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Every time she is reborn, he gets pulled back to her. She’s always an adult and firmly in grasp of her powers by that point and aware of who he is to her.

He’s killed four reincarnations so far, and each time he loses something. He can’t tell us what, but I suspect it’s pieces of his mind. She’s destroying him one bit at a time, and he doesn’t even realize it.

“This one is totally different,” he finishes with a rocking motion that makes the entire car shift back and forth.

“How is that?” Mitri asks in a deadened tone.

“Well, usually I feel her here,” he taps his temple. “It’s this cold, slimy slug crawling around my brain that makes me wanna puke. I feel herherethis time,” he taps his chest directly over his heart. “And it’s all hugs and kisses and happy shit.AndI found her young. They’ve never been that little before. She isn’t reborn yet. That’s a lot of firsts.”

He gets quiet as my mouth falls open, and I turn to face Mitri in slow motion. He’s still ignoring everyone present, focused on the house.

“Is this feeling like a tunnel leading to her?” I ask in surprise. If this is what I think it is, I believe Mitri might actually lose his shit.

“Oh, yeah!” Kimi snaps his fingers and leans closer to me.

Mitri’s head slowly turns to look at Kimi. His eyes spell out a cold death for the oblivious male.

“Like I can feel her from the inside, but not in a sexy way. Something is all messed up, and I can’t figure out why. I never felt her like this before.”

Mitri’s eyes meet mine and narrow. I canfeelhim willing me to continue my questions.

“Do your people have mates, Kimi?” I ask cautiously.

“Well, yeah,” he nods and shrugs. “A female can mate up to twenty males.”

“Twenty?” I choke out with wide eyes.

“Yeah, that’s a lot of D flopping around,” he agrees. “I could handle it, but I don’t think anyone else could.”

“And males? How many times can they mate?” I cringe as I ask. The slow lowering of Mitri’s brow makes me suddenlyhighlygrateful that I can only bond once, and it’s been done already.

“Once, I guess. Male/male pairings can happen when you bond a group, but the focal bond goes to females only. Are you writing a book, Cuddle Bear? Can I be in that one too?”

“Have you bonded with a female?” Mitri’s accent is thick as syrup, and I’m hoping Kimi says yes so I don’t have to clean brain matter off my face.

Kimi is oblivious to the danger he’s wading into. Or maybe he isn’t. He does delight in aggravating people.

“Nah. I can’t keep this all to one person,” he gestures down his front to display his magnificence. “I’m notthatselfish.”

Mitri’s eyes snap to mine, and I can smell the rage building in him. Serves him right.

I know that Immortals don’t have mates. No one knows why they’re exempt from it. It just is what it is.

I also can’t picture Mitri having that kind of attachment to anyone. He can obsess over things, but he can’t feel love. Who in their right mind would want a male like that?

Then again, when Beatrice finds out she has a permanent attachment to the male whose sole intention is to eat her heart it probably won’t go well either.

“I have questions,” Mitri grits from between his teeth to me.

“Of course you do,” I sigh in resignation.

03. When You Say My Name

Ben takes me directly to bed, drops me on the mattress, and then crawls up to join me. He wraps his arms around me in his customary position and gets comfortable, breathing softly against my cheek.

I know he’s not ready for sleep yet because he doesn’t have his mouth wrapped around some portion of my anatomy. The things I’ve gotten used to astound me sometimes.

Tonight was a lot, in a month of a lot, in a few years of a lot. I’d like to have things slow down long enough for me to process everything, but that doesn’t seem like it’ll happen any time soon.