Page 72 of The Girl in the Forest

“Yes.”

“What else do you believe in with fate?”

A start of surprise before his eyes narrowed. “What are you asking?”

“Do you believe in fated mates?”

Silence.

I walked to the fireplace, surged a thread of energy and waited while the flames whooshed around the stacked wood, licking at the bark, curling the paper stuffed at the bottom. Chasing the chill. Because, out of everything he’d told me, I could not forget the pure power radiating from him when he’d walked through the disintegrating cave. A parting of the seas, the dark retreating beneath the force of his light. Even the air had trembled.

And power like that worried me. Worried me enough to wonder about those wards he said he couldn’t break—and the possibility that he’d broken them easily, but hadn’t tried to save me.

Because, once he slid into the vampires’ seduction, into my illusion—he refused to back out. He’d craved it as deeply as I did, for the same reasons I did.

“Nothing to say?” I turned to face him. “No telling me how a bargain means only what two people want it to mean? And it ends when they want it to end?”

Grayson straightened. “What would you have me say?”

“Given all the prophesies and warnings being tossed around—if they’re true, all the dying and seeking vengeance, then we have a problem.”

His gaze burned through me. “What kind of problem?”

I didn’t answer. Instead, I remembered what Fallon said, how fated mates heard each other when they were ready to hear.

Then I thought the words the way I’d always thought the insults I tossed his way.

“I can hear you in my head.”

CHAPTER 20

Noa

“I was wrong,” Grayson said, his tone unbalanced, as if I’d just suggested something disastrous. “We can’t have this conversation here.”

He waved a hand toward the fire I’d started; the flames died in a symbolic act that crushed me. The fire was a part of me, my energy, what he controlled with such ease. Blinking out like nothing. In this house of memories—his memories, not mine. And for a moment, all I could think about was the grief and horror, then the love, contentment—two emotions I’d spent my entire life waiting to feel.

But what if I’d only imagined the sound of his voice? What if his ability to hear me was exactly what he’d always said it was—his alpha ability, enhanced by being a dread lord. Making me an open book to him because I’d never learned to shield my thoughts.

What if the fumes pumping from that vent fueled the odd tapping in my mind? The way they’d fueled the illusion I’d willingly lost myself in—the sensation that he’d been there, not the vampires, touching me? Seducing me?

Had I jumped to the wrong conclusion, one he obviously didn’t want?

Had I thought it was everything, when it was nothing but a witch’s hateful retribution, and then made a fool of myself?

The heat drained from my face, and I wondered how hard Fate was laughing right now.

I wanted to scream at him, launch toward him. This was his gods-damned fate, and he’d dragged me into it. Told me a bargain was what we said it was. Let me hope…

I grew dizzy, forced myself to take a step back, but there was a scuff of boots, the scrape of a chair as he moved it aside. Grayson was walking toward me, his hand reaching for my arm. My eyes were on his fingers as he gripped my wrist.

I recognized the wicked little twitch I’d always felt from his sigil, but it was nothing—nothing compared to the firebrand now burning on my wrist.

The eroticism that wrapped around me like silk at midnight, the caress of dawn.

Grayson tugged, and I followed.

He led me down the hall, and the last, closed door opened at our approach, revealing a large and somewhat old-fashioned bathroom. Checkered tiles covered the floor. A clawfoot bathtub sat against the wall; the handheld shower mount dripped water as if someone had recently been there.

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