Chapter Seven
Haide
“We have to go get him, Beast.”
The Nightkin’s chest rumbles. “And we will.”
I bite my lower lip. “If the royals find Zev, Creed will recognize him from my memories. Who knows what they’ll do to him, an exile?”
“Something tells me Creed will have bigger concerns.”
“Like what?” I reach up, my fingers skimming the ragged edge of the torn flesh around the beast’s horn. He hisses, the sound scraping against his throat. His breath is hot as he bares his teeth. Fuck, what am I doing? This isn’t some stray dog I can pet. He’s a monster. Pure and simple.
But he said he’s mine, right? And I do whatever I want with what’s mine.
“Soon, Hellpet, you must trust this process.”
My fingers linger for a second, feeling the pulse of that dark tar-blood oozing out, sticky and warm as it coats my skin. A shiver races through me. Something reckless, like poking a wound to see how deep it goes.
“Now, unless you’d rather I eat you”—he cuts through my thoughts—“I have an appetite to feed.”
My heart pounds wildly, matching the thunder outside. Bile rises in my throat, mixing with that hungry rumble in my belly.
Eat me? Yeah, right. Part of me dares him to try. What would all that chaos feel like? His eyes, glowing faintly in the shadows, lock onto mine and I feel exposed. Like he’s peeling back something I didn’t know was there.
His long claws clack across the table. “You’re remarkably calm for someone who has been told she’s fated to a beast.”
“Who says I too am not a Beast?” I tease, flashing him a bright smile. “Besides, I’m most likely going to kill you after I find out why the demon king of Exile Island, who I had no fucking idea existed, is suddenly here.”
He laughs. “You believe I orchestrated this? That I chose to be bound to a feral little thing who’d sooner slit my throat than submit?”
“Didn’t you?”
I force myself to maintain eye contact, even as his words pull at all of my senses. He’s right—I can feel him. Shit. I probably always have. I’ve just been too fucked up by Legend to notice. Why else can I hear him in my head? Feel his claws down my spine if I think hard enough?
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t swoon at the prospect of being mystically bound to someone who hides his evil behind a mask.”
Not mask, he corrects, voice almost gentle. “I am the darkness that has to be chosen to be received. It is concealment until claimed. His claws trace patterns in the condensation on his goblet. Just as you wear your violence like armor, little mate.
“Stop calling me that.”
Does it remind you of something, or perhaps someone, Little Monster? There’s amusement in his tone now.
My hand clenches around the knife.
How does he even know that stupid nickname? “If you’re trying to piss me off, congratulations. It’s working.”
“I’m trying to make you understand.” He rises, moving around the table with that unnaturally fluid grace.
“The mating bond doesn’t make mistakes. And it sure doesn’t sit back and allow others to fuck with it.
” His claws brush my shoulder. I suppress a shudder at how good it feels.
“Why do you think you’ve always been drawn to the shadows?
You feel my emotions? The amusement, the hunger… ” His head tilts. “The desire?”
Beneath my own anger and fear, realization settles deep.
“The blood,” I whisper, looking down at the goblet I just drank from, some of Professor Astras teaching about the bonding process coming back to me.
His laughter cackles through my body.
“Romantic.” I play with my food. “I know what comes next, and—”
“Death, as you just promised you would gift me,” he says simply, and my heart stutters. “Our hearts must beat as one. Through the nightmare that follows—” His talons trace my jaw, surprisingly gentle. “And you’ll be all mine.”
I bare my teeth at him. “I won’t.”
“The bond doesn’t lie,” he murmurs. “It doesn’t care about your plans for revenge or your loyalty. It simply is.” I lean into the touch. “We simply are. Anger and betrayal change nothing.”
This is why I never dream-walked with Legend.
This is why Arabella came.
It was all because I belong to the Nightkin.
“And it’s already changing you. Haven’t you noticed? The way your senses sharpen in the dark? The way you hear your dragon’s thoughts.”
I’ve been trying to ignore it, actually.
“When the bond is complete,” he continues, “your power will rival mine. You will be the most powerful source of chaos the realms have ever seen.”
“A monster?” I mean it to sound bitter, but it comes out breathless. “You mean I’ll be a monster.”
More laughter. “My monster.”
I close my eyes, trying to steady myself against the wave of longing—both his and mine—that crashes through the blood-forged connection between us. “And if I submit?” Because let’s be honest, what else do I have to live for at this point? “If I let this bond complete?”
The smug tone in his reply shouldn’t feel hot against my skin. “I’ll leave that for you to find out.”
I open my eyes, meeting his gaze through that ever-shifting rusted mask.
“I still hate you,” I whisper, but there’s no real heat in it anymore.
His laugh rumbles through both our bodies. “Hate me all you want, Hellpet. But you’re already mine. And I will forever be yours, but that’s not all, little mate,” he pauses. “So will he.”