Page 54 of Sweet Dreams

I pushed, shoving him back slightly until his hands hovered in the air. His face changed, lines appearing at the corners of his eyes as he watched me. I took another step back, my heart rate a hummingbird in my chest.

“I want to be yours. Mate. Partner. All of it.”

Zaldi’s head cocked in a way that sent a thrill through my body. The muscles in his body tensed and bulged as he took a step forward. I matched it, moving back again.

“How badly do you want to be mine?” I asked him, loving the way his gaze leisurely roamed my body. I felt it like a physical caress, my core clenching as I watched my mate take all of me in.

“How bad?” He echoed me, voice dark and night. “How bad?”

I nodded.

Zaldi turned and began to pace a circle around me. I stayed completely still, my entire being focused on the male in front of me. When he spoke again, his breath was warm against my temple.

“I would tear the boundaries of this world apart, throw my entire soul into the fire that burns at the base of Trypa, just to have a chance to be yours.”

Scalding hot lips trailed down my throat, the lust that was a heady combination of Zaldi’s power and the wild urge that I always felt around him sizzled in my veins.

I whimpered as he reached to the base of my throat, biting into the muscle there, as his other hand stole around to the front of my body, yanking me back against a firm, hard male.

“You won’t need to,” I choked out, my body sagging in his hold, “I’m here.”

His tongue teased my earlobe for just a moment before a chuckle warmed the wet skin. “You want to be mine?”

I nodded, “Yes. I do.”

“When I claim you, my cock deep inside your body, I will bite you, sealing your mate to a demon of hell,” he said casually, as if my pussy wasn’t already throbbing at the idea of him doing any of those things.

“Oh my God, please, Zaldi. This is torture.”

I knew the moment those words were out, it wasn’t the right thing to say. Another warm chuckle brushed over my nape. “We haven’t even begun.”

Focusing was becoming hard, his fingers trailed down my sides. “What?”

“Run,” he said, his voice rough, “Run, and let your mate claim you.”

He stepped away, the sudden drop in warmth making me shiver as I pivoted to stare up into his eyes. “Run?”

Zaldi tilted his head back, his nostrils fluttering as he breathed me in. “Hurry, mate, your time is running out.”

My mouth opened and closed, my mind drawing a blank as I stared at my male. “I-uh…”

His fangs slipped free, his tongue dragging over the sharp white point. “Tick, tock, Lu….”

And, then, I was running, instinct telling me to get as far away from him as possible. Not to really avoid him, but to make sure that when he did find me, because he would, that we were far from the listening ears of his friends and family.

Because I wasn’t ending this night unclaimed.

“Faster, mate,” he called out, “I’m coming for you.”

***

Zaldi

I used to make fun of my brothers and friends when their more demon sides took over. I liked the order. I liked the rules. I sure as fuck didn’t like pulling fantasy’s from people’s minds while they slept. In short, I was nothing like them. Or, I thought I’d never been like them. When they’d walked through dreams, circulating the fantasies that made them stumble back to our world with their egos and magic inflated, I’d rolled my eyes and ignored it.

I had been solely focused on my work. And then on her.

And now…now, I was about to prove my younger self had been so, so deeply wrong.