Page 35 of Loched in Love

“You can’t overstep Elena. I don’t resemble a man in some ways, but in the ways that matter I do.”

“Right. Except you’re not a man, and you don’t eat,” she whispers conspiratorially, smiling over the rim of her coffee cup.

I grin, shifting my body and folding my arms over the table. “I do eat lass, I just don’t have to as often as you. I stopped needing food as sustenance back in my youth like most magical beings such as myself.”

“Just how old are you?”

“A little over twelve hundred, give or take some years,” I shrug.

“Holy cow.” Her wee jaw unhinges, causing a chuckle to rumble from my chest, and I lean over the table, anything to be closer.

I’m delighted when she doesn’t back away, her form relaxed and at ease. “Never fancied dating an older gent?” I ask, smiling when I’m rewarded for my attempt at amusing her when her head tilts back and a sharp bark of laughter leaves her lips.

By the gods, she is the most lovely thing in creation.

I reach out and touch her hand, just to remind myself that she’s real and of flesh and blood, not some angelic apparition I’ve made up in my mind.

Her soft pale skin is like a petal to the touch, and the simple move has an instantaneous calming effect as I rub at her inner wrist before lacing my fingers through hers.

“Is that what we are doing then, dating?” she asks shyly, a smile still playing on her plump and kissable lips.

“I certainly hope so,” I tell her honestly, while staring into her blue gaze. Dating, courting, wooing, I’ll do whatever it takes to make you mine.

The soft hum of the train beneath us fills the coming silence as I wait to see what her response is.

“Can you really breathe under water?” she finally asks.

“I can,” I reply.

A smirk begins to pull at my lips at this conundrum of a woman when she quickly gets to her feet to get ever closer to me. I turn my head, and using my power, put my gills on display for her. They’re much smaller in my humanoid form than when I’m monstrous, but the small slits allow me to breathe oxygen no matter if I’m on land or sea.

A gasp leaves her, and I glance down to see her brow pinched in fascination as she looks her fill of me.

The same look of concentration and attentiveness that I noticed in her when she was showing me around my moat is clear in her expression. The irony that she’s as preoccupied with my gills as much as she is her wee beetles brings me such joy that I preen and show her again, flashing my fins and gills for her again.

“Wow.”

“Is there anything else you’d like to know?” I ask when she moves to sit back down.

Those white wee teeth of hers make an appearance and tug at the soft of her lip, and I find myself wishing we could head to Scotland now, my scepter be damned. I want her all to myself, in a safe space where she can see all of me, because something tells me she will be fascinated in my monster form.

An odd look crosses her expression and she leans back in her chair and crosses her legs as she holds my gaze. “Can you control my emotions?”

“No. Once the mate bond is complete, I’ll sense your emotions, but I can’t force you to feel something you don’t want,” I tell her honestly.

“So, the mate bond can be rejected?”

I gulp uneasily, but forge ahead, ignoring the pit of uncertainty forming in my gut.

“It can, but ours is a true mate bond. Only my true mate could break the curse that held me to the moat, meaning we’re quite literally made for one another.”

Her gaze softens at my words, and her frame relaxes. “Is there a ceremony we have to do or something?”

“No, the mate bond began when you fell into the moat and I kissed you, but it won’t be complete until we mate in truth.”

“Oh.”

“There’s no rush, Elena, and I won’t pressure you. Besides, our mating really won’t be that much different from a human’s. I’m sure you’ve had others to compare,” I say, taking a sip of water.