AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A crooked smile pulled at his lips.
Shit. I said that into his mind.
“Don’t worry, Teague. I’d like to do my fair share of licking you.”
Heat spread into my face, and my core throbbed at the images flashing through my mind.
“Rest your foreheads together,” Cirilla commanded.
Fane leaned forward but stopped when the other wolf waved her hands.
“You’re too tall,” she said. “Get in his lap, Tatum.”
My head jerked in her direction. “What? Why?”
She dipped her finger into the bowl to stir the mixture. “If you want answers, do as I say.”
“Just do it,” Fane grumbled.
I huffed and crawled into his lap, reluctantly straddling him while heat swelled in me. His scent flooded my senses, and a tremor slinked down my spine. As he felt it, his arms wrapped around my back, drawing me into him until not a single molecule of space separated us.
We hadn’t been this close for real since that night in Bonaventure Cemetery before Ruin showed up. A pang sliced my heart remembering how it felt to learn that Fane was giving me to the demon lord.
A flash of anguish whipped across the demon shifter’s expression before his head dropped to mine. He’d experienced what I had that night and the memory of it just now. “I never wanted—”
“Don’t,” I whispered, my lips brushing his as I spoke. My arms curled around his back, my fingers digging into his flesh.
This felt way too fucking intimate.
“Other side effects?” Cirilla asked with a knowing lilt in her voice.
Fane hesitated, but his mouth moved, sliding over mine. “I can take her pain.” His barely audible words swirled into the atmosphere.
So he finally admitted it.
“Can you absorb her physical or emotional distress?” Cirilla drew runes on the ground in front of us with the concoction from the bowl.
“Just physical.” Fane swallowed thickly and slowly spoke his next words. “The emotional… It wouldn’t work.”
An invisible punch hit my stomach, and I drew away from him to peer into his eyes. He’d tried to take my emotional pain? When? How many times?
“Every time,” he whispered, having heard my thoughts even though I hadn’t meant to project them.
My breathing elevated, and knots fisted in my chest. Whenever I’d succumbed to my horrible nightmares or let my memories suffocate me, Fane had attempted to tear my pain out and make it his own.
Why would he do that?
“Return to me on the third day after the full moon.” Cirilla abruptly stood and crossed the room, dropping her bowl on the counter. “I’ll have more information then.”
Fane blinked at her over my head. “That’s it?”
“That’s weeks away.” I angled around to glare at her, but she was purposely focused on the bowl as she dumped the ingredients into a trash can.
The elder wolf shrugged as she continued to avoid our stares. “I guess you’re stuck with each other for a while.”
* * *
Faneand I didn’t speak as we trekked through the forest, keeping several feet of distance between us. Sitting together like that, touching each other and learning that he’d tried to take my emotional pain put us in an awkward mood.
