Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Caleb’s chest rises and falls with deep, even breaths.
I roll onto my side, watching. His fingertips rest against my thigh, the shifter wanting to touch me even in sleep. If I move, he’ll adjust to remain in contact with me.
My gaze travels to his neck. He shaved this morning, but dark, coarse stubble already covers the spot where I intend to slit his throat.
Humans die within seconds when their jugular is cut, and I suspect shifters are the same.
They’re generally harder to kill, and they heal at a rate humans can only dream of, but they aren’t invincible.
They bleed out. Caleb will die.
I’m going to stay with him until it’s complete. He’ll realize what’s happening in those final moments and hate me for it, but I can’t stomach the thought of leaving him to die alone.
The mate bond has taken a firm hold of me. I tried my best to fight it, but it won. I care for Caleb. I might even love him.
It’s a crazy thought, especially when I’ve seen firsthand the way he treats humans. We’re nothing to him, but even that knowledge isn’t enough to entirely deter me.
Caleb crinkles his nose, his lips twitching with sleep. It’s much cuter than it has any right to be. What’s he dreaming about? Me?
I selfishly like the sound of that. I want Caleb to dream of me.
This entire situation is fucked up. I don’t want to do any of this. I don’t want this responsibility. I want to curl into Caleb’s arms and forget that humans even exist. I want to turn against my kind.
I won’t. I can’t put my desires before the millions of humans HPAW protects.
I watch Caleb draw another breath before placing my lips on his throat. I need to see his reaction time.
Caleb stirs, then tilts his head back. He trusts me, exposing his neck without a second thought. I suppose that’s good. I feared he’d jolt awake the moment his neck was touched.
It’s a vulnerable spot, and Caleb has quick reflexes. His instinct isn’t to defend himself when he’s sharing a bed with me, though. That will probably change when it’s a knife touching his throat and not my lips, but I can’t exactly test that theory without raising alarms.
Well, maybe I can. Knives aren’t the only threat I can bring to his neck.
Caleb lets out a sleepy moan. I sink my teeth into his throat, biting hard.
Before I can register what’s happening, I’m on my back and Caleb is hovering above me. His eyes are wide open, suddenly alert. If he wakes this quickly when I attack him, he’ll have time to pin me down and kill me before blood loss makes him weak.
Caleb blinks, his eyebrows furrowed. “What are you doing?”
A strand of hair falls over his eye. I push it back. It’s time for a trim.
“Biting you,” I say.
Caleb continues staring at me, his eyes wide and mouth slightly open, before he shakes his head and flops onto my torso. He’s heavy, but I don’t complain about his weight as he burrows his face against my shoulder and breathes in my scent.
“Why?” he mumbles into my skin.
I shrug. “I thought shifters liked that. I’m marking you.”
Shifters don’t mark, but it’s a common rumor spread among the humans. There are communities that practically worship the shifters. They don’t care about the damage and pain the wolves inflict. All they see are toned muscles and pretty faces.
They’ve romanticized the idea of mate bonds. Before coming here, I thought they were idiotic fools. Now, I’m not so sure. I hate to say it, but I see the allure. Caleb is beautiful, and I swear my heart skips a beat whenever he smiles.
Caleb shuts his eyes and shakes his head, but a smile is tugging at the corners of his lips. He finds this endearing. I’m going to use this to my advantage.
“I had a dream that you were killed,” I lie, “and I once heard somebody say that if shifter mates bite one another, they can feel one another’s emotions. If I bite you, I’ll know you’re safe.”
“I wish that were true, mate.” Caleb cups my cheeks. I’m spewing straight nonsense, but he’s not laughing. He’s taking my concerns seriously, which is more than I expected. “The bond does share some things, but it’s nothing you need to worry about.”
I sit up. This is news to me. “What does it share?”
Caleb grimaces, not immediately responding.
“Well?” I urge.
“If we were ever to be…” he hesitates. “Well, if either of us were to be unfaithful, the other would feel it.”
“How so?”
“The partner of an unfaithful mate feels pain during the act.”
I take a moment to think that through. If I were to have sex with another, Caleb would feel pain? There’s no way.
