Page 37

“No.”

“No?”

She turned another page, not even reading at this point. “I needed to talk to you earlier. You, once again, made it clear it is not my place to know things. So, no, Theon, I do not want to talk about what happened with you.”

“With me,” he repeated tightly. “But you would discuss it with someone else?”

There was an edge to his tone that had her lifting her head. “It doesn’t really matter, does it?” she sneered with a mocking tilt of her lips. “Soon enough you’ll have a Match and a new Source, and I’ll be with Luka, right? I’ll no longer be yours to talk to.”

“Do you really think being Luka’s Match would change anything between us, beautiful?” Theon asked, taking another step closer. Her mocking grin faltered, and she tried to look away, but he caught her chin in his hand. “It will not matter if you have a union Mark on your skin and a ring on your finger. It will not matter if I have the same with someone else. If I am forced into a new bond, it will not erase this one. Haven’t you figured it out yet?”

His hand slid up her jaw and into her unbound hair, wrapping the golden strands around his fist. Her breathing was uneven, and her gaze was darting between his eyes and his mouth as he leaned over her.

He tugged at her hair, forcing her to tip her head back farther, and his breath danced across her lips as he said, “You’ll still be mine, Tessa.”

“I hate you too much to ever be yours,” she whispered bitterly.

He shrugged, his shadows appearing and winding along her throat. “I said I wanted everything you have to give. That includes your hate. It’s all mine.”

Tendrils of darkness caressed her cheek and slid along her jaw as if it were his own hand. Just like that, all the want from earlier tonight when their magic had merged was back. She was leaning into his power, finding everything she could need in that darkness— pleasure and comfort, relief and freedom.

“Did you ever think that maybe I hate this just as much?”

His voice was a whisper in her ear, and she opened her eyes, unsure of when they had fallen closed.

“Not possible,” she rasped.

“No?”

She shook her head, his shadows continuing to skate along her skin, making it hard to think about anything other than the heat flaring in her belly and the feeling of utter rapture when her light had met his dark.

“You think I enjoy being obsessed with someone that clearly doesn’t feel the same way? You think I like that my power fights me? That it constantly tries to get to you? You think I appreciate how much my plans have changed since you came into my life?” he continued.

Fighting against the cloud of lust, Tessa pushed back against him. He released her hair, but his shadows continued to drift around her, as if he truly couldn’t control them. She clambered up, standing on the sofa. Her bare feet sank into the cushions, but from here at least she wasn’t looking up at him.

“That is not you hating me, Theon,” she retorted. “That is you hating your situation, the circumstances around it. That is you hating that you realize just how little control you truly have.”

He leaned forward, crowding into her, and she stumbled back, her ass landing on the back of the sofa. His hands landed on either side of her hips, caging her between his arms. “And that’s different from you? Do you not hate your situation? The circumstances around it? Do you not hate just how little control you have?”

“I have more control than you,” she snapped.

His head tilted to the side. “Do you?”

“I’ve proved that once.”

He hummed in thought, his shadows no longer drifting around her, but pressing along her ribs, her hips, her torso. They skimmed along the top of her jeans, and?—

“You know,” she blurted.

Because gods, heknew. He knew exactly what she was desperate for.

“Know what, little storm?” he replied

“You know that— You know what…”

“What you’re needing right now?” he finished for her, his magic almost frenzied as it touched her. As if it were indeed obsessed with her, just as he’d said. “I always know what you need, Tessa.”

“You don’t,” she said, shoving at his chest as she pushed to her feet. She didn’t acknowledge the fact that he let her push him aside. “I’m going to take a shower.”