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“Mate?”
“I told you I wanted to spend my life with you, did I not?”
Blair’s lips lowered to his throat, pressing delicate kisses into the hollow underneath his chin. Every soft caress of her mouth on his skin sent shivers trembling through him, his mind churning with thoughts of his beautiful mate.
Shuddering, Kaien nearly lost his train of thought as desire began coursing through his bloodstream and his body awakened with a pulsing need that had no intention of being denied.
No.
He apologetically pushed himself away from Blair, his eyebrows pinching together, adamant they have this conversation before he devolved into a primal version of himself, riddled with lust. “I will never shackle you to me, Blair, not when you’re so vehemently against it. I will never force a bond on you that you don’t want.”
She scoffed. “Whoever said you could force me to do anything?”
“You’ve stated time and time again that you’d resist such a pairing.”
Kaien’s heart clenched with despair as he was forced to relive her numerous rejections of him once more. At the prospect of another such denial, his shoulders hunched reflexively.
Ruby red lips turned upward with her mischievous smile from where she hovered above him. “I changed my mind.”
“This isn’t a game, Blair,” he warned, desperately wanting her words to be true. “Once we’ve mated, there will be no going back. You’d have to kill me to make me let you go.”
Blair stilled above him, the humor leaving her eyes. “I never want you to leave me, Kaien. I want you. I love you.”
The intangible pathway between them, once ghosting, spun into a vibrant weave of color as their mating bond finally solidified and took shape. Intimately connected, Kaien’s eyes watered with the sheer magnitude of Blair’s affection for him—not only the depth of her vivid love for him but the ferocity of her burning passion.
Cupping her face in his hands, he pulled her lips to his and let his mouth ravish her. Kaien had waited twelve centuries for his mate, and now, alone with her in the darkness of his bedroom, he’d show her exactly what she’d been missing.
***
Kaien smirked as he watched Blair check out her new ‘tattoo’ in the mirror of his bathroom the following evening. Leaning against the doorframe, he let out a chuckle.
The symbol of the Blaede clan would have appeared on her shoulder blade right after they’d mated, but they hadn’t made it out of the bedroom until now.
Blair wore the stylized cross between a capital A and an infinity symbol, the black design feminine and fair on her skin. On Kaien, the tribal marking was heavier and spanned nearly the entirety of his broad back, but it was instantly recognizable as the same clan symbol despite the differences between them. At barely more than the size of a half dollar, Blair’s marking was on par with other women in the clan except for Nina’s.
As clan sovereign, Nina’s symbol presented boldly on her five-foot six frame. It spanned from just above her navel and wrapped around toward her spine, ranging from just below her sternum toward her hip bone. Sovereigns had little choice in the matter: their clan symbols imprinted into their skin without fail as soon as they took over leadership, always covering a sizable portion of skin real estate.
“Permanent?” Blair questioned, her sapphire eyes finding his in the mirror.
Kaien grinned covetously. “I’ve marked you, kitten. Can’t turn tail and run now.”
“If I ran, you’d only chase me.” Blair turned toward him with a sultry smirk and slid her hands around his bare core. “And I know how much you’d love it.”
“You vex me, vampire.”
He trailed the back of his finger down the side of her baby soft cheek, relishing the feel of her skin, her warmth. Delighted that she now wore the mark of his clan, he found it impossible to resist keeping his hands to himself.
“Wait.” Blair spun out of his reach, her hands fisting on her hips. “How do you know Luna so well?”
Blinking, Kaien cocked his head. “Luna?”
“The Raeth healer—Nero’s, I think?”
A chuckle escaped from Kaien’s lips before he could stop it. “Luna and I are old friends.”
“Friends with benefits?” Blair allowed her incisors to lengthen. “Because she certainly had no qualms touching you.”
“Jealous, are we?”
