Page 81 of Lion Conquers All
But why was that the last thing she remembered?
“Aarav?” She leaned toward the enormous hole in her wall and called his name again. “Aarav?”
No sounds. No footsteps. He wasn’t here. No one was here with her.
Food.
There was that weird voice again. She was used to having conversations with herself in her own head, but this voice was new.
She picked up her brush and finished detangling her hair, grabbed the coffee from her nightstand, and headed for the kitchen.
There was a note on her kitchen counter in Aarav’s handwriting.
My dearest mate,if you wake this morning it will have been eight days since the magick-benders put you to sleep. I pray to Fate morning and night that she sees fit to give you back to me. I had to run into town to check on a few things for work, but I’ll be back soon. I hate leaving you, not knowing when you’ll awake and what you’ll awake to. I hope your beast is…
Connie shovedthe note away and took a couple steps away from the counter.
No. No. No.That couldn’t be right. He’d turned her? Without saying anything? Without giving her a choice? How could he do that? He knew her history. He knew had difficulty trusting.
Trusting anyone but him. And now that trust had been betrayed too.
Her heart felt like it was being pulled to pieces. She loved him. She’d told him she loved him. And he’d donethisto her.
She threw the coffee across the room into the sink. The cup exploded, spattering coffee and cream all over that half of the kitchen.
He’d changed her.
Taken her humanity away.
She hadn’t been enough.
He couldn’t handle her scars. The scars she’d learned to live with and had come to see them as a reminder of what she’d survived. She hadn’t given up. She’d never given up. And she’d made it.
With the help of witness protection and the US Marshalls, she’d made a new life here. And it had been good. And she hadn’t needed anyone.
And then the Reyleans had come and wrecked her perfectly quiet little town.
And she liked them.
Dammit.
She really did like them all. They were good people.
And then Aarav had shown up.
And she liked him a lot. She’d fallen in love with him. His patience. His kindness. His quiet rumbly voice.
He was a good man. She knew that. In her heart. In her soul. Every cell of her body recognized him as such.
But this…
She walked back to the counter and picked up the note again.
I hopeyour beast is gentle and kind.
“My beast?” She paused. “That’s the voice I don’t recognize. It’s you, isn’t it?”
Yes.The voice answered in her head.
