Page 13 of The Stone Secret
“Tell me what?” Serath said, his tone low and rumbling. “That you’ve taken up with the Mason boy? Is that how you intend to manage your urges?” His shoulders heaved. “By giving to him what is rightfully mine?”
“Serath!” Selas admonished. “Cam, you can’t have a lover. Not while you’re here. Not whilehe’shere.” She jerked her head toward Serath.
“Neither of us gets to fuck anyone else,” Serath growled. “Ever. You’re my fucking mate.”
The way he said it, the possessive ownership, made the beast simmering under my skin sit up and purr. But I wasn’t allowed to have this. Enjoy this. Him. Us. It was forbidden, and now he was standing with his back to me, ordering me to suffer. To eat up the pain and deal with it.
Rage bubbled up from the dark place inside me where all my pain and disappointment resided and spilled out of my mouth in a series of harsh words.
“So I’m not allowed to have a life? Date? Have sex?”
“Cam!” Selas stared at me in shock.
I didn’t mean it. I didn’t care about any of it, but I couldn’t stop. I was pissed. Eye-burning, pulse-thumping pissed. Pissed at how unfair this was. How much it hurt to be standing in the same room as him and not be able to claim him. Not be able to hold his hand like I’d held Curi’s.
It wasn’t his fault, but, “Fuck you, Serath. You don’t want me, so no one gets me. I have to be a fucking nun for the rest of my life? Is that it? Is that what you—”
He moved in a blur, grabbed me, and hauled me to his body, crashing his lips to mine and turning my angry, stiff frame into putty. I melted against him, fingers sinking into his hair as I kissed him back with bruising intensity. There was no need for oxygen, no need for thought, just the pressure of his teeth and the rasp of his tongue, and I was drowning in him.
“Serath, Serath, stop!” Selas’s voice penetrated the fog of desire and need clouding my mind.
The kiss softened and broke, but Serath didn’t let go. Instead he gripped my nape and locked gazes with me.
“Let’s get something straight, Cam. I want you. I want you so fucking much it’s like fire ants beneath my skin. But I can’t have you. Not without losing you. Believe me, if this was just about my sanity, I’d happily give it up just to know…” His throat bobbed. “To know what it’s like to be complete, even if it’s only for one night.”
His visage blurred, and I blinked back tears. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean what I said, I’m just…” I lightly touched his face. “This is just so hard.”
“I know.” He cupped my cheek. “I understand why you think having another male will make it easier, but I’ll kill him if he touches you like that again.” He said it calmly and matter-of-fact. I believed him, because if another female kissed him, I’d have to kill her too.
It was the nature of our beasts.
It was who we were.
“Curi isn’t my lover. I asked him to pretend.”
“What?” Selas said, reminding me she was in the room. “Why?”
“Because my ex followed me here.”
Serath’s eyes narrowed to slits, and his grip on me grew tighter. When he spoke, his tone promised pain. “He followed you?”
“I broke up with him before coming here. I told him I didn’t love him.”
He exhaled sharply. “But you did. You loved him.”
A dull ache bloomed in my chest at the bereft tone in his voice. Knowing my heart had belonged to another was causing him pain, and my instinct was to take that pain away. “I was falling for him. But now…” I dropped my forehead to Serath’s jaw and closed my eyes. “Now there’s only you.”
He wrapped his powerful arms around me in a hug that made me feel small and safe. “You believe showing him you’ve moved on will work?”
“Yes. It’ll prove I meant what I said before I left him, so I asked Curi to be my fake boyfriend.”
“Because you can’t tell him about Serath.” Selas nodded. “I understand. You want to keep him at a distance.” She frowned. “And Curi agreed to do this for you?”
“I guess my being a Basque helped with his decision.”
She pressed her lips in a thin line. “Hmmm.”
I sighed. “Look, I would have told Levi the truth. I was going to. I always trusted him, but…”
