Page 49 of The Stone Initiation
I lifted my chin to look up at his monstrous gargoyle face. To trace the strong lines that made up the features that were both frightening and compellingly beautiful. The combination made my heart ache, and the urge to reach up and trace his scar rushed through me so strongly that my fingers were hovering at his jaw before I managed to catch myself.
I clenched my fists. I was here for a reason, and this…This wasn’t it. This was hormonal, pheromonal, needy body bullshit. “You hurt my friend.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Dammit, why wasn’t he being an asshole? I grit my teeth. “Tellhimthat.”
“I will. I swear it. I will. And after this moment.” His throat bobbed. “After this moment, I’ll stay away from you. I won’t touch you. I won’t covet you. I’ll let you be. I just…I need thisonemoment.”
There was an aching throb to his words that echoed inside me. My eyes heated with the threat of tears that made no sense. I swallowed past the lump in my throat. I didn’t want to mate with him. I didn’t need a fated lover, but my body didn’t seem to agree. It yearned for him. Longed to stay here, like this. Enveloped in his heat, so even though I didn’t want it, I found myself asking.
“Why? Why can’t you—”
He gripped my jaw and forced my head up. “Don’t ask it.Neverask it.”
My mouth went dry while other parts of me grew slick with need.
He took shallow breaths, eyes rolling as he inhaled. “Fuck…” He continued to sip at the air, sip at my scent. “Fuck me.”
He swelled against me hard and thick, and oh god, in that moment I wanted to. In that moment I wanted to straddle his huge frame and find a way to make him fit. Make us fit, impossible as that might be with him in this form.
How could we be possible? How could he be mine? Why did I want him so badly?
“Don’t…” He engulfed my wrist with his hand.
I’d been touching him without realizing it, tracing the hard line of his jaw and his full bottom lip.
He moved suddenly and my back hit bark so that I was pinned between him and the tree, feet dangling high off the ground. He dipped his head and ran the tip of his nose along the column of my neck.
“This is mine,” he said under his breath. “This was made for me.” He drew back, husky eyes bright, pupils large and hungry. “I would have been a good mate, Cameron Walker.”
I could barely speak past the pinching in my throat. “Why? Why can’t you. Why is there a law? Tell me.”
“I can’t.” He inhaled me again. “I wish I could, but I can’t, and after this moment we will never speak of it again.”
A fracture cut a path across my heart and confusion clouded my mind. These feelings, these sensations—strong and sudden—made perfect sense, even though they shouldn’t.
“Your friends know what this is, but they cannot tell anyone else. The Stone Council cannot find out.”
“What happens if they do?”
He closed his eyes as if the answer pained him. “We won’t need to find out because this…This won’t go any further. You’ll be safe.” He set me on my feet and moved away, each step slow and deliberate as if he was fighting himself, as if the distance was physical pain.
I took a step forward.
“Don’t.” the word was a warning growl.
I froze.
“Goodbye Cameron Walker.” He shot up into the air and vanished beyond the canopy.
“Cam! Fuck Cam!” Touron came bursting out of the underbrush, Sharniza and the twins in tow. “Where is he?”
“Gone,” I pushed the word past the constriction in my throat. “He’s gone.”
And the goyle part of me, the beast that had never been permitted to grow, quietly mourned.
CHAPTER21
