Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 121389 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 486(@250wpm)___ 405(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121389 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 486(@250wpm)___ 405(@300wpm)
He’d have braked to a screeching stop if he hadn’t been so experienced a driver, his motions almost automatic. “What are you talking about?” he managed to get out past his thumping heart.
Instead of answering his question, Soleil said, “My parents died without warning, after twelve years with each other, years drenched in love.” Her voice trembled. “We don’t have the choice of knowing what the future holds—but we have a choice in how we live our present.
“I choose to live mine with you, regardless of what may come.” No hesitation in her, nothing but a depth of commitment that sang in their bond. “I don’t want to be safe, Ivan. I want to be with the man who is my mate because you are the greatest gift of my life, the one gift I never ever thought I’d find.”
A shaking breath. “The thing is, I’ve just realized I can’t steal your choice from you. That would make me as bad as the people who did it to me. So if you truly don’t want me, I’ll do what I can to break the bond—I don’t know if it’s possible, but I’ll try.
“But Ivan?” The barest touch of fur brushing inside him. “Don’t you dare do it with the idea that you’re saving me. Because you won’t be. It’s too late for that. It was too late the day we met.” No tremor now, nothing but passionate conviction.
“You’re my mate. Losing you would destroy me. I would rather have a single perfect day with you than a lifetime without you.” Emotion turned her voice rough, but she kept going. “Only ask me to break the bond if you don’t want me.”
He heard her swallow before she said, “Choose to live with me, Ivan. Choose to love with me without boundaries and shields, whether that’s for a single day, a year, or decades.”
For the second time, she’d stolen his words from him. Overwhelmed by the enormity of what she’d said, the choice she’d made, he just kept on driving—but because he understood her now, he made sure to keep his hand in hers, and to squeeze it to tell her that he was still there, still with her, just needed time to process.
Lifting their clasped hands, she kissed his knuckles, and they drove on in a silence heavy with the choice she’d asked him to make. The hardest thing anyone had ever asked of him … because it meant that when the abyss beckoned, he’d fall with her in his arms, taking her into the nightmare with him.
Chapter 44
Nzxt: On the scale from one to ten, what species of changeling is the most aggravating?
CC2: Oh, you trying to start a ruckus, Nzxt. I’m not getting involved.
Vixen79: That’s because you’re a panda, CC. Way more zen than the rest of us. I vote for wolves.
Nzxt: Disqualified. You’re just pissed at that last wolf boyfriend of yours. I say it’s cats. Ever tried to ignore a cat? They (a) either don’t care, or (b) refuse to be ignored. You can never win.
CC2: Aren’t you dating a cat? Tiger, right?
Vixen79: Ooooh, BUSTED! Disqualified for being a cheater pants! I think that means your species is the most aggravating!
—Forum of Wild Woman magazine
SOLEIL DIDN’T PRESSURE Ivan. She loved his stubborn head and she was beginning to learn that her mate was a man who needed to work things through on his own timeline. So she’d give him that. And she’d keep on loving him.
Of course, if he tried to reject her, she damn well wouldn’t let him get away with lying to either one of them. Didn’t he realize she could feel his devotion to her through their bond? It was a thing of steel and ice and flame-kissed silver. If he tried to tell her he didn’t love her, she’d call him a liar to his face.
Would she keep her word if he pushed it?
Yes.
It would splinter her into so many pieces that she’d never quite be right again, but she’d honor his choice as no one had honored hers. Even the thought hurt, but she took her own advice and didn’t borrow trouble, instead choosing to live in this beautiful today where she had her mate beside her and they walked in a lush forest on the way to their new home.
Her feet crunched on the leaf litter as she followed the tracking on her phone to the exact GPS coordinates Lucas had given them … to find herself under the shadow of the spreading branches of a massive sequoia.
She gasped at the sheer beauty of the tree’s arms, the way it allowed the sun to peek through in glorious filaments while providing an umbrella of shade and protection at the same time. Its trunk was a thing of age and time, so wide around that it would take ten or more people to encircle it.