Moon Bound

Chapter29- Scents of Love

Goddess, I wanted to stay the night with him. The mate bond protested the mere idea of any sort of distance between us —but so did the rest of me. My rooms were just a short walk away, but even that felt too far.

I could sense he felt the same. We had surrendered to the need to be together and now we were held captive by our urges and instincts.

Even self-preservation wasn't enough to keep me away from him. He'd warned me he could be dangerous —even deadly to me. He'd been honest about his fears, showing me a glimpse of his darkness.

The beast —the Pricolici, that didn't frighten me.

The realization that I loved him... that scared the shit out of me.

Does he love me too?

I always assumed fated-mates were destined to fall in love, what I'd been witness to tonight told me differently. That male had shown no remorse when he'd rejected his mate.

The mate bond doesn't guarantee you fall in love.

My understanding of mating had been rose colored, like everything else in my world, by my limited understanding. Codrin told me he wanted me —that he desired me. He said he would burn this world down to have me, and I believed him because the mate bond made me feel the same, but that feeling of possession —of obsession, that was the bond lust.

It wasn't love...not really.

He said when he claimed me it would be body, soul, and blood...but he had already laid claim to my soul, it was irrevocably his. It's why I'd been so distraught when I thought he might reject me. The fabric of my soul had been slowly knitting itself to his.

Dear Goddess, this was not the time for self-discovery and reflection, but I couldn't push the intrusive thoughts back. Somehow the flood gates had opened. The ache in my heart for him paralyzed me. I was frozen as panic rose up inside me.

He'd understood long before I did that our path was set...there was no turning back. Even if we were on a collision course headed toward catastrophe and heartache our only option was to move forward and accept our fate.

Mine, I realized with a clarity I normally didn't experience when it came to Codrin, was to love him until I died. How long that would actually be seemed a little up in the air at the moment.

With an anguish I couldn't quite place, I knew the only thing I wanted more than to be his mate was for him to love me in return.

Somewhere in the back of my mind comprehension dawned that the intermittent heat cycle was probably responsible for all the crazy bouncing around in my head at the moment; but my stupid heart didn't care why I was all of the sudden an emotional mess. My chest squeezed so tight I could no longer breathe.

My wolf sensing my anxiety whined and pawed at me.

He was waiting for me to respond, but here I was stuck in my head, trying to sort rational thought from the emotional dumpster fire that was essentially PMS on steroids. Oh goddess! I think that for some reason being near him was accelerating the intermittent heat cycle's progression.

Fuuuuck—

"Willa? You're turning blue..."

Codrin was shaking me gently.

"Willa...! Breathe."

Slowly I came out of my head and his eyes came back into focus, currently they were their usual warm gold.

I grounded myself in them.

His brows were furrowed as he brought his hands up to cup my cheeks. His concern written all over his face.