“So, if I were to cheat on you, you’d be the one in pain?” I ask, clarifying. Caleb nods. I frown, not sure I want the answer to my next question. “Have you…Was there…” I trail off, unable to find the words.
Caleb shakes his head. “It’s only felt after meeting. I wasn’t in any pain…before.”
I bob my head, so damned relieved to hear that.
I won’t share this particular piece of information with HPAW.
I don’t necessarily agree with their interrogation methods, and I won’t give them ammunition to do something horrid to the occasional shifter they capture.
I’d like to believe they’re above rape, but I can’t guarantee it. Desperate people do desperate things.
“Shifters don’t bite,” Caleb says, returning to our earlier topic. He urges me to lie back down, then pulls my thigh over his waist. “If we did, don’t you think I’d have sunk my teeth into you by now?”
I shrug. “No. We haven’t even had sex.”
Caleb trails his fingers up my bare thigh.
I’m not sure why he hasn’t tried to have sex with me.
I know that, at first, it was because I was injured.
That made sense, but I’ve been feeling better for a while now.
I haven’t taken a single painkiller in weeks, and Doctor Greg has given me the all-clear to resume regular activity.
It’s not as if Caleb has been avoiding all intimate touch. He’s put his mouth and fingers on me, and he seems to love fucking my thighs, but it never goes further than that. I don’t understand why, and if I’m honest with myself, I’m a little annoyed.
“I don’t want you to think I’m only interested in you for sex…” Caleb eventually admits.
I resist the urge to laugh. “Trust me, I don’t think that.”
“It’s more than that.” Caleb blows out a breath. “I’ve waited twenty-nine years to have sex, and I want our first time to be meaningful. I don’t want to just fuck you, Evelyn. I want to make love to you.”
I’m going to gouge out my fucking eyes. Caleb looks so earnest, so fucking open and raw and exposed. He looks at me like I’ve hung the damn moon.
I speak without thinking. “I do love you, Caleb. I want to make love to you, too.”
Caleb is pure elation. His eyes widen, and his mouth pops open before his lips curl into an absolutely breathtaking smile. It’s an image I want to remember forever. It’s an image that’s going to haunt me.
Caleb looks so happy, and a piece of my heart cracks as he rolls over me, pinning me with his hips.
“Truly?” he asks. “You truly mean it?”
My hands shake as I cup either side of his face, holding him steady. “Of course I mean it.”
It’s a piece of honesty I didn’t intend to share.
I’m not entirely sure what love is supposed to feel like, but what I feel for Caleb isn’t casual.
He’s weaseled himself into my heart, slithering through the cracks of the carefully crafted mental wall I built between us.
No amount of training and preparation has kept him away.
He has me questioning everything I’ve ever believed. If that’s not love, then I don’t know what is.
“I love you too, Ev,” Caleb whispers.
He slots himself between my thighs. I’m hardly surprised to feel his hard cock pressing against me, incessant and needy. The way he looks at me physically hurts, so I avoid making eye contact. I stare at where we’re touching instead, pleased Caleb decided to sleep in only his underwear tonight.
His abs flex as he sits back on his heels, his hands sliding up my thighs in the process. He’s taking off my shirt a moment later, silently stripping me. I let him, unable to stomach the thought of asking him to stop. I want this. It’s wrong and a thousand shades of fucked up, but I can’t help it.
I need Caleb.
He tosses my shirt aside, leaving me bare from the waist up. I lift my hips, helping him remove my bottoms. He groans when I’m finally naked beneath him, and I hook my fingers into the waistband of his underwear.
“Take them off,” I order.
Caleb smirks, the picture of confidence as he removes them. He looks good, and he knows it. He must know how badly I want him, too. I’m slick between my thighs, wet and ready to take him. I’m sure he’s noticed.
“Fuck.” Caleb grunts, gripping himself. “You’ll tell me if anything hurts?”
“You’re not going to hurt me.”
Caleb shoots me a sharp look. “You’ll tell me if anything hurts.”
“Yes.”
