in the simple, jealous pleasure of knowing what she looks like.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking at you.”
She smiles and lifts her chin. “And what do you see, Constantine?”
I tell her some things. Not everything. I tell her about the elegant curve between her forehead and the line of her nose. I tell her about the long arabesque that leads from her narrow chin to the wide back of her jaw, down the sinew of her neck. I don’t tell her that the finial is created by the bite marks left by her dead mate.
I tell her about the black brows that bend upward like the wings of a seabird, but I don’t tell her how they are so often pulled together in worry. I tell her about the high, full cheeks the color of burnished oak. I do not remind her of the scar she got trying to save a friend who didn’t know she needed saving. I tell her about the filigree of tiny curls making their escape to frame her forehead. I tell her about eyes the color of amber. I do not say that like amber, they hold inside them the memory of lost lives.
I tell her about the soft cushion of her lips lined in bronze fading to the mauve of an evening sky at the center. I do not tell her how it pulls me in like a bee to nectar.
Instead, I show her. My mouth rough against her, my tongue pressing through her death-dealing teeth to the silken hollows of her mouth. With my knee, I push her knees apart while my cotton-covered cock presses against the fold between her legs. She rocks against me. Cupping her ass, I pull her up, pushing deeper in my possessed dry humping until her eyes go hazy and she pushes me away hard.
I’ve seen that look before: the little half smile, the dreaminess around her eyes, but still focused. Her thumb traces the dark line of hair to my waistband. A small thing, the scrape of her finger on my abdomen, until her thumb presses under the elastic tightness, the back of her nail catching on the ridge of my crown.
She smiles at the involuntary jerking, doing it again as her fingers scrape along my back, sliding my boxers down, one hand rubbing along my cock, the other gliding along my ass. She bends her leg, her foot pushing down until I am naked, her knee against my inner thigh.
She writhes against me, a low hum vibrating deep in her chest. I put my hand on her sternum to capture it and respond with a growl of my own. Her nipple sweeps across the thin skin at the inside of my wrist, igniting a burn that travels up my arm, circling my heart. My hand flows down her breast, cupping underneath, my fingers outstretched. I catch her nipple between my lips, knowing now the perfect balance of pressure and gentleness until she groans and moves, flexing hips against me, leaning hard into the aching ridge. I pull away just enough so I can slide my cock not in but between. She clutches her legs together, forcing every hard needy inch of me closer. Her fingers clutch at my ass.
And when she is nearly there, when her mouth is soft, her breathing hard, and her eyes unfocused, I finally dive in, feeling the powerful ripples of her coming pull out my own.
I watch her sleep and know that what I want is beyond simple lust that can be slaked by a coming or two. This is marrow deep, and no matter how much seed I spill inside her, the need will still be there.
Forever.
Chapter 29
Evie
I know it bothers him.
I can see it in his eyes as I scrub all the places where he has kissed me, touched me, sucked on me, and entered me.
“It’s the only way I can do this, have a few moments that are just for us. Beyond this, there is no ‘me.’ No Evie. There is only the Alpha of the Great North Pack.”
What more can I tell him? He knows that we are fighting a losing battle here and that when I call for them to make a sacrifice, they must know absolutely that I have made every sacrifice myself.
It doesn’t seem to be enough.
I hand him the washcloth. He stares at it like it’s poisoned before looking up like an idea has just occurred to him.
“How about Elijah? He’s an Alpha and he’s