Page 170 of Wicked Bonds

Do you?she wondered honestly.Because I know how you feel about monogamy.She’d often felt the same. But Balthazar was different. He made her want for nothing. When she was with him, he fulfilled her every desire. No one else compared.

I’ve not favored monogamy because my soul was never satisfied with anyone else,he whispered back to her, his eyes opening to capture her gaze as he caught her face between his palms. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

To complete our bond, she realized.

He nodded, his palm slipping to the back of her neck to hold her to him as he pressed his palm to her heart. “You’re mine, too.”

His lips claimed hers before she could reply.

Not that she had much to say.

They were finally complete, two souls married in a ceremony that surpassed time and space.

With hell dancing above them and around them.

Mel had taken this from her. Dian, too. They’d subjected her to three thousand years of loneliness, experimentation, and unendingreformation.

No wonder she’d felt so strongly throughout her life. She’d been fighting a punishment she didn’t deserve. Seeking the love of her life. Her heart. The other half of her soul.

All those lovers meant nothing to her now. Only Balthazar. Only the feelings and sensations he could awaken. And she knew he felt the same.

Those previous encounters paled in comparison to this. To their love. Theirdestiny.

Yet it’d been hidden from her.

By her very own flesh and blood.

Her focus shifted upward to where the bitch battled in the sky with Vera, the two of them radiating power as they fought with their abilities more than anything else.

They would have used a rune to dismantle the blocks against one another.

Then dove into each other’s minds in an attempt to ruin the other.

Leela narrowed her gaze. She was sex personified with her fertility and sensuality lines, creating the perfect Aphrodite—a goddess Mel had attempted to embody regularly in the olden times.

But Leela was the true goddess of beauty and love and all things sex. Which meant her psychic abilities weren’t all that powerful in battle.

However, she’d taught herself a few tricks.

And she could throw a mean left hook.

The final warrior fell beneath Gabe’s sword, the head landing on a table.

Leela didn’t even hear the screams, her focus entirely on Mel.

Gabe was already headed toward her to handle her in his own way, causing Leela to react on instinct. She misted up to Vera’s side, leaving Balthazar to observe from below, and punched Mel right in the fucking face.

“Youbitch,” she seethed, grabbing her by the hair and yanking so hard that she pulled several strands out. Then she hit her again before creating her own rune to wrap the female in a strand of fiery embers.

It sent her spiraling down to the earth in corporeal form, where she landed on her head in the middle of the street with a satisfyingcrunch.

Blood splattered everywhere.

Her body broken.

It would heal itself back together in a few minutes.

Or not, Leela thought as Gabe appeared beside Mel and severed her neck.Okay, a few days, then.