Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 77692 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77692 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
I slowly open my eyes then, no use in pretending any longer that I’m sleeping. And his pitch-black eyes, endless, bottomless, and filled with an emotion so soft and tender it takes me a moment to stop being amazed that it’s fixed on me.
“Did you dream?” he asks low.
“I can’t remember if I did,” I say. “Why? Were you hoping I would dream about you?”
“Yes,” he answers, turning my jest into a sudden truth. “It would only be right.”
“Why’s that?”
“You have to catch up to the amount of times I’ve dreamed of you.”
I shake my head. “No, you dreamed of anyone being your mate. Not me.”
“It could only have ever been you, though. Can’t you see that yet?”
“Why me? Why are you certain I am your mate?”
“Because my fate was read days after my birth, and you were exactly what was foretold. Because the moment I stilled long enough to truly look at you in that hallway, I knew instantly who and what you were to me. It wrapped around my heart with a certainty that I cannot and would never deny. You are my mate. You are the one I have dreamed of all my life. I can show you.”
My brows furrow. “How?”
“Are you ready?”
“For?”
The word is followed by a gasp when a vision I cannot explain begins playing out in my mind. A pink sky I have never seen. A stone palace whose structure I want to look at longer than the few seconds I get to see it before I’m lying on the bank of a slowly moving river. The water is warm against fingertips that aren’t my own, but Halun’s.
“How is this possible?” I marvel.
“Because I can show my mate my memories,” he replies. I can hear the humor in his voice though when he says, “If you needed further proof that you are my mate, I wouldn’t be able to do this with you if you weren’t.”
“Show me more,” I demand.
“After this.”
I open my mouth to ask what he means, but then a longing, so deep and painful like nothing I’ve ever known, fills me. His longing … for me. He wishes his mate were there with him. That I could be swimming beside him. That he could have had me there to show me the way the pink clouds were gathering, clearly indicating a storm was coming … Although, there already seems to be lightning flashing in the clouds, even though that’s impossible. He yearns for me to be there so he can make love to me in the rain. He hopes to one day whisper sweet words in my ears and hear my laughter in his. He longs for me; in a way I have only ever yearned for someone I knew I could never have again. He longs for me in a way that nothing less than having me in his arms could quell.
“Do you understand now, Luna?”
“I understand and don’t understand so much.”
“Understand that you are mine.” When I open my mouth to contradict him, he brings his finger to my lips. “You are, whether you acknowledge it or not. Understand I would do any and everything for you. I would tear down civilizations if you asked me to. I would build you your own palace with my own hands if you asked. I would give you pleasure until you felt you could barely move if you would only let me. Being my mate doesn’t mean that I want the world from you, but that I want to give you the world.”
“Anything I want?”
My lips move against the finger he still has there when I speak. His eyes blaze as he trails his finger down to my jaw. It’s a heady feeling to know that the excitement I see in his gaze isn’t from what he wants from me, but that he wants me to want something from him.
“Anything,” he confirms. “Just ask.”
“A kiss.”
One finger becomes his hand cupping my jaw as he brings his face closer to mine. His lips meet mine, and although it was only days ago that we shared our first kiss, I quickly press my mouth harder to his to familiarize myself with the contours of his lips again. They are perfect just like the last time. Softer than last time, though, without the hatred—but was it really?—being the fuel for our kiss.
My mind tells me this is wrong. That he’s my enemy, and I cannot let him be this close to me. Cannot be feeling all the emotions rushing through me right now for him. The desire, the want. And underneath it all, harder to admit than anything else, the need. But when I feel the tip of his tongue come to my lips, seeking entry, I push my mind away, and listen to my body. And my heart. The part of me that I am most terrified to want him at all.