skin, almost to the point of pain, but I could hardly notice when he was staring down at me like he was. “Don’t hate me for the choices I’ve been forced to make.”

I jerked my hands away from him as reality set in. I could still remember the way his face had looked when I realized who he was. I could still taste the way my own magic had become bitter against my tongue.

I moved past him, toward the bedroll he had laid out for me, and I pulled it to the far edge of the tent. “Don’t delude yourself into thinking that I will fall to my knees before you simply because you wish it so. No one held a dagger to your neck and made you deceive me. No one made you pretend to be something more with me in the name of saving your people. You want to pretend to be a savior, Evren, but you are just as much a villain as your brother.”

“Is that what you want me to be?” He watched me as I dropped onto my bedroll and lay against the rough fabric. “You want me to be the man that you hate?”

“I didn’t realize you were giving me a choice.”

“We all have choices, princess, but there aren’t always two clear paths to choose from. Do you think I knew I was going to end up hurting you? Do you think I had any fucking clue that I was going to find my mate in the girl who is meant to change our world?”

I stared up at him, but I didn’t say a word.

“You have a choice to make too. You can go back to him if that’s what you choose. You can lie down and become whatever he wishes to make you.” His fists clenched at his sides. “Or you can stay here with me. You can stay here with your mate.”

“Those are my two choices?” I wrapped my arms around my chest and stared at the wall of the tent. “Stay with your evil brother or stay with the man who made me believe—”

“Made you believe what?” He ran his hand over his jaw as he stared down at me. “I may be the son of the Blood queen, but that doesn’t make me any less of the man you wanted. I have an entire kingdom to think about. There are far too many people counting on me for me to forget everything because I found my mate. But it doesn’t make what has happened between us any less real.”

“Prince Evren,” a gruff voice called his name from the front of the tent, and we both tensed. I had forgotten about everyone but him. I hadn’t even thought of the others hearing.

I could hear them now, moving around the camp, and I wondered what they thought of me.

“Get some rest. I will be back shortly to check on you.”

“Don’t.” I shook my head as I lay down and turned my back to him. Please don’t.

He left the tent without another word, and I clamped my eyes shut and prayed for sleep to claim me.





CHAPTER 2





I shot up and reached for my dagger as my heart lodged in my throat. Except it wasn’t there. Shit.

I was in a camp full of vampyres, full of my enemies, and I had no way to protect myself. I searched through the dark tent as the sound of groaning filled the small space. I couldn’t tell if it was coming from inside the tent or outside, but I knew it was Evren. I knew it without a doubt, and I jumped to my feet as his ragged breathing racketed up the beating of my heart.

I crept toward the opening of the tent and tried to pull my power forward. For the first time since I thought Queen Veda’s men were going to hurt Evren, I could feel it coursing through me, snaking through my veins like it was awaiting my word.

My hand wrapped around the thick material of the tent flap, and I was just about to open it, when I heard his groan from behind me. I spun around and blinked, begging my eyes to adjust to the dark, and then I saw him.

Evren was lying on his bedroll on the opposite side of the tent from where I had been, and he was alone. I stepped closer as I breathed a sigh of relief that no one was with him, that no one was hurting him. I took a step toward him, and another groan fell from his lips. His fists were clenched into his bedroll as his neck bowed from the ground, and he was in pain.