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She was lost in him. So lost that little else mattered, nothing else made sense for long, agonizing moments. Until she felt his release pour into her, felt the barb extend from beneath the head of his cock, locking him into her and creating another climax that completely stole her breath.
He was there with her. Through the violent tremors, he held her to his chest, arched over her, sheltered her from a storm that wrapped around her as well as inside her.
His fingers tugged her hair, turned her head to the side, and as she fought to hold on to the last shred of reality, his lips covered hers. His tongue licked over her lips, stroked them, then slid inside and spread the fiery heat of the mating hormone into their kiss.
It infused the last pulsing tremors of her orgasm, intensified it, tightened her muscles and left her shaking rather than trembling, left her arching to him, desperate for more.
His lips slid from hers despite her whimpering cry. He kissed and licked his way down her neck, then before she could prepare herself, his teeth bit down on the mating mark at her shoulder and his tongue rasped over it.
Shivers began to course through her, quaking through her body as a muted scream tore from her throat. Finally, there was the emotion. Now, when she couldn’t see it on his face, couldn’t define it. When it couldn’t soothe the pain racing through her heart.
She wanted to cry at the unfairness of it. Because she knew once it was over nothing would change. She would still be relegated to being the protected rather than the protector she had been for so many years. She would be behind him rather than beside him. And beside him was where she longed to be.
“I’d die without you,” he whispered at her ear, his voice rough, dark, rasping with an emotion she wished she could define, could see on his face. “Do you understand that, Cassa? If anything happens to you, then I’m nothing.”
Because she was his mate. Because once mated, there was never another for them.
Of course he would fear losing her. He would want her behind walls, locked away from danger, safely in his bed.
She had to fight back tears long moments later as the barb receded and he eased from her. She could still feel the pulse and throb of his cock inside her in the echoes of her release. The heat of him was a memory that even her flesh couldn’t let go of.
“I’d do anything to protect you, Cassa,” he swore as he helped her straighten her clothes.
She kept her back to him. She couldn’t look at him, not yet. She couldn’t let him see her tears, or her regrets. Loving him wasn’t going to be enough and she knew it, because she knew she could never be what he needed.
“I don’t need your protection.” She fought to keep the pain out of her tone even as she kept her back to him. “I never asked you for that.”
“It’s here anyway,” he promised her. “I can’t do anything else.”
There was an edge in his voice, not really of anger, irritation perhaps.
Cassa shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, Cabal, we’re never going to agree on this. And until we agree, nothing is going to change.”
She couldn’t allow him to win this battle—if he won this one, then she would never know a moment’s independence again.
She moved slowly from the table back to her chair, before taking her seat with a sense of weariness. Suddenly, she felt tired, uncertain. She had no idea where to go from here or how to convince him that he would end up destroying her.
She turned her head, watching as he straightened his clothing, his gaze glittering with amber frustration.
“I’ll be back later. We’ll discuss this then,” he stated as he stalked across the room to the door.
“Of course we will.” Her smile was tight, sad. “I’ll just sit right here and wait on you like the good little mate you think I should be.”
“Is that what I ask from you?” Anger was invading his tone now.
“Have you asked anything else from me?” she asked quietly.
The door slammed behind him in response, a clear indication that his temper was riding the same thin line as the arousal that bound them.
The sarcasm in her voice should have warned him. If it hadn’t, then he would learn in time, she assured herself.
Pushing back the fear was the hard part. The fear that defying him would earn her more than his arrogance or harsh words. That it would earn a slap, or something worse.
She wasn’t a coward, but she had been taught her limits of physical endurance years before, during one of the most hellish periods of her life.
God, what had made her think that Douglas wouldn’t betray his own career then? He had betrayed her, over and over again. His career wouldn’t have mattered any more to him than she had. Selling the Breeds and their rescuers out to the Council wouldn’t have caused him to lose a moment’s sleep. What had ever made her believe otherwise?
And what had made her think she would ever be free of him? There wasn’t a chance of being free, not ever again.
