Page 156 of Claimed In Darkness

It’s as if she’s going to tear me apart with her teeth.

She consumes me. I let her take all of me.

This is what we are. What we have always been.

She belongs to me, and I am never letting her go again.

My hands slip lower, fingers digging into her waist, pressing her harder against me.

She doesn’t stop me.

She doesn’t fight it.

Her nails drag up my arms, curl around my nape, pull me closer.

She moans, and it is the most devastating sound I have ever heard.

A sound of surrender.

A sound of desperation.

The sound of a woman who has finally, stopped lying to herself.

She trembles against me, her breath ragged, her lips swollen, her body melting in my hands.

She’s mine again.

She always was.

But I need her to say it.

I need her to admit it.

I brush my lips against hers, dragging my thumb across her bottom lip, tilting her chin up until she has no choice but to look at me.

"Say it,"I growl.

Her chest rises and falls, eyes flickering with something wild, something unraveled.

"Say you still belong to me."

She doesn’t answer.

But she doesn’t look away either.

There’s still a fight in her. Probably the relic’s hold on her is taking over.

But I am done waiting for her to admit it.

I will drag the truth out of her, one way or another.

52

NAIRA

The relic wants me to fight, I should have. Surrendering to Zephiran should have been the last from my mind.

I should have let him kill me before it ever came to this.

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