Shadow's End (Elder Races #9)

Relief caused her muscles to turn shaky. He could listen to her. He could respond.

She laid a palm against his cheek. “Watch only me,” she whispered. “Never mind anything else that happens. Pay attention only to me.”

As people quietly slipped out of the room, the monster turned his head toward the movement and hissed.

Bel felt her eyebrows shoot up. He seemed to be protecting her? His behavior was beyond irrational. It was . . . it was . . .

When the answer finally came to her, she felt her world undergo an irrevocable shift.

It was Wyr mating behavior.

In an instant, everything she knew and read about Wyr mating flashed through her mind.

When the Wyr began to mate, they turned violent, irrational and possessive. Fascinated by the idea, she had once read everything she could about it.

Not that she had found much definitive information.

Wyr mated for life, but no one fully understood how or why it happened, not even the Wyr themselves. It was a complex occurrence involving sex, personality, emotion, timing and instinct.

She had read first-person accounts where Wyr had described falling in love, and even coping with a broken heart after a love affair had ended, yet they hadn’t experienced the mating frenzy.

As one Wyr female had said, she had fully believed she was in love, and thought she understood the full range of what that meant in terms of emotion, but it was only some years later, after she had mated, that she finally understood the depth of fulfillment, completion and even the edge of despair that mating gave to her.

If the mating Wyr weren’t handled with understanding and care, they could turn on lifelong friends and family. For even the gentlest among them, a time of mating could be unpredictable and dangerous.

Just as quickly as realization hit, Bel felt overcome by a huge tidal wave of reaction. Everything in her soul cried out in hunger and gladness, and reached greedily for the immense, precious gift that seemed to appear as if by magic in front of her.

If it had been another man, the possibility might have frightened or disturbed her, but this was Graydon.

This was everything she had ever wanted for herself, everything she could have hoped for. His warmth, his gentleness and constancy, and yes, this fierce, frightening creature as well. There was nothing cold or distant about him.

All other considerations fell away. The other people in the group, their lack of privacy, the challenge that lay before them, even the danger to her son.

This time, she put both hands to the monster’s face and turned him toward her.

He could have easily resisted her touch. Physically, he was much stronger than she was. But he obeyed the urging of her hands. The snarl that had distorted his lips eased.

Stroking his hair, she thought, I have never seen anything more beautiful than this.

“Come here,” she whispered. “Come here.”

The monster’s eyes narrowed. For a moment he looked uncertain and so filled with yearning, it caused a deep ache to fill her chest.

Watching her closely, again he obeyed. He bowed his head.

As he did, she stood on tiptoe and kissed that adorable, dangerous monster on his snarly, fang-filled mouth.

He froze. She could tell he wasn’t even breathing. Where she leaned against his chest, the powerful engine of his heart hammered too fast against her breasts.

Then the shape of his body and the contour of his mouth changed. His bruising, iron-hard hold on her gentled.

He gathered her close, slanted his mouth over hers and kissed her with such passionate tenderness, tears spilled out of the corners of her eyes and streaked down her cheeks. She kissed him in return, holding onto him fiercely. For that one moment nothing else existed.

When he eased away, he looked sober and self-contained. His expression was so unlike what she had expected, she shivered.

After a quick glance around the empty room, he muttered, “I lost control.”

“Yes, you did,” she told him gently. “Do you remember what happened?”

His mouth tightened. He passed a hand over her hair in a fleeting caress, then let her go and stepped away. “I remember enough. Soren was angry and aggressive. He came at us too close, too fast. He’s such a dangerous Djinn, it threw me—back to the manor house.” His dark gