Page 43 of Knight’s Dominion

"I'll do it myself, or get someone else to do it." Climbing off the bed gingerly, she brushed past him toward the bathroom, leaving him no choice but to follow.

Jealousy struck, fast and unexpected. "Who?"

“Who, what?”

“Who would you get to tend to you?”

She lifted her filthy and shredded clothes off the bathroom floor and cursed. “That's none of your damn business."

"Oden?" The green-eyed monster had taken over, and he had no control over the words spilling past his lips. “Now you’ve dropped your block and we can both feel it, it will be me you want when you’re wet and aching. Not him,” he all but roared. “It will be me you hunger for.”

"Shut up..."

“I could tie you down, have you at my mercy, and you’d beg for it. You’d let me give it to you, too, give you what you need, because as much as you try to deny it, you will always want me. Only me. The fates made you for me, female. Every part of you was designed for me. No one will ever be able to satisfy you like I could. Protect you, take care of you like I would.”

"Shut the hell up," she yelled. Then she came at him.

He held his ground as her fist connected with the side of his jaw with enough force to rattle his teeth. And sick fuck that he was, he'd never been more turned on in his life.

She got in his face. “You're a fucking bastard.” There was pain in her voice, pain he didn’t understand.

Yeah, you do. You just keep on hurting her.

He rubbed his jaw, taking a moment to get his shit together. Her pain was loud to him, filled the room. He’d caused it. He knew he had. But he got the feeling that something else was going on here.

He searched her eyes when she finally looked up. Disappointment, disgust looked back at him. He felt sick to his stomach.

She truly hated him. He grabbed for the doorframe. The blow of that reality hit harder than he thought possible.

She’s never hidden how much she despises you.

His brothers thought he was a heartless bastard. And for most of his life, he’d lived up to it. But for some reason, he didn't want the female in front of him to see him that way. He wanted her to see him as something more than a cold-blooded, ruthless asshole.

Grace took a step back, then several more, and fear washed through her gaze.

Yeah, that didn't make him feel like a fucking prick at all. His mate not only didn’t want him, she was now scared of him.

“Chaos?” she whispered and used the back of her hand to brush away a stray tear.

The tear sent another wave of fury through him. He’d made her cry?

“Are you going to go full Kishi on me?”

He looked down at his fingers wrapped around the doorframe. The wood had been reduced to splinters under his hand. “I hurt you. My demon doesn’t like it. Neither of us do.”

Her gaze darted to his destroyed doorframe and back to him.

“We would never hurt you.” He wanted to put her mind at rest, wanted that look of fear off her face. “Now that I know who you are…hurting you would hurt me. I will never do anything to hurt you. But my emotions, what I’m feeling…it’s volatile. I’m sorry I lashed out, got…jealous. You have to understand, Grace, there is a demon inside me that knows you should be his, ours, and that instinct is…strong.” Understatement of the century. “Seeing you with another male for example…and things could get bad…for him.”

“Is that a threat to control me?” she fired at him.

He shook his head. “It’s instinct, pure territorial instinct.”

“So basically, you’ve pissed all over me and no one else will come near me?” She crossed her arms, looking even angrier.

He took a steadying breath, trying to keep his shit together. “No. No one will know you’re mine except you and I…”

“I’m not yours.”