Caleb finally closes the distance between us, running the tip of himself against my slit. I so badly want him inside, and I’d be tempted to roll my hips and hurry things along if I didn’t already know he’d stop me. Caleb likes to take things slowly. He likes to savor me.
He’s a damned tease.
“You’re perfect, Ev. So fucking perfect.”
I wish HPAW had never found me. I ran away from home, traveling to the shifter lands in search of Caleb. I probably would’ve found my way to him. I would’ve been brought here and raised among the shifters, and I wouldn’t have known anything about the conflict between them and the humans.
Despite everything, I want to be Caleb’s mate. I want to pop out his stupid fucking children and live an ignorant, happy life.
Knowledge has ruined that for me.
Caleb notches himself against my entrance. “I’m so honored to have you as my mate.” He pushes inside, stretching me to my limits as he guides his cock deep into me. I’ve taken men before—too many to count—but Caleb is easily the largest.
He watches my every movement, pausing when he’s halfway inside.
I whine. “Don’t stop.”
“I’m hurting you.”
I slide my hands down his back, feeling every flexed muscle, before grabbing his ass and yanking him in. Caleb could stop me—it would be easy for him—but he lets me pull him. His hips slam against mine, his length filling me to the brim.
I can practically feel him in my throat.
“Shit.” Caleb drops his forehead against mine. “You’re so… You’re so fucking warm.”
He pulls out halfway, then eases back inside, quickly settling into a smooth rhythm. A small part of me was expecting Caleb’s movements to be jerky, but that was a silly assumption. The shifters are too graceful to be anything but excellent lovers.
Caleb rolls his hips, hitting all the right spots. I’m not going to last long, especially not when Caleb begins rubbing my clit. He’s learned exactly how I like to be touched, and I curse as an orgasm begins coiling in my belly.
Caleb kisses me, sloppy and messy, before trailing wet kisses down my throat. “Do you like knowing you’re the only woman I’ll ever touch? That your cunt is the only one I’ll ever experience? Only you.”
I do. I honestly fucking love it.
“Are you mine?” I ask.
Caleb grits his teeth, his body hot and cheeks flushed. “Yes.”
He’s close. I can tell by the way his smooth, calculated thrusts are turning desperate. His hips slam against my ass with every thrust, and I can hear just how wet I am. Our fucking is obscene.
Caleb peers down at me, everything in his gaze screaming possessive and wild. He looks every bit the shifter he is.
“And you’re mine,” he hisses. “All.” Thrust. “Fucking.” Thrust. “Mine.” Thrust.
I shatter, my back arching and thighs clamping around his waist as my orgasm absolutely wrecks me. I’ve never felt anything like this, and I’m pretty sure the noises I’m making are inhuman.
Caleb squeezes his eyes shut, his movements quickening. He’s truly fucking me now, all concern about hurting me forgotten as he chases his own high. He pants into the space between us, the noise drowned out by the sound of our slapping skin.
“Cum in me,” I beg. I shouldn’t ask. It’s cruel, but I can’t stop myself. I’m not in the fertile part of my cycle, but I’m close enough for this to be risky. Caleb knows that.
His eyes spring open. “Are you sure?”
“Yes!” I want to give Caleb this experience. “Please. I love you. Please.”
Caleb’s fingers curl around my thighs, squeezing the flesh as he fucks into me. His moans are filthy, and I imprint them to memory.
“I’m going to cum in you.” Caleb hisses. “I’m going to cum deep inside you, Ev. Are you ready for it?”
He shoves deep inside, his jaw tightening as he stills and finds his release. He’s twitching inside me, filling me with cum that leaks down my thigh when he pulls out a second later.
I’d love the feeling if it weren’t a lie. Caleb thinks he’s getting me pregnant and starting our family. I’m giving him a good experience before I kill him.
He pulls me into his chest, holding me tight. His heart is pounding.
“I love you,” I say again.
I hate myself for meaning it. I hate the situation we’ve found ourselves in. I hate the decision I’m being forced to make. I want to choose Caleb so badly, but I can’t.
I can’t put this off any longer. It’s killing me, and at this rate, I’ll lose the confidence to act. I will kill Caleb tomorrow. No more procrastinating.