Adea
Being this close to him, I could make out the metal that bulged through his shirt. I lifted my gaze back to his eyes and he smirked at me. My cheeks flushed, I’d been caught looking. I flinched when he reached out for me. If he saw it, he pretend not to notice and I gulped as his hand wrapped around my neck.
Flashes of his hand on Pan flit through my mind and I tried not to tense up. It’ll look like I’m afraid of him and I don’t want him to think that, no, I don’t want him to know. Only a few minutes ago, this hand had torn through flesh and taken a life.
I try to ignore the small voice that whispers. It tells me he may have just killed a man but his grip on my neck is gentle. His fingers stop on my mark, anger flashes there but it’s gone as quick as it came.
“I’ve always loved your neck,” Shane murmured as his thumb ran up and down the sensitive flesh. I was sensitive and my eyes fluttered. I hated how easily my body bowed to him and his touch.
“Once upon a time, I stopped Max from marking you. Now that I look back on it, I was a fool. Had I marked you then, you would have been mine from the start. Had I taken you then, would you have pups now?” Shane asked.
My eyes were wide as I stared at him. I may be on the table but Shane still towered over me. His neck was bent as he stared down at me. His eyes were on my lips and I fought the urge to lick them.
“I wouldn’t have had to lose you and none of this would have happened. If I had just listened to Max, it would be my mark on your neck and not his. Things would have been so different,” he murmured.
His eyes were glazed and I knew he was lost in this image he had in his head. How deep did this delusion run? Was Shane really the crazy one or had I missed something? I remember being so dead set against finding my mate. I didn’t want to leave Half Moon. The thought of changing because I met some destined man scared me.
“Why didn’t you?” I asked. “Mark me?”
My voice was quiet and a little more breathy than I would have liked. Part of me wanted to keep him talking. If he was talking, his mind would be focused on what he was saying and not on doing things to me.
Part of me asked because I wanted to know. I didn’t know how serious he was that day in the gym when he touched my neck. I just remembered being afraid and begging him not to. At the time, I thought I was still too young to be mated.
“At the time, it was Max’s idea. I wanted to mark you just as bad but I couldn’t do it. Back then, I need you to want it as much as I did. I wanted you to ask me. I wanted to make you my Chosen Mate as soon as I became Alpha. I’d always wanted to. I wanted to mark you as my mate and as my Luna, so I convinced Max to wait.”
“Oh,” I said. What else could I say? I had no thoughts of finding a partner or of the future. My focus had been on my job, on school, and on spending time with Mavy and Gabe. How was I supposed to know the inner thoughts of a male teenage heir?
“Yeah,” Shane shrugged. “You were so close to becoming my chosen mate then. Max had insisted you would find your mate at the Crescent Ball but I’d been stubborn and blinded by what I wanted. Had I done what Max suggested, we never would have lost you and you never would have left.”
“I’d finished dancing with that bimbo when I came for you,” Shane started. His hand was on his chest as he stared off distantly. “It felt as if my heart was being ripped out of my chest when I found the two of you looking at each other. As if the stars had aligned, and the Goddess had blessed your union and guided the two of you to that one moment,” Shane spat.
What was I supposed to do? According to the plan, the right course of action would have been to reach out and touch him, comfort him but I couldn’t. I wasn’t sure how far I could go to placate him. So instead, I bunched my fingers together and kept my hands to myself.
“I was so angry that night. I watched as you followed him out into the courtyard. How do you think I felt when I found you, my forever in the arms of some other dude?” He asked. “I watched you two together. I hadn’t been able to move. I was seething. You had been mine, you had always been mine.”
“He’s my mate. What did you think was going to happen?” I asked incredulously. “That I’d-”
“I’d hoped you would have rejected him!” Shane yelled. “I hoped that for once since I’d known you and made it clear that you were the reason I woke up in the morning that you would have chosen me.”
When I flinched back, he closed his eyes and inhaled violently as he fought for composure. The raw emotion coming from Shane had my jaw practically on the floor. Who was this man and when did these feelings fester? How long had he felt this way?
His hands slid up my legs and gripped my thighs pulling me from my thoughts. I forced myself to keep my legs relaxed. The last thing I wanted was to clench my thighs together and have him mistake it for lust.