Her brow was furrowed, but I watched as it smoothed over, eyes widening in wonder.
“What the fuck is this? And why am I only just seeing it?” She took a dazed step into the room, eyes latching on each and every weapon. She looked like a kid in a candy shop.
Or a Bash in a sex shop, that kinky shit.
She spun around in awe-filled wonder before turning an accusatory glare in my direction. A lesser man would’ve pissed themselves at the fury in her gaze.
I merely prayed to the heavens that the tiny blonde female wouldn’t cut off my balls.
“You never asked,” I replied easily.
“You never asked,” she mocked, lowering her voice in a poor impersonation of my own. Her finger jabbed through the shadows, touching my chest. I jumped at the contact. “Why weren’t you in the throne room today?”
“Excuse me?” I asked, undeterred by her anger. I used the shadows to move around her and brought my lips to her ear. Goosebumps pebbled on her skin as I released a deep breath.
“You’ve been weird since the whole Haven thing,” she snapped.
Wait a minute...?
“Who the fuck is Haven?”
“The Gorgon,” she answered dismissively. Were we apparently giving monsters names now? Fitting, I supposed. I was a monster too. “Is this about our fight in the ballroom?”
Once more, I called on the shadows to carry me to her other side. My hand snaked out and cupped the back of her neck, skin and hair brushing my fingers. Both were soft, like silk, and I never wanted to remove my grip.
“Fight? Was that what we did?”
Another shift, this time landing me right in front of her. I stared at her tiny nose, golden freckles scattered across the bridge. It wasn’t something I had ever noticed before, and for some undefinable reason, it made my cock painfully hard.
“Did we have our first couple fight?” I teased, barely resisting the urge to lower my head and kiss each individual freckle.
“Couple.” She snorted at the word, and I tried not to let her dismissal and rejection gut me the way it did. “We’re mates, Ryland. We should be better than this petty shit.”
Mates.
The leaden, miserable feeling lifted until I felt lighter. Buoyant. If she was to see my face, she would know I was smiling like an idiot.
Mates.
I loved how easily she had claimed me as hers.
Mates.
And then the rest of her words washed over me, dousing me in an icy wave.
“Petty? You’re right. Mates shouldn’t have petty fights.” I twisted the word, made it ugly.
Z remained in front of me, hands balled into fists and eyes capable of penetrating skin.
“What the hell are you even going on about?”
“Because of, as you correctly named it, a petty fight, I left you alone! You were nearly taken! Killed!” I agitatedly ran a hand through my black hair. It wasn’t as short as my father’s, but it wasn’t long by any means.
My breathing was heavy as I faced Z down. There. That was the root of my issues.
Because I had childishly left her, she had nearly been taken. I didn’t know if I could forgive myself for that, and I didn’t think she should forgive me either.
Her chest heaved, eyes narrowing, before a shocked laugh escaped her. The sound was melodious but out of place in the tension filled room. I gaped at her and quirked a single brow, a gesture I knew was lost on her.
“You guys all have big fucking heads if you blame yourselves for what Haven did.” She shook her head. “Why would you blame yourselves?” She paused suddenly, lifting a single finger into the air as if she just had a grand epiphany. “Did you send her?”
Shock reeled through me, and I staggered. How could she think such a thing?
“No-“
“Did you lure me away from the party, so that I was alone?”
“Of course not!”
“Did you drug me with venom?”
Understanding dawned on me of what she was trying to do, and I pursed my lips. Trying to divert the blame, to remind me that it wasn’t my fault. That I hadn’t instigated the attack. Blah. Blah. Blah.
“I know what you’re doing,” I said aloud, and she merely batted her eyelashes innocently. “Trying to alleviate my guilt.”
At that, her eyes rolled practically into the back of her head.
“There’s nothing to be guilty of,” she insisted once more. The earnestness in her voice was nearly impossible to ignore. Still, I remained stubbornly silent. “All of you males have a fucking god-complex or some shit! Seriously!” She threw her hands up in the air and began to pace. I watched my mate with rapt interest, my self-loathing steadily turning into amusement. How was she able to do that? To see the parts I hated the most in me and smooth down the jagged edges?
Spinning to face me, she jabbed a finger accurately into the center of my chest.
“You. Are. Not. To. Blame.” She released a pent-up breath. “Now stop all this pouting or else I’ll cut off your balls.”
Now, there was the threatening Z I knew and loved.
For her, only her, I allowed my shadows to recede. Unlike the first time I showed her, she didn’t recoil in disgust. Instead, fascination lit up her face like a beacon calling me home.
Home.
She was my fucking home.
A small hand reached up to trace the dozens of scars marring my skin, but it didn’t shake.
“Why do you hide?” Her voice was soft, as soft as her hand. The wing of a butterfly. A torrent of snowflakes seconds from burning away by my skin’s heat.
“Because I’m hideous,” I whispered. For some reason, I spoke just as softly as she had. I didn’t dare speak any louder and break the tranquility we had found ourselves in.
I hadn’t realized how much self-loathing I felt, how much doubt I felt in our relationship, until she called me out on my bullshit. Since I had first discovered she was missing to the moment I thought she was...dead...I had been adrift
