male until she was his and he had claimed her.
Fight as he might, he wasn’t sure he would be able to resist the allure of her blood and the call of the bond.
He wasn’t sure it was wise to deny it.
It was dangerous enough for normal elves to ignore the mating instinct, but for an elf like him it was a thousand times worse. The darkness he had courted strengthened his need to claim her, constantly snarled and writhed inside him, an oily tide that smothered his more sensible side. Even now, mere minutes after he had vowed to never take her blood, he couldn’t stop thinking about sinking his fangs into her delicate flesh to mark her and claim her.
Maybe it was better he walked away right now and let her go. He didn’t want to hurt her, and he feared he would end up doing just that if he remained near her. He would fight his instincts, but he was no fool. He was soul-deep aware there would come a moment when he wasn’t strong enough to hold them back, when the temptation was too great.
She would never forgive him if he crossed that line.
He went to take a step back.
Her soft words stopped him in his tracks.
“We can just see where things go. It’s not a definite no… but I need time… I need to know these feelings I have are real and so are yours.”
He blinked and met her gaze, relaxed a little as he stared into her eyes, fascinated by the fire that flickered against the gold of her irises, made to look all the brighter by the reddish-brown makeup that surrounded her eyes. The tension that had been filling him melted away as her words ran around his head and seeped deep into his soul, soothing the darkness, calming it until he no longer felt a desperate need to stake a claim on her.
Resolve filled him instead, determination to take this chance she had given him and prove to her that the attraction they felt, and the emotions steadily growing inside them, were real.
“Can you give me that?” she whispered, her eyes darting between his, searching them.
He nodded. “I’ll give you all the time you need and I’ll do my best to ignore my instincts and keep them under control, but… if they get too much… I might have to leave for a while.”
And it would kill him.
“Oh,” she murmured, her eyebrows rising high on her forehead, her eyes filling with a soft look of surprise, and he fancied it was tinged with disappointment, imagined her wanting him to stay at her side no matter what.
Hoped she would miss him like crazy if he had to leave her, just as he would miss her.
A strange chirruping sound cut through the tense silence and Mackenzie stiffened, her shoulders going rigid just as they had been relaxing and she had looked on the verge of saying something.
Something he had hoped would be a request for him to remain with her no matter what.
She fished her phone from the pocket of her burgundy leathers and scowled at it, and then at him. “It’s a message. From Syn. She says you threatened her.”
Fire lit her irises.
Hartt crossed the room in a handful of strides, snatched the device from her and glared at the screen. “I did not. She threatened me. How do I make it tell her that?”
He wanted to growl when Mackenzie snatched the phone back and tucked it to her chest. Her mouth flapped open and for a moment he thought she would accuse him of lying, would side with her friend over him, but then she snapped it closed and frowned.
She pulled the phone away from her chest and sighed as she glanced at the screen. “It does sound like her. She was a little upset, and with good reason.”
“Because I hurt you. I am sorry, Mackenzie. I truly am. I thought I needed time to get my head straight and that is the only reason I didn’t stop you from leaving. Only it turned out my head was on straight all along. I realised that when I returned to the guild.” He reached for her hand, wanted to sigh as she let him take hold of it and didn’t reject him.
“You didn’t go back to Underworld?” Her golden eyes darted between his again.
He shook his head. “There was nothing for me there. Harbin made me realise what I was looking for wasn’t at the