Page 43 of The Mating Fire
She wasn’t going to like what news he had for her. He thought about what the wizard had told him.
She needs you, Jared. As much as you need her.
Bull.
You need to set aside this damnable pride and humble yourself. Open yourself to love and being loved.
More bull.
No one, not even Harper with her innocence and strength and belief in goodness in the world, even him, could love a beast like himself.
I’m too far gone.
But what if there was a chance?
“I need a champion of my heart much as Rockstar does,” he whispered aloud to the cold castle walls. “Someone who believes in me, and not what I am, but who I can become.”
He touched the tablet, reflecting on his latest chat with Rockstar. At least she seemed to have forgiven him. He’d been thinking about sex, and hoped she had as well. Because if shehad, she’d find a sizable gift from him manifested through his incubus powers.
Sure hoped to hell she enjoyed it tonight.
If only Rockstar was his champion. Yet he knew if she saw his beast, she would run away shrieking. Was she a fantasy herself? Sometimes he wondered, and didn’t want to find out.
He had Harper here, imprisoned in his castle. King here, he could do with her as he pleased and no one, not even the damnable wizards, could stop him.
Harper could come crawling on her hands and knees to him if he so desired.
No, not as a slave to his arousal, though easy enough to seduce her. Ravish her again and again until he felt sated. Though she might resist with her mind, her body would yield to him willingly. Jared had seen the red-hot desire swirling inside her, the passion she thought deeply buried in her chest. It flickered there, fire he could detect with his incubus powers.
He felt as if they lived in two sharply divided worlds. He existed in the shadows and she was the light. The barrier separating them too thick, too impenetrable to breach.
Soul mates? It was a farce Xavier had presented in order to feed him scraps of hope, keep him in line.
Yet with Harper he felt more alive than he had in years. Decades, even.
When she fell into his arms, crying, he only wanted to dry her tears. Give her reason to stop crying.
Now with the news of how her parents had died, he knew he would make her cry again.
Jared tossed aside the tablet. “Son of a bitch.”
The grandfather clock in his immense bedchamber struck twelve. Not that he needed a clock to warn of the midnight hour.
He could feel it in his bones, his skin, his very soul that flickered there like a warning light.
The change came first to his internal organs, setting them on fire as they twisted and turned, his entrails shortening, his heart shriveling. Fur emerged on his naked limbs, his arms, his chest. So much dark fur covering him his privates were hidden from view.
The horns next, and then the hideous teeth intended to snap and tear and terrorize.
Jared threw back his head to howl. Only a snarl emerged.
Running his hands over his face, he felt familiar dread and despair.
No one could love him. Who could love such a monster?
Not even sweet Harper.
Chapter 15
