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In the midst of it, hurtling through a wonderland of ecstasy, she swore she felt herself looking down, so deep inside herself that she was shocked. Shocked to see the core of her woman’s spirit flaring outward, opening and accepting.
And assuring her she belonged to him.
Belonged to him with such a terrifying singularity that she wondered if she would ever recover.
Belonged to him as she hadn’t even ever belonged to herself.
As the violence of her release began to ease, the shudders turning to ripples of sensation, she lost the strength to bite him. Releasing him, she fell back to the pillow, hands sliding down his arms as she collapsed, exhausted, both mentally and emotionally complete in a way she had never dreamed possible.
“Mine,” he growled at her ear again.
And it was all she could do to keep herself from agreeing with him.
The only thing that stopped her was the sudden fear that in this moment, she wasn’t even herself.
The fear that after this moment, she would simply live for this. For his touch. His kiss. For his possession.
For the certainty that this man, that this moment in time, had changed her in ways she would never be free of.
CHAPTER 13
Stygian was silent as he rose from the bed, moved to the bathroom and soaked a cloth in heated water before moving back to the bed to clean the proof of his release from Liza’s thighs.
She lay exhausted, nearly asleep, and only a mumbled protest left her lips as he parted her thighs and wiped the slick essence mixed with her virgin’s blood from the soft folds of her sex and her inner thighs.
His virgin mate. She had met him with a hunger and a need he could never have expected from such innocence. She had taken him, held him in a grip that had rippled over his cock and tightened around the mating knot as though she had been made for him and him alone.
Now, as she lay more asleep than awake, he could feel something more as well. The part of her that hid so deep, refusing to completely emerge, but awakening.
The animal inside him was pacing restlessly now at the hint of suspicion rising inside him.
No, it had been there all along, he realized. Just waiting for this moment, for the proof that somewhere, someone had been deceiving not just the Breeds, but also Liza.
Finishing, he returned to the bathroom, proceeded to clean himself then returned to the bed and his mate, where it seemed she had struggled to make her way beneath the heavy quilt.
His lips quirked into an amused smile. She’d managed to pull the blanket over her shoulders, but nothing more.
“Come on, sugar.” Lifting her into his arms, he pulled the blanket, quilt and sheet back from the bed before laying her in the middle of the mattress.
Moving in beside her, he felt his chest clench as she curled herself into a little ball, and her sudden sense of uncertainty reached him.
He pulled the sheet over them both before pulling her against him.
“Do you think I’ll allow you to sleep in isolation now?” he asked as she lay stiffly beside him. “Come on, Liza, I know you need warmth. Come to me and I’ll warm you.”
She turned slowly. “So I lie against you or I can stay cold?” A hint of gray eyes showed between narrowed lashes.
“Would you prefer the quilts?” he asked as he ran his hand caressingly along her spine. “I’ll keep you much warmer.”
“I have an electric quilt, Stygian,” she told him, but she didn’t move away from him.
“You’ll need it no longer,” he promised, relishing the feel of her silken back against the palm of his hand.
At the same time, he felt her hand, so soft he was amazed at the living warmth of it, in a fleeting caress against his chest before it stilled.
“Did I hurt you?” she asked then, her fingertips glancing across the vicious bite she’d bestowed to his chest.
It wasn’t even throbbing. The bite was deep, yet there was no blood, no ache of muscle, as though the mating heat had been transferred to her saliva as well and bestowed on the wound to ensure it caused no true pain, just that slight, “it was there” ache.
