Page 22 of Salt and Knot

Her gaze dips to my neck, and I wonder if her mouth is watering at the thought of marking me there—as hers—like mine is.

I can feel my teeth sharpening with the craving to make her mine. “Think about it. There’s no hurry.”

“You want me to go,” she says sadly, her expression a flash of devastation before she tries to jerk away.

“No! No.” I quickly grab her and hold her still. Ripping herself away while we’re knotted would hurt us both, and my alpha nature can’t allow her to leave me. Even when we’re having a conversation knotted that we probably should have while sane, and not in heat.

She glares away from me petulantly, her body has gone stiff.

“Don’t make a decision now.” I don’t want to hear how she’s unsure and can’t trust me. The one person I can love. It’s been hundreds of years, and I feel like the stakes are impossibly high if I can’t get her to care for me. To stay. “Please relax.”

My knot has eased off enough that when I shift her hips to suggest she turn, we manage the awkward manoeuvre for her to spin on my cock and face me.

And when she looks at me this time, it’s as though a barrier has come down. We’ve acknowledged one of the big things between us.

“Your eyes change colour.” It’s not a question.

She tilts her head as fear seeps into my skin. I’m sure my eyes are turning dark-blue. Navy. The black of the darkest water of the deep ocean where my kraken likes to dive down and see fellow sea monsters.

Fear. Anger. Worry. The darker my emotions, the darker my eyes.

“They’re doing it now.”

It’s my kraken side that makes my eyes shift colour with my mood. I can force them to remain one colour if I’m focused on it, and keeping my feelings regulated. But with her? With my omega, I’m as capable of controlling myself as a shark is with a baby seal.

I can’t tell her about my kraken yet. She’ll run. Or there’s a risk that she will, and when her heat is so painful, that’s practically a death sentence. Who knows what could happen to her. She was unconscious on the beach, after all.

“It’s a thing some immortals have.” I shrug. “Colour changes.”

She accepts this with a hint of understanding that I’m not telling her the whole truth. It takes a bit of urging, with my hands at her waist, and she collapses onto my chest, snuggling into my throat. It’s not even full skin-to-skin contact, because she’s still in my shirt. But it’s enough, because this is more than physical. It’s more than her heat, and the compatibility of my alpha and her omega nature.

I think we’re both just trying to come to terms with the shock of me blurting out that she’s my fated mate.

It’s a lot to feel yourself, but sharing it is even more. The pleasure keeps washing between us where we’re joined, and for long minutes, we’re just together. Joined.

And I’m still keeping a huge secret from her.

“What were you sorry about?” she says eventually, when both our breathing has evened out, and my knot has begun to soften.

It takes me a moment to realise what she means. “When I knotted you?”

“Yes.”

“For allowing your heat to get bad like that again. For letting you be far enough away from me that your body had withdrawal.”

She blinks, and tilts her head. “I don’t understand.”

“Heats are much more intense between fated mates—or so I’ve read,” I explain. “I didn’t think that not touching you for a few minutes would do any harm. I’m sorry.”

“But it didn’t hurt when I was making the nest.” She flushes with embarrassment at the recollection.

I nod, and think. “Perhaps because you were still in the room with me? And were using my things, holding them?”

She bites her lip, and I can tell that’s not a completely satisfying answer.

I swallow.

“It can also be emotional distance? You were talking about leaving. I wonder if your omega gave you a clear sign that you shouldn’t be considering that?”