The Mates of Monsters novel Chapter 64

I didn't tell him I love him.

I should have.

There are so many things I should have said, but there would've never been enough time for me to say them. There are so many things I wanted to do with him, and half of those things are the repetition of others. He said an hour, but nothing feels real, not since he agreed to the rite. My head is scrambled, but I can focus on one thing: the bond.

The roar of the wind at the edge of the cliff blows against my bareness and sways my hair from my back. I hold my legs to my chest and stare out at the sea of forest below-an expanse of green and shadow. All I can hear is the wind as it crashes and drags and swells like monstrous waves. I'm perched at the tip of the rock, at the edge of the sheet, and Lyde monitors from behind. It wasn't long until she tracked me. She called my name, placed a blanket beside me, then gave me my space.

I can feel the mascara dried on my cheeks with the salty residue of my tears. Every second that drawls by, I praise the Goddess that the bond hasn't snapped. The moment it does-the second my world rots beneath me... I'll do whatever it takes to be with him again, and the jagged rock a hundred feet below will make sure of it.

I wonder if he found another way. Maybe they aren't fighting at all. He'll come back to me unharmed and I'll breathe knowing it was never a possibility-his death.

Maybe they are fighting. Maybe they're doing it right now.

I've never seen two Alpha males fight. These days, I don't think anyone has, not with the fury it takes to kill. Giant, razor teeth flashing and snapping down by jaws strong enough to crush a bear. Claws vicious enough to tear deep into flesh and pour out the wet, beating makeup of our insides. The brute power of ancient beasts and speed to curdle blood. And they're watching-Tarlo, guards, maybe even Aurora regardless of David's request. Nicodra wouldn't care if she saw him do such things. He already does enough to her.

Maybe they're in a clearing, gathered around like a crowd for a gladiator fight. There wouldn't be rules to state, or maybe Tarlo would clarify to Nicodra that he couldn't attack anyone else. They would shift and circle and wait to see who makes the first move. Then my mind whirls to nothing. It blurs with swift, dark bodies and snarls and gnashing. The pounding of the ground, and the spotlight cast by the moon.

And everyone watching tries to keep track, tries to assess who's winning, but it isn't over until it's over. No one knows until one beast stops moving and the other spits out his blood.

"Luna?" Lyde calls wearily, tiptoeing up to me. She's a tall woman, tan-skinned and built of lean muscle. I don't have the energy to ask her to call me Brigette. There's nothing I can do but watch, and breathe, and wait. "Would you like to return to the house now?"

I shake my head.

"I don't feel safe having you stay over the borders. I told the Alpha I would look after you, and I'm sure he wouldn't want you out here like this."

I part my dried lips. "Please. Just let me be," I request, my voice worn and rasped.

She opens the blanket and lays it over my shoulders then returns to her post.

The bond hums like a microscopic line of electricity draped and coiled around everything inside of me. I feel it from the tips of my fingers to the smallest toes of my feet, and this wait torments me like a pair of scissors. The blades shift in and out, close and far, and I become strained for relief. Cut it, or leave it, but don't make me sit here in agony.

I ease myself onto the rock and lay along the edge. My fist tugs the blanket over my body, and I find peace in closing my eyes.

He trips and tumbles before me like an injured animal. It's working now-the mere drops that were slipped into his wine. He crawls in the grass, devastated, worthless like a bug under my looming shoe. He looks back in terror, pleading with his body to invigorate, for his muscle to find that last bit of primal might.