One Insatiable(43)
“But I don’t want to belong to you!” Desperation makes my voice stronger.
Hayden’s brows rise, and he seems disappointed. “So I’ve heard,” he sighs. “I had hoped you would come to me willingly. I never could seem to change your mind…”
“You’re not one of us.”
“Our bodies still work quite well together. You’ll see.”
“I’m not a virgin!”
He straightens and pulls his chin back. “Your generation is so blunt.” Shaking his head, he looks down at his nails. “Virginity is a minor detail I’m willing to overlook. I’ve overlooked it before. You female shape shifters are all so eager to spread your thighs.”
“It’s part of our nature. You’ll never understand me. We’ll be miserable together.” I’m grasping at anything that might sway his decision.
“You’ll have a bit of an adjustment period, but you’ll see. Your aunt Cora was quite happy with the arrangement.” The heels of his expensive shoes are a staccato click on the wood as he walks slowly to the round table in the center of the foyer. “You’re very much like her, you know. I’m eager to see if your body responds to mine the way hers did.”
“She wasn’t mated. You became her mate. I’m with mine—”
He spins to face me. “You’re with ME!” A cold light burns in his pale eyes. “Besides, I don’t believe in mates.”
“Then you’ll let me go?”
He starts to chuckle. “So tenacious, little Mercy. Of course, I won’t let you go. The deal is made. It’s why I allow these people to exist on my lands. It’s why I keep my servants from stealing your babies in the night when they’re feeling naughty. Stealing your women is quite another matter…”
A muffled whimper screeches from above, from wherever Penny is hiding, and I remember her fear of shadows at night.
Hayden’s brow rises, and he scans the ceiling, running his eyes along the lines of the wood. “Your aunt is old enough to remember how mischievous they can be.”
My heart trembles in my chest. “Let me go, Hayden.”
His eyes snap back to mine. “No.”
Racing through my thoughts, I try to remember everything I’ve learned in the past two days. Penny’s words from so long ago flash in my brain. “Persephone… my aunt Persephone!”
“Oh, god,” he waves a hand as if deterring a bad smell. “Yes, you have a point. I did send that one back before her time had expired.”
A glimmer of hope? “Why?”
“By Zeus, she was awful. Can you imagine anyone able to make the underworld depressing?”
My breathing picks up. “What makes you think I won’t be the same?”
“No,” his head shakes. “You’re not like her. For starters, the name Persephone… I will say, her mother was an ancestor I’d like to have taken. It’s a pity cleverness sometimes skips a generation. Especially considering how long you shifters live.”
His manner is so easy, so familiar, I cross the room and grasp his arm. “Please, Hayden,” I whisper.
At my touch, he seems to soften. A gentle smile curves his slim lips. “I’ve waited for you, Mercy. I’ve watched you since you were a little girl. You’re smart and beautiful. You’re a talented artist. You’re the first to give me hope. For the first time in a long time, I’ll have a true Queen of the Underworld at my side.”
“I’ll never love you. I love someone else.”
He stiffens. “That brute? He’s a criminal!”
Pleading is in my tone. “I want to be in the sunshine, Hayden. I want to live by the sea. I love the light.” My fingers clench his soft coat, and my voice is a cracked whisper. “If you truly care about me, you’d want me to be happy.”
“Where did you get such a delusion?” Jerking his arm back, he storms to the door. “I am selfish and vain, and I want you. You belong to me.”
“Hayden, please!” I’m crying now.
He jerks the door open. “I’ll be back in two nights to collect you.”
* * *
Koa
College has never been a priority to me, even though my mom was an instructor at Whitman College near Princeton. She was a tall, athletic non-shifter with smooth chocolate skin and long, African-American curls. She was beautiful, and she was my mom.
She fell hard for a scrappy Hawaiian panther-shifter, doing the rounds on the middleweight boxing circuit. According to her, he was wild and dangerous, and he left her with a broken heart and me on the way. I’m pretty sure he never knew he had a son, but she never complained.
I grew up hating him and being exactly like him, and looking back, I regret the shit I turned into as a teen. Mom never liked me boxing. She taught me as much as she could about my Hawaiian heritage and tried to get me interested in books. None of it stuck. I put her through hell, and I ended up exiled.
The one bright spot is I’m comfortable in a university setting, and I even know how to use the library and research the archives. The past tangles in my thoughts as I make my way across the grounds of Hastings-Albrecht University. I might have failed my family when I was young, but maybe saving Mercy is a way to redeem myself.