Page 35 of Mate of a Monster

“Ha—” he tries, but chokes on the word.

“What?” Creed pushes, gripping the man’s mask to keep his focus. “What are you trying to say?!”

“Ha—” he tries again.

Creed yanks the mask off, revealing the face beneath.

Dark hair and tan skin are all I see. No one familiar.

At least not to me.

“You,” Creed breathes, dropping beside us.

“You recognize him?”

Creed turns toward me, mouth wide. “Legend…”

“Who—” I start to ask, but every fucking frame of rational thinking is erased from my mind as the demonic smoke whirls past us, sending a wave of fresh air in its wake.

My pupils blow wide, teeth aching with the urge to bite, to claim, as a scent all too familiar seeps through my nostrils, through my body, and into my gods damned soul.

Slowly, my eyes slide back to the man on the grass.

The man who smells of what he shouldn’t.

My pulse spikes violently because I know with the same cold certainty I felt when the dragon locked in on me that whoever this man is doesn’t fucking matter.

What matters is why in the fuck he smells like her.

…

“This black shit,” Knight says, tipping his head as he studies the gifted male bound to the table. “It’s the same consistency as the markings from the murder sites.”

Hellhound leashes burn bright around his wrists, ankles, and neck, red as a fresh flame, the royal weapon sunk into the stone table and wrapped tight across his chest. The magic hums low and constant, a warning vibration that sinks into bone. If he so much as twitches, it will blister through skin and muscle alike. Thankfully for him, he hasn’t moved since Silver tore the branch from his gut and sealed the bleeding enough to keep him breathing. Now, our healer is working on him from the inside out.

Sinner clears his throat. “You mean the murders that haven’t happened since we sent H—”

“Don’t say her fucking name.” I can hardly breathe, this—male reeks so bad of the scent I once swore belonged to me. The scent of a person part of me still wants to claim.

Every breath I drag in is full of her, and each one guts me a little more than the last.

Sinner must sense my turmoil. For once, he doesn’t smirk or make some dark joke to soften his shit. He only lifts both hands in mock surrender.

“Worth noting, though, ain’t it?” he says, and there’s no humor under it. “We remove a single gifted and suddenly the deaths stop. Either convenient, or suspicious.”

Silence folds over us.

The scenes run back like I’m mind mirroring, seeing myself from the other side, and it’s visceral.

I am there, watching.

I see her treacherous ass standing at the edge of every crime—always with a convenient excuse. The way she’d tilt her head as if she could hear something the rest of us couldn’t: a call that was meant just for her.

I believed her.

Gods help me, I believed her with every bone in my damn body. So much so I fought back at my own blood, my brothers, for her.

That thing between us, it gave off no warning. There wasn’t a lick of deceit in those irritatingly irresistible eyes of hers.