Page 118 of Mate of a Monster

My heart thumps in my chest. What if my being here disrupts something, or sets something back? I can’t take that chance.

So, I stay silent and wait, watching.

She, or past me, senses him before she sees him, and my lips twitch because I know now what that feeling is. That strange awareness that curls down the spine, hooking deep in places you never knew existed. That warm, heady need, that sense of home that makes no sense until it’s the only fucking thing that makes sense at all.

Then Legend moves toward her, slow at first. I can’t hear every word over the distance and the wind, but I don’t need to. The bond between memory and body is strong enough that the shape of it fills in where sound doesn’t. I remember the way his voice hit me back then: too rough and cocky for a king who’d just crossed realms to chase down a girl he’d barely known and already acted like he owned. Little did I know, he did.

I take a step sideways along the rise, following the path from above.

Below, past me uses her words like knives but Legend just keeps coming.

My mouth twitches.

My mate is fast.

That was the first thing I thought then, too, right after fuck off and who does he think he is. He moved like the cliffs were his own damn design, like the Island itself owed him solid footing. Cocky bastard.

Still, I’m faster. I’ll have to remind him of that when I’m done stabbing him for all the shit that’s happened. Preferably naked.

Legend vaults a broken stretch of rock with that infuriating ease of his. My own grin sharpens when past me glances back and smiles at him over her shoulder.

Oh, I was absolutely asking for it.

“That was reckless, girl,” I tell the memory of myself. “But he loved it.” I don’t even have to guess at that anymore.

The bond in my chest pulls hot and steady while I watch him. It feels different here where it’s stripped of all the lies that came later. Free of all the manipulation, betrayal, and politics and people who decided they knew better than the fates themselves. Here, it’s simple.

The jewels at the edges of my temples pulse with heat, and my fingertips start to tingle as little black flames dance across them from one tip to the next.

You weren’t made for simple, Haide.

The thought has my eyes slicing up, landing on Legend.

You were made for a King.

He came for me that day when he didn’t have to, and he looked half-mad the entire time.

A low laugh pushes past my lips, and I shake my head. Thank the gods he’s a spoiled brat and takes without asking.

The sheer force of him that day was rage-inducing. The way he looked at me like he’d already crossed the line between wanting and needing and didn’t particularly care who saw it.

When past me is finally caught by Legend, he hauls me up and, after some tenacious effort to get away on my part, Legend jumps off the cliff with me in his arms.

My body goes rigid as I watch, a small part of me worried that when he leaves with past me, I’ll be stuck in this place.

Wind slams into me hard enough to toss my hair back off my face, and I have to throw my arms up to keep my footing as I keep track of Legend and past me.

I don’t remember the wind that day when—

My mind goes quiet in an instant, air whooshing past my ear and with it, a low whisper.

The flame has yet to break free, leaving now shall tear he.

I freeze.

The words move through me in a way that sound shouldn’t: old and feminine and vast enough to make my bones feel borrowed.

“Where the fuck?” I murmur, stretching my senses the way I’ve learned.