Page 11 of The Baby Hex (Mori’s Mementos #2)

“Don’t make me fight you,” he whispered.

“Then don’t fight me. Stay. It’s easy.”

“Most downfalls are easy to set off,” Crilus said.

“This isn’t our downfall, mate,” I said.

He stepped away from me and his knees hit the back of the bed. He landed on his back and started to roll over, but I was between his legs with my fingertips resting on his knees before he could. His heartbeat raced in my ears, and I hated myself.

“Are you afraid of me?” I asked.

“I’m afraid for you,” Crilus shook his head. “Ask around about my family history. It’s all dogshit.”

“I’m not mated to your family. You’re my mate.”

“The magic doesn’t let us have good things,” he said, glancing toward the door.

I spun and kicked a foot against it just as the knob turned. Growing up with omegas meant I saw far more magic than my peers. The knob locked without my touching it and Crilus swore under his breath, grumbling about how I had to do things the hard way.

“I don’t want to fight you, Pierce,” Crilus sighed.

“I’m not fighting you, mate,” I said, moving to stand between his legs again because he hadn’t bothered to get up in the seconds it took me to prevent us from being interrupted.

“If I yell for help, they’ll knock the door down.”

“Do you want their help?” I asked, walking my fingers up his knees a few inches.

He didn’t say anything for a long, silent moment. His gaze drifted to where my fingers rested against his bare flesh. Our breathing synced up as I watched him watching me.

“Crilus?” a strange voice called through the bedroom door.

“We’re fine for the moment, Dad,” Crilus called back.

“I’ll be just downstairs. Preston said the door wouldn’t open and for a moment—Never mind what I thought. Let me know if something isn’t right,” Crilus’s father said.

My mate tilted his head as a lot of folks did when they communicated silently over links. It was part of the Moonscale Guard training to squash that habit out of ourselves so that we didn’t give ourselves away.

“Is he asking if I’m holding you against your will?” I asked him.

“Yeah,” Crilus nodded. “He gets that it’s complicated, but he also knows I could’ve ripped you in half by now.”

“I think we’d be devastating in mutual combat, mate, but you’d win, because I couldn’t bring myself to hurt you.”

“But you’d keep me here?”

“I plan to keep you forever. Here is merely the starting point,” I shrugged.

“Just because I’m not kneeing you in the balls and running off doesn’t mean I’m going to sex you up or let you claim me.”

“Okay,” I nodded.

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re too agreeable?” Crilus arched a brow.

“No. Before I became a guard, I was called many things but never that. If you’re waiting for the moment when I’d be willing to snatch what I want from you, you’ll be here a long time. Rough sex? Sure. If that’s what you want but WANT is the keyword.”

“So kidnapping is okay?”

“I haven’t kidnapped you. You arrived of your own freewill. Technically, you can leave the same way. You just don’t want to. I can smell it all over your skin. How relieved you were when I said you weren’t leaving.”

“This is going to kill us both,” Crilus whispered.

“It can try but I think you’ll find I’m not agreeable when it comes to someone or something – magic or mundane – trying to harm someone I care about. So, yeah, I think in this case kidnapping, as you insist upon calling it, is okay.”

“You’re going to need blood eventually,” Crilus shrugged.

“I’ve got plenty right here,” I said, and his pupils shrank down to onyx chips as he tried to discern whether or not I was speaking of him.

I’d never bite him like that. Never take from him the very stuff that kept him alive and hail.

He didn’t need to know about my emergency blood pills that I always carried in a pocket sewn into the waist of my uniform.

Let him think I was sacrificing everything if that made him feel better.

I had a feeling that he was dramatic, and I didn’t mind playing along with him, if that’s what it took to make him happy.

Without speaking, Crilus grabbed my wrists and pulled me down on top of him. I caught myself on one arm before I crashed into him.

“I’m not porcelain,” he smirked. “I’m not that easy to break.”

He wrapped those long, lean legs around me and pulled me close. His pupils dilated and his scent gave away his surprise and arousal as my already hard dick pressed against him.

“I was attempting to be a gentleman,” I smirked.

“I think that illusion failed you as soon as you declared me your hostage,” he shrugged. “Besides, I want you close. If we’re going to risk everything just to be in the same room, I might as well make the most of it. I might as well enjoy the build up to the downfall.”

“And why do you think I will be your downfall?” I asked him, fighting off the urge to bury my face in the warm crook of his neck.

“I will be yours,” he whispered. “It’s the way it goes in my family. Our mates always end badly.”

“Always?” I arched a brow. “I’m sorry to inform you that your father is married to two men who have yet to meet their downfall.”

“They are chosen mates,” Crilus informed me.

“I’m aware but they are mates nonetheless,” I said, leaning in close enough that his breath danced on my lips. “I don’t believe in all that stuff. Ghosts? Sure. Hexes? Yeah. But our lives are going to be bad because your relatives had bad luck or were assholes?”

“My dad isn’t an asshole!” he snapped.

“I didn’t mean him. I meant the woman in the photograph and the man who chose violence over your sire. How messed up in the soul does one have to be to choose violence over love?”

“What would you have done? He was mated off – by the law of his pack before he met my father.”

“If I couldn’t make it work with both men – if I couldn’t overthrow the pack or change the laws – I’d have run. If that would’ve put the other omega in danger? I’d have taken him too. Running is always an option.”

Crilus swallowed hard and I searched his eyes, trying to figure out just how much I offended him.

“Surviving means adapting and belonging means nothing if the group isn’t looking out for everyone’s best interests,” I continued.

“Mori’s sire ran,” Crilus whispered to me. “He took his nephew - the baby of my dad’s true-mate with the other omega and ran.”

“Was that a pop quiz?” I arched a brow, but Crilus shook his head.

“They always talk about it like Uriel had no choice,” Crilus whispered.

“He had choices. Maybe he didn’t like them, but he had them.

Sometimes the choice is to lose. Maybe they ran and the pack killed them all – that would’ve been horrible for us – we wouldn’t be here right now, but he took the coward’s way out and, sweetheart, I may be a lot of things, but I am not a coward. ”

Crilus nodded, his eyes misting up. It’s easy to forget how easy it is for those who come before us to haunt our lives.

Good choices weren’t always the easy route, but the choice was simple.

I couldn’t go back to the past and stop everything that made Crilus feel as if his family was cursed but I could show him that they weren’t.

“I’m tired,” Crilus said, ending the conversation and untwining his legs from around me.

I rose up off him and he rolled to his side. I started to stand back up, but he grabbed my arm and wrapped it around his middle.

“If you’re going to hold me hostage, at least do it properly,” he huffed, and I spooned in behind him.

“As you wish, mate,” I whispered but he didn’t answer.

I lay still as stone as he drifted off to sleep, fearing that if I moved a single muscle that he’d change his mind and flee from the bedroom. I’d try to keep him, try to hold him here, but at the end of the day, I wouldn’t hurt him and he’d get away if he really wanted to.