How did one answer such a question when he lived and breathed and everything looked the same, but his entire world had just been turned upside-down?
“Blaise, there’s one other thing that Saint wanted you know…”
An hour later, he stood to leave Isi’s room and paused as sensation flooded him. He closed his eyes briefly.
“Blaise? Are you all right?” Isi asked. He glanced at the door, obviously sensing, like Blaise did, who waited for him in the hallway.
“Yes. Of course. Thank you for all you’ve done, Isi.”
He walked out of the room and shut the door behind him. She stood against the opposite wall of the corridor. She wore a caramel-colored nightgown and matching robe, the sash tied at her waist. Her hair spilled around her shoulders. His nostrils flared as he inhaled her sublime scent.
The scent of his mate.
Their gazes remained locked as she stepped closer. She removed the dark brown glove from her right hand. He held his breath as she unfastened one button on his shirt and slid her naked hand into the opening, caressing his abdomen, skin to skin. He gritted his teeth against a rush of raw emotion and sensation.
“You should not have avoided me,” she whispered, her stare blazing and fierce. “You should not have made me forget all those times we were together.”
He started beneath her magical touch.
“How did you know?” he asked roughly.
“Usan told me. Not specifically, but he transmitted a lot of information to me with his touch. It didn’t really come to me until now, seeing you standing there. Why?” she asked, anger now flavoring her tone. “How could you have made love to me all those times, and forced me to forget you? It was killing me, to have you ripped away from me time and again.”
He tightened his muscles against the pain. “One night, you came to me when I hadn’t taken nourishment. You were so powerful…so beautiful. I couldn’t resist you. It was a sheer impossibility, given my nature.”
“I’m not asking you why you first tasted my blood. I’m not asking you why you first made love to me. I have that part figured out, maybe better than you. I’m asking how you could possibly justify making me forget that we’d been lovers.”
The silence rang in his ears. She continued to stroke him. His body thrilled to her touch, making it difficult to concentrate.
“I didn’t want you to be horrified by having lain with me. I didn’t want you to regret, having given yourself to an animal again and again.”
“You were always a man when you made love to me. And if you refer to your shape-shifting nature, your wolf-self, Royal, was more of a gentleman to me than you were, Blaise.”
He blinked in shock. “Usan told you about my ability to shift, as well?”
She arched her brows in a dark challenge. “I am not Elysse.”
“No. There is no comparison. Not even close,” he admitted quietly, the truth of the words filling him with wonder. He spread his hand over her abdomen. She was so small, his fingers stretched from the top of her mons all the way to just below a thrusting breast. Her heartbeat throbbed into his palm. A feral sense of possession tore through him. The sensation of his incisors elongating coincided with the tug of his cock. “You carry my child. You are my mate.”
“Do you think you’re telling me something I don’t know?”
Her nostrils flared at that. His restraint broke. He lifted her against him and seized her mouth, ravishing her, consuming her singular texture and flavor.
“I have missed you,” he said in a choked voice as he moved his lips over her fragrant neck. “I felt broken, not being able to touch you.”
“Then there is a simple answer. You should never leave me again.” She raked her nails against his scalp, causing him to shudder in pleasure.
He swung her lower body into his arms. He didn’t take his eyes off her luminous face once as he stalked through the corridors of Sanctuary, carrying her. He didn’t want to risk her disappearing if he glanced away for a second. She was so beautiful, a breathing miracle.
She was his.
The moment Blaise cleared the door to his quarters, Isabel pushed down with her legs, letting him know she wanted to stand. She immediately pressed her body against his and reached for the buttons on his shirt. She tore apart the fabric and pressed her face against smooth, taut skin covering rippling muscle.
“I don’t…know…why,” she said in between pressing kisses just below his nipple line. “But I always want to feel you fully pressed against me. I wonder if the hunger for it will ever ease?”
His fingers delved into her hair. He held her scalp against him as she kissed and licked and bit gently—a starved waif let loose in the candy store.
“I used to restrain myself from embracing you fully,” he said from above, his gruff, accented voice vibrating with feeling. “I would not let you fully hold me either, until that night on the silk.”