Chapter 17 Xelene
SEVENTEEN
XELENE
The castle doors slammed shut behind Xelene with a resounding echo that seemed to chase her up the grand marble staircase.
Her heels clicked a frantic rhythm against the polished steps as she attempted to outrun the magnitude of what had just transpired in that royal vehicle.
The ornate tapestries and gilded portraits of Lev’s ancestors blurred past as she climbed, their regal faces seeming to mock her with their composed expressions.
If I move fast enough, maybe I can pretend it didn’t happen.
But even as that thought crossed her mind, she knew it was futile. The mate bond thrummed beneath her skin like a second heartbeat, a constant reminder of the connection that now bound her to the Marcan lion prince. Her body still hummed with the aftershocks of their encounter.
“Why did I have sex with him?” she whispered to the empty hallway as she reached her guest suite door.
The answer was as clear as it was terrifying.
She’d gotten lost in Lev’s intoxicating presence, in that kiss that had sparked every cell in her body and made her feel absolutely alive for the first time in years.
One moment she’d been the composed reputation consultant, and the next she’d been undressing him with desperate hands, pushing his ceremonial jacket from those impossibly broad shoulders.
Her fingers trembled as she turned the ornate door handle.
He had asked if she was sure—she’d give him that much credit.
But she’d foolishly said yes, that she wanted him and wanted the mate bond.
Thinking back on it rationally now, she couldn’t fathom why those words had left her lips.
She hadn’t even understood what the mate bond truly meant, but she’d been so consumed by the intensity flooding through her body, pulling her toward Lev like gravity itself had shifted.
The guest suite door clicked shut behind her, and Xelene leaned against it, her chest heaving as if she’d just run a marathon. The elegant room felt suffocating now—all cream silk and golden accents that reminded her too much of Lev’s tousled hair.
More memories crashed over her. Lev laying her back on that leather seat, his blue eyes dark with desire as he’d kissed his way down her body.
He’d given her pleasure unlike anything any other man had.
But it had been more than just physical technique.
When she’d straddled him, when they’d moved together in perfect rhythm, she’d been lost in his body and the sensations and whatever mystical force was happening with the mate bond between them.
“It was beyond intense,” she murmured, pressing her palms against her heated cheeks.
Clearly it had been the same for Lev, because he’d been so lost in their climaxes that he’d given her his mate mark without realizing it until it was too late. And now, because of that massive accident, their souls were bound together.
Forever.
The word echoed in her mind like a death knell. She wanted to find Janice, call Gerri, and return to Earth immediately—back to her life that she could manage and control on her own terms. But even as that thought formed, she knew it was impossible.
With shaking hands, she peeled off the black dress that still carried the scent of their joining.
The fabric whispered to the floor, leaving her in just her panties.
Her gaze fell to her left hip, where four precise claw marks decorated her skin like some primitive brand of ownership.
The wounds had already begun to heal—apparently another perk of the mate bond—but they served as an undeniable reminder that her life would never be the same.
“Even if I’m far away from him, I have a feeling we’ll always be linked,” she said to her reflection in the ornate mirror.
The woman staring back at her looked nothing like the composed reputation fixer who’d arrived on Nova Aurora yesterday. Her hair was mussed, her lips still swollen from Lev’s kisses, and her eyes held a wildness that made her stomach clench with anxiety.
What was worse than the permanent nature of their connection was the ache in her chest—a longing to be near him that seemed to intensify with every step she’d taken away from the royal vehicle. The completed mate bond tugged at her like an invisible thread.
“Stop it,” she commanded herself, jerking open the wardrobe and pulling out a pair of jeans and a simple t-shirt. “Think clearly.”
But Xelene’s body betrayed her even as she dressed. She could still feel Lev’s emotions humming through the bond—his regret, his desire, his protective instincts all tangled together in a mess that made her head spin.
God, she couldn’t escape him.
This connection was invasive and intimate in ways she’d never imagined experiencing with any man.
All those years of carefully orchestrated one-night stands, all her meticulous efforts to avoid commitment—none of it seemed to matter now.
She was irrevocably bound to Lev Marcan whether she liked it or not.
“What am I going to do?” she whispered to the empty room, sinking onto the massive four-poster bed.
Through the completed bond, she felt a pulse of longing so intense it made her gasp. He wanted her back, wanted to comfort her, wanted to explain and apologize and claim her all over again.
The realization that she could feel his every emotion all the time now, that he could probably sense hers in return, made her want to crawl under the silk covers and hide until this nightmare sorted itself out.
But deep down, in a place she wasn’t ready to acknowledge, a traitorous part of her whispered that this wasn’t a nightmare at all. It was something her soul had been searching for the whole time.
The guest suite door burst open without warning, and Janice rushed in like a whirlwind of concern and auburn hair. Her hazel eyes immediately locked onto Xelene’s face, and whatever she saw there made her stop dead in her tracks.
“Oh God, what happened?” Janice demanded, closing the door behind her. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Xelene sat up straighter on the edge of the bed, her hands clasped tightly in her lap to stop them from trembling. “I screwed up, Janice.”
Janice moved closer, her expression shifting from concern to something sharper. “Define ‘screwed up’ because in my experience, your version of disaster is usually everyone else’s version of Tuesday.”
“I had sex with Lev.” The confession burst from Xelene’s lips like a dam breaking. “In the back of his royal vehicle. After his father’s funeral. I don’t know if it was the emotions or his intoxicating presence or both, but I completely lost control and had sex with him.”
Xelene’s cheeks burned with the memory—Lev’s blue eyes darkening with hunger, and the feeling of his hands tightening on her hips as she’d straddled him on that leather seat.
“And it was...” Xelene swallowed hard, her voice dropping to barely a whisper, “it was the best sex of my life.”
Janice’s eyebrows shot up toward her hairline, and a slow smile began to spread across her face. “Okay, so what’s the problem then? Sounds like you finally found a guy who can keep up with you.”
If only it were that simple.