“My name is Hope!”
“That’s what I said!” he yelled back then completely disappeared around the corner.
“Is he hard of hearing?” She directed the question back to me.
“Come on.” I gripped her hand and walked through the wall to the other side.
“Whoa.” She stumbled into me. “How come it worked when I was touching you?”
“Mates can’t do things alone,” I said in a pathetically hoarse voice. Like my body was elated, turned on by the fact. “Therefore, where you go, I go. Always.”
I dragged her down the hall toward the back entrance where I’d left my car.
“Wait.” She dug in her heels.
I stopped only because I was too drained to fight her anymore. I needed sex, and I needed it hours ago.
Or I was going to die.
Literally.
“What?” I barked.
“Mason called me Elf, not Hope.”
“Elf.” I spat the word and then rubbed my face with my free hand. What I wouldn’t do for at least a kiss — something to sustain the urges, the itching, the emptiness. “The word elf is synonymous with Hope. Before we labeled you as a race, you were called, ‘the ones who bring forth Hope.’ Ergo, the race of Hope.”
“But—
“If we do not get to Ethan’s house before I can control myself, I will kill you during sex. Is that what you want?” I tried to sound sane, but my voice had a shaking, hollow edge to it that I knew terrified the hell out of her.
“Y-yes.”
“You escape, I find you. We’re linked now.”
Though I had no idea how since we hadn’t joined, nor had there been mention of love or forever. But still.
Another jerky nod.
“One more thing,” I helped her into the passenger door of my white Lexus. “More than twenty-four hours without touching me — will only bring death.”
I ignored the twinge of guilt I felt at her pale expression.
She didn’t need to know it was my death I was concerned about — she didn’t need to know she would survive just fine — because I had a feeling that if she did leave — I would cease to exist while the royal elf continued on without me.
It was the worst feeling in the world.
Next to knowing—that my mate was a part of the race that held my shame.
Hope
I TRIED TO stop shaking.
I really did.
But I was in a car with an immortal, and I was still awake as in, I wasn’t dreaming or even having a nightmare. This was real. And he’d just basically told me if I didn’t have sex with him. I would die.
Was he lying?