Serpent's Kiss (Elder Races #3)(89)

He put his lips to her neck and nuzzled the sensitive skin at the nape of her neck, and the strength left her knees. If he hadn’t been holding her in place, she would have fallen.

“Here’s the thing,” he whispered. “I love you. I didn’t want to. I fought it. I put up barriers, and they all came crashing down one by one. It wasn’t just one thing. It was everything you did, both here in the present and back in the past. It’s everything you were, and everything you are. So I just f**king love you, and you are going to have to f**king deal with it. You got that?”

She started to shake her head. She realized she was breathing hard too, great gasps of air as if she had been running hard for a long time.

Rune sank his teeth into the back of her neck, pinning her even further so that a raw incoherent sound spilled out of her. Her mouth tingled again. She bared her teeth. She needed to bite him back and get drunk on his rich, ruby liqueur, but her goddamn fangs wouldn’t descend.

He said in her head, And here’s the other thing. I know you love me too. You had a good hand but you played it all wrong, so you might as well admit it.

“I don’t have to admit anything to you,” she said.

“Yes, you do,” he growled. She had given him all the clues and taught him all her tells, he just had to use them, because she really never did go gently anywhere, and if he had to claw and tear his way into her life, why then, so be it. She needed both his dominance and his tenderness; he knew it, like he knew his own soul. It was just another way in which they fit. “If you don’t owe me anything else, you owe me the real goddamn truth.”

She cried out again as he yanked her wrists together and held them locked in one hand. She twisted her wrists, trying to break his hold, but his long fingers were like iron. Hunger was not the ache she remembered. Or maybe she had never felt this before, this searing, driving force. She didn’t recognize her own voice. She didn’t recognize anything about herself. He put his hands on her, and she turned into a crazy person.

With his freed hand, he stroked down her body. He massaged her breast and pinched her nipple hard enough to sting. Then he cupped her crotch in a strong grip, where the need in her spiked the worst, and he yanked her back against him as he pushed his hips harder against her ass. He kissed the graceful bone just behind her ear and whispered, “What we did was more than just f**king. Say it.”

A sob came out of her, all the more shocking because she had no control over it. “Yes.”

He found the fastening of her jeans and undid them. His voice was as rough as his hand was gentle. “You love me. Say it.”

She leaned her hot cheek against the wall. “Yes.”

He held still, crushing her back against him, his face pressed into her neck. Then he let her go. She almost slid to the floor but then she managed to lock her knees into place. Leaning against the wall for support, she turned to look at Rune in confusion.

He leaned his forearms on the wall, on either side of her head, his hard, intent face angled down to her. “I know what you’re doing,” he said. “You’re still preparing to die.”

She put her hands on his chest. Half-angry, half-despairing, she said, “You can’t mate with me and hope to live. I’m trying to save your life!”

The irony of the moment was not lost on him. She was trying to drive him away to save his life, just as he had tried to save Tiago from mating with Niniane. Tiago had said to him, One of these days, you’re going to find your mate. And maybe she’ll be Wyr but maybe she won’t. Then you will understand just what you almost did to me.

I get it now, T-bird. I understand.

An eternity of life didn’t matter, if he lost her and it became an eternity of desolation. He would trade all of that time away for one day with his mate.

His gaze burned. “I don’t want you to save my life. I want you to give me yours.”

“Rune—”

He interrupted her. “Do you remember what I told you? For you that happened so long ago I’ll say it again. If you fail somehow—if you die—I will search for a way to walk through time to find you. No matter where you are. No matter when. I swear it.” He had tried so hard already, but as her last episode faded he lost the connection and the past melted away again.

She closed her eyes. Those words he spoke. She remembered every one. She had held on to them for so long, they had grafted to her bones, until they had spun on an enchanted spindle into a fairy tale of devotion that happened rarely to other people in other lives. To hear him say them again after so long . . . She shuddered. “You can’t promise that.”

“Shut up,” he said. “I can promise any goddamn thing I want.” His voice was quiet, even. He watched her put a shaking hand to her forehead, but he was not tempted to relent in the slightest. His long, lean muscled torso moved as he took a deep breath. He fingered the short, untidy hair at her temple and stroked her devastated face. His expression was clear, determined. He looked as steady as a rock, and just as moveable. He said softly, “I will never leave you. I will never let you go. I will not let you fall, or fail. I will always come for you if you leave, always find you if you’re lost. Always.”

She looked more vulnerable than he had ever seen her as her beautiful mouth shaped the word in silence. Always?

It was as if she were too afraid to say the word aloud. Everything inside of him wanted to pounce on her, to cover her vulnerability with his strength, to take her until she screamed with pleasure again. His instincts strained against his self-control.