Page 144 of Claimed

‘You should never have been placed there. I will answer for that.’

‘You’re answering now.’

His brows draw together. ‘How?’

‘By sitting here instead of commanding. By asking if I hate you. By looking like the answer matters.’

His throat works. ‘It does.’

This is the kind of honesty that knocks the weapons out of my hands before I can decide whether to use them. I touch his face, my heart leaping as his eyes close. Just once. Then open, and the silver in them is bright enough to hurt. ‘You fell for Eira,’ I whisper.

‘Yes.’

‘And you wanted Lyra.’

‘Yes.’

‘What happens now that they’re both me?’

His hand covers mine against his cheek. ‘I learn all of you.’

Such a simple answer. No throne or destiny or grand curse within it. No grand claim with blood dripping from the edges.

I learn all of you. He repeats the words into the bond. And I worship and fuck and crave and command along the way to making you my queen.

Gods. I break a little. ‘I was so scared you’d stop seeing Eira,’ I confess. ‘That once Lyra was real, you’d look at me and only see the mate. The cure. The thing that keeps you alive.’

His expression turns fierce. ‘You are not a thing.’

‘Maybe not to you.’

‘To no one who wants to continue breathing.’

A shaky laugh escapes me. ‘At least you’re consistent.’

His thumb brushes my knuckles. ‘I have not earned your trust fully, little hunter.’

I swallow the consolatory lie and speak the truth. ‘No.’

Fierce black, silver and red-rimmed eyes bore into mine. ‘I want it anyway.’

‘That’s very you.’

‘I want your fury too. Your mouth. Your knives and your appalling courage. Your grief, history and our future, if you choose to make one where I am permitted to stand near it.’

My chest hurts. ‘Fuck, I think I’m already in love with you,’ I say.

I already said something similar in his arms earlier when I was half-broken and blood-drunk. Saying it again while awake, while looking at him, feels different. More dangerous. But more mine.

His hand tightens around mine. ‘I know.’

My eyes narrow. ‘That is still a terrible response.’

‘It remains true.’

‘Try harder.’

A beat passes. Then his voice lowers, roughened by centuries and something painfully new. ‘I am not falling in love with you, Lyra Hannigan. Eira Cross. Little hunter… all the names you survived under and every name you may choose next. I am already irrevocably, horribly and wonderfully in love with you.’ The room blurs. I blink hard. He leans closer, forehead touching mine. ‘And I am terrified,’ he whispers.