Page 51 of Toward Immortal Ruin

Gingerly, he tilted up her chin and caught those stunning green eyes.

“May I kiss you, Eden?”

A soft smile and a nod gave him permission. He claimed her mouth with as much tenderness as he could muster. His entire world narrowed to the feeling of her lips on his, the sweet scent of peony enveloping his senses. Her slight frame rested against the broad panes of his, fitting perfectly together.

Everything he was and everything he would be existed purely for her: his mate. His hands tenderly brought her closer, cinching around her frame as she dissolved against him. That was when they both felt the pulse in their souls, the burgeoning link of the mating bond.

Nero could barely contain his boundless joy. After eleven hundred years, the bond he’d spent his entire life longing for finally arrived.

Bewildered, Eden retreated from his kiss, her wide eyes blinking up at him. Her hand rested on her breastbone.

“What—what is that?”

Hesitating, he searched her gaze as he fumbled for the right words. “Eden, do you remember when I said I was drawn to you, and that I wanted to keep you safe?”

“Yes, but what does that have to do with what I feel right now?”

“In your research, did you ever run across the concept of mated pairs?”

“Mated pairs?” Eden’s eyes went wide. “Nero, are you alluding to fated mates? Two people who are destined to be together … soulmates?”

He nodded.

Her face crumpled. “But that’s impossible!”

“I assure you, it’s very possible, Eden.” He took a tentative step forward, reaching for her. “This link between us, this connection: it’s a mating bond.”

“A bond?” A palpable desperation filled her voice, the heavy punch of regret hitting him in the gut. “Nero, youcan’tbe tied to me!”

He stopped moving toward her, struggling to sift through the emotions that were barreling at him through both their nascent mating bond and his ability. He took a gasping breath to keep from suffocating under the barrage of negativity.

“You—you don’t want this?”

“Nero, I can’t be what you want me to be,” she breathed. “This—us—we could never work.”

“I would never expect anything of you,” he promised. “If it goes no further, if all you ever wanted to be was friends, or social acquaintances, or even pen pals, Eden, I’d love every second of the time you gifted me. And if you wanted to leave …”

Nero’s voice broke, but he forced himself to finish. “If you wanted to leave, I’d take you anywhere you wanted to go. I just want you to be safe. To be happy.”

Tears pooled in Eden’s eyes as she made a sound of apology and agony. “This is just too much, Nero. I can’t deal with it right now. I need time to think about all of this.”

He forced himself to nod.

“I can’t go back to my apartment, can I?”

Despair knifed into Nero like a red-hot dagger—Eden’sdespair. His attention was on her in an instant. “I meant it when I said this house is yours, Eden. You can stay here; I’ll leave. That way, you’ll be safe, and you can have time to think. Alone, no one would interrupt you.”

Eden didn’t speak.

“Tell me what you need at your apartment—or anywhere—and I’ll get it for you.”

She nodded.

The sudden and inexplicable change in their relationship had left him reeling. To know that her feelings were awash of negativity made his panther confused. Eden’s emotions, now funneling through the ghosting mating bond between them, were breaking his heart.

“I’m sorry,” he swallowed against a throat thick with emotion. “About all of this. If there had been another way, I would have taken it.”

Nero opened a drawer and pulled out a pen and a notepad. He scribbled down the names and numbers of the people Eden had met while she’d been here.

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