His forehead touched mine. “Not to listen to our feelings, but to listen to the truth.”
“What’s truth?” Frustration welled up within me. “I feel like my entire life I’ve been living a lie, as cliché as that sounds, and now I’m supposed to blindly trust. Why? Give me one reason. Why?”
“Because…” It was as if a switch of light turned on Mason’s face as he almost glimmered before me. “The Creator is good, and He allows us… the great privilege… of a choice.”
Instantly ashamed, I looked away. “Would you have chosen this though? This life? You were sick as a boy. That’s why they gave you my blood, angel blood. Would you have chosen differently, Mason? Given your…” I knew it was a touchy subject, but I was his mate. If we couldn’t talk about it, then we couldn’t be together. “…given your first mate dying? The life of solitude you lived?”
“Listen—” Mason almost growled the word out., “—very carefully,” He cupped my face with both hands, the warmth of his palms seeping into my skin. “There is nothing I would do different. There is no better life in existence than life in your arms, than life…” He pressed a hot palm to my chest. “…shared with this heart.”
I didn’t realize I was crying until his tongue was on my cheek again.
And then the rest of my clothes were discarded as his tongue sought every other pleasure it could find, while I bucked beneath each touch like he was searing me, marking me more and more, and when he bit into my thigh, all I saw was light, goodness…
Us.
The tether between us pulled tight, strengthened.
“You are my mate, made for me, since the beginning.”
“Yes,” I agreed as our bodies moved together, as he took me on another wave of pleasure, as I felt his thickness inside of me, reminding me, that I wasn’t alone anymore.
That I had a partner.
That I wasn’t abandoned.
Betrayed.
I was his.
I was an us.
I soared with him to higher heights and swore then and there that I would die to protect the wolf I married. I would die to protect the heart he carried inside his chest, the one that pumped so valiantly for his people, for me, for humans.
I would die.
With no regrets.
And I fell asleep, with a smile on my lips.
MASON
It was time.
I felt it in my bones like I had when I was a lad.
The same hunger that forced me to crawl on my hands and knees to the window and beg The Creator to make me the Great Wolf.
He’d granted my wish.
It had dire consequences.
I still had no idea what my mate was capable of, and yet, I knew it would be all right. I just didn’t know how. I trusted the fact that I had the knowledge of the stars in my make-up — the way that Gadreel had left it. I just wished I knew how to access all the information in a way that would help me regain the trust and reverence of my people.
I knew I had my warriors.
But I did not have the rest of the people.
The minute I turned against my true nature was the minute they’d called me weak. It had nearly killed me.