Binding Ties The Sentinel Wars - Shannon K. Butcher Page 0,118
rose to touch the band. “You’re free.”
“How? I didn’t leave any room for a way out of our bond.”
“Except death,” he said. “I died for a minute or two before Ronan brought me back.”
That’s why she hadn’t been able to reach his power, why she hadn’t been able to reach him.
That moment had been the loneliest of her life. Truth be told, that feeling wasn’t much better now. The only consolation was that Joseph no longer had any way of knowing what she was thinking. She couldn’t be ashamed of her weakness.
“So, what does that mean?” she asked him.
“It means you’re off the hook. Eric and the kids are safe. Andreas and the rest of the Slayers are staying here until they can rebuild and reinforce the settlement. I told him that you’re free to go with him when they leave.”
He didn’t want her to be here anymore? Had she done something to upset him? Or was it just that he’d seen the person she really was and wanted nothing more to do with her?
No one else had ever connected with her like he had. If he didn’t like what he saw, then maybe there was something wrong with her.
“What about you? What about your pain?”
“You funneled so much power from me that I’ll be fine for a while.”
“Your lifemark?”
“Still has three leaves. The others fell when we separated.”
“So, you’re fine without me, huh? What about me? What about us?” she asked, her tone a little sharper than she’d intended.
His gaze dropped to the floor. “I can’t put you in danger like that ever again. I have no clue how the other men do it.”
That pissed her off.
She marched up to him and got in his face. “Really?” she asked. “We have one little bump in the road and you call it quits?”
“Little bump? I fucking died, Lyka. If we’d been together much longer—if the colors in the luceria had stopped moving—you could have died right along with me.”
“You only died a little. And Ronan patched you up. You can’t let that get in the way of doing what you were meant to do—and I don’t mean sitting behind a desk.”
“I’m needed here. Someone has to sit behind the desk.”
“Then take turns. You deserve to get out there and fight just as much as the next guy. And so do I.”
He frowned at her. “You want to fight?”
“Honey, I was born for this. I may still need some practice at the magic part, but I’ve never in my life felt as whole and satisfied as I did when I was working side by side with you.”
“You don’t have to do this,” he said. “Or you could take your time and see if you’re compatible with any of the other men.”
“Screw that. I’ve found my partner. You’re the man I want. You’re the man I love.”
His smile was slow to form, but once it did, it stretched all the way to his eyes. “Damn, I love hearing that. Say it again.”
“You first.”
“I love you, Lyka. I have for longer than I’m willing to admit.”
“I love you, too, Joseph, but it’s still pretty new, so don’t push it.” She grinned and reached up to pull the luceria off his neck. It opened easily, wrapping around her hand as if needing to get closer to her. “This is mine. And so are you.”
He kissed her until her head spun with desire. When she pulled away, she could feel the heat of the luceria back where it belonged, around her neck.
“And you’re mine,” he told her. “My life for yours, kitten. All of them.”
She placed her hand on his lifemark, feeling the slight pucker of the scar he now wore over his heart. “Forever, Joseph. Whatever comes our way, we face it together.”
Read on for a sneak peek at the final book in Shannon K. Butcher’s thrilling Edge series,
ROUGH EDGES
Available in August 2015 from Signet Eclipse
April 28
Dallas, Texas
After two weeks of sleepless nights, little food and endless hours spent working beside a man who lit up her libido like the surface of the sun, Bella Bayne wanted nothing more than a little quality time with her vibrator and a solid eight hours of shut-eye. In that order. Instead, what she got was the man of her fantasies—highly inappropriate ones at that—standing on her front porch, making her mouth water far more than the fragrant bags of Indian food he was toting.
“Thought you might be too tired to cook,” said Victor Temple, the most perfectly