Changed by Fire (Phoenix Rising #6) - Harper Wylde Page 0,24
my shoulders, stared up at him, and refused to look away. “I know it was hard at first, but they’ve accepted you—they love you, just like I do.” It was too close to begging, and I bit my tongue against the flow of words that wanted to escape. “If I waited—if we waited until after this war ends, whenever that may be, would you mate with us then? Tell me exactly what has to happen, what we have to do, before you’ll mate with us.”
Ciarán let out a growl, his mask falling away as he pushed at his hair. “I don’t know, Rini. It’s not a specific thing or a specific time. Why do we even need the ceremony? It’s just mumbo jumbo. Aren’t you happy?”
I gaped at him. “Of course I’m happy! But I want to be mated to you. To you, Donovan, Cayden, and Barrett. It’s what I’ve always wanted.”
Ciarán scowled. “If it’s what you always wanted then why did you wait? You know those three would have done the ceremony the minute you were of age. You asked them again and again to wait, to understand. Yet suddenly it’s urgent that we have the ceremony!”
My hands curled into fists as something inside me squeezed tightly. “That was different. Part of me knew something was missing. Knew you were missing. And it’s a damn good thing too, since if I had actually gone through with it, then you never would have gotten a shot!” I spat the words at him in challenge, watching the way his eyes flared in response. He knew I was being literal—if the mating had been sealed, another person couldn’t be added to it. The metaphysical bond wouldn’t allow it.
Ciarán stepped forward, backing me into the wall behind me with every step as he caged me in. “You’re my mate. No ceremony is going to change that.”
I lifted my chin, even as his body pressed into mine. “Then claim me. Claim us.” The words were too close to a plea for my own comfort, but I couldn’t resist them. I wanted, needed, for him to claim us. For him to love me with the same fervency I loved him.
“Rini…” Ciarán’s eyes were bright, the green nearly glowing. His hand fisted in my hair as his mouth pressed to mine, devouring me with a sweep of his tongue and a nip of his teeth. I kissed him back, pushing my feelings into it. I could almost taste his need for me on his tongue. He pulled away, leaning his forehead against mine with a sigh. “I can’t mate with you.”
I froze, my breath stalling in my lungs. “What?” The word was a whisper, so low that I could barely hear it, but he must have read it on my lips.
“I can’t mate with you,” he repeated, his lips brushing against mine as he uttered the statement that pierced my soul, even my Sun Bear was huffing in shock. “Not yet. We have a duty to these people, we have a duty to see this through.”
“A duty?” I pushed him away, and he didn’t fight against my hands. I crossed my arms over my abdomen, fighting to hold the pain inside. “What about your duty to us… to me?”
“You don’t understand,” Ciarán insisted, tugging at his hair. “You’ve grown up so differently…” Pain rushed through me again, but anger tempered it now—a radiating fury that had my Sun Bear growling and fighting through the agony. Of course. I should have realized it. He was a mythological. I knew it was coming, I’d known it from the beginning. No mythological had mated an animal shifter in recent history—none would stoop that low. Especially not a shifter as powerful as Ciarán. I’d thought he was different, that the power hadn’t gone to his head, that we were fighting for the same thing. He was such a good actor—not that I should be surprised, it’d been his way of life for so many years he could barely remember another way.
“No, I understand. It’s your duty, after all.” I lifted my chin, thanking any god who would listen that fury kept my eyes dry. I pulled on a mask of my own, the same one Ciarán had helped me perfect. “I get it.” He couldn’t even tell me when he’d be ready to mate—not when he was older, not when the danger passed. There was no reason for him not to claim me except that I was who I was.