Page 75 of These Eternal Bones
“Where is the girl?”
My eyes snap toward her. “Excuse me?”
“Your mate, where is she?” She asks, trying to peer around me.
I snap out, snatching her by the throat, Tien erupting in a flurry of activity. But he knows better than to interfere. “You know nothing of the woman who lives in this castle.”
There it is again, hate, disgust, something else, somethingmore,but all of it is the same flavor I’ve always seen in the eyes of humans. Warranted or not. “I know much and see even more. Not all of us have written off the old stories. Some of us can still smell the blood in the soil.”
She was in the castle twice, brought here for me to feed. The thought repulses me as my hand bands tighter around her neck, the steady thump of her pulse making my stomach revolt. The second I’d fed, like all those I don’t kill, I’d dismissed her. Then found her an hour later on the upper floors snooping around. She’s always been odd and uncomfortable.
She’s here to kill her.
I dismiss the voice, releasing the old woman abruptly, making her stumble to catch herself before she falls. “If you know so much about the old legends, then you should know better than to stick your nose where it doesn’t belong, lest your blood join the rest.”
Rage flares in the woman, a pop of something, a crackle that pricks the back of my neck before she spits on the ground at my feet. Something odd and famil–
She’s going to die; it’s any day now. It could be any day.
I watch, vibrating with rage as the woman stalks down the steps, her own anger making her back a little straighter, making her hobble a little less. She’s halfway to the trail when she turns, her eyes snapping not to me but up.
To my Molly, no doubt peering from the windows. She smiles at her, and unease burrows in my gut.
“Clean this up,” I snap.
The walls of our home blur as I rejoin my mate, my arm wrapping around her small waist as I tug her from the window, meeting the woman’s eyes in a final warning.
“That’s the woman from the shop, the one who used to feed you.” Molly’s voice is calm, level, but jealousy and anger thrum in my chest, mingling with my own, and despite the nagging in my mind, I can’t help but smile.
“Jealous, my love?”
She scoffs as if my question is silly but tries to pull away from me. Everything in me tightens, a lacing blow of fear. I snag her back, growling in warning, so she simply crosses her arms, glaring at me instead. A reasonable enough compromise. “You have nothing to worry about, my love. I hunger for only you.”
I have adored and worshipped her in all of her forms and in all of her lives. Pined for her for nearly a thousand years. I have killed, raided, and committed atrocities beyond comprehension in her name, and yet, she’s jealous of an old woman who came to the door. I gather her in my arms, my amusement fluttering through the riotous bond.
“It is not funny,” she grumps, arms still crossed.
“I wouldn’t dare laugh.”
She rolls her eyes at that, finally hanging her arms around her neck, allowing me a deeper inhale of lilac. It’s where she got her namesake.
Syringa.
The scientific term for the flower she smells like, her favorite in her first life.
“What did she want?”
“An issue at the port, it will be handled.” A half-truth, and it makes my stomach sour.
She simply nods, content to snuggle against me for now. Neither of us are fooled, her in my fib and me in her believing it.
I can’t tell her. Can’t bear the fear in her eyes, not now at the end, not when they’ll soon be plagued with other wrenching expressions. She’s grown out of the shell of her past and the shadow of that disgusting man. I cannot put her back there. I will run the sea dry before I let her fear another man.
We’re out of time.
The nagging voice always gets louder as time goes on. After the bond, the days pass and so does its warnings, so does the atrophy of my mind, but this time I don’t ignore it. My fingers gently caress the healed bite displayed proudly on her slender neck. She gasps, so I do it again, my lips quirking as the smell of her need meets me, making my mouth water.
She giggles as I sit her on my desk, upsetting something on top, but I pay it no mind. My tendrils manifest, slamming the door shut where the Nephilim had long slinked away. I don’t bother undressing her, shifting her skirts to leave her wide, bare, and glistening. I hunger as I kneel in front of her, tasting her sweet, tangy arousal on my tongue.
