Ruins of Chaos (Legacy of the Nine Realms #3) - Amelia Hutchins Page 0,135

the same woman who fought us, and I know you smelled it on her in that cave as you ate us to show Aden that we belonged to you. Lennox knew, but you loved her. We are merely passengers, as Aria calls us, and we crave your happiness. Aria, and I, Lennox’s true mate, were not born yet, so he allowed you your happiness for a time. You think you know everything because you’re ancient and shit. Our kind, we know, and sense when our mate is coming, and we’re very aware of each other once we are close enough to be felt. You sensed us by the smell of our womb, did you not? You were drawn to Aria because Lennox sensed us there. You never felt that way for Liliana because your human heart loved her, but your beast didn’t care either way. He never mourned her. He mourned your pain. Lennox strikes hard and fast when you are in pain, the same as I do when Aria is in a similar situation. Ask Dimitri, who now has no heart since he revealed it was filled with darkness. Lennox didn’t mourn your son, either. Did he? You fought with him because he didn’t rise for the death, but he rose for the vengeance because you, his host, felt pain and anguish like you never had before.”

“Sven was our son!” Knox growled, grinding his cock against my body, his anger intensifying. Yet Ember didn’t relent.

“Maybe yours, Knox,” she whispered, wrapping our legs around him, cradling his growing cock against our arousal. “He wasn’t my mate’s son. I can feel Lennox itching to breed me, and he craves me as much as you crave my host. You fight this because if you don’t, you will forget your reason for fighting this war. Aria understands, and she allows you to hurt her so that, she too, remembers why she is fighting against your domination. She craves you as you crave her, stupid. She bends for you and holds you against her at night to feel you. You feel her too. Admit it to me. Admit that you want her for more than just that which lies between her thighs.”

Knox swallowed hard as his eyes slid back to Caribbean blue. “I want her, Ember. I want to hear her screams as I stretch her body full of my arousal. I enjoy her mind and body. She has a beautiful soul that is pure and untainted, but she is not who I love. I loved my wife with everything I had, and when Aria’s people took her away, they ripped my bleeding heart from my chest, replacing it with stone. I will marry your host today, and she will become my wife. You and Lennox may like each other, but he won’t take you or Aria unless I agree that you will become more, which won’t ever happen. You don’t understand what drives us and what makes us evolve. You’re nothing more than a monster hiding in pretty flesh that doesn’t understand how the world around us works. I am not your mate. Lennox is not your mate, Ember. If that were true, you’d already carry my babe in your belly. You’d open that womb because he’d have forced you to give it to him, but he hasn’t forced you to do anything, has he? You offer Lennox your throat, and he kisses it, but he hasn’t accepted it, and that is something that mates cannot ignore.”

“I’m young, and my host has been through hell because of whom and what she is. You put her through hell, and he knows she is hurting. Mates sense the other and know their pain. I sense his unease, his need to take what I offer him, but he gives us space where it is needed and knows that he must be gentle when he takes us. He isn’t a gentle beast. Lennox also knows you will fight what is happening between us. Brander was right. There are four of us in this relationship, which is why we’re all at war. You punish a girl for the crimes of her bloodline, but you see her fighting them too. You crave the woman she is to become. You are marrying her because of who she is and because you need to know that she can never give another what you want from her. You felt pain and anger when she said she would find someone to love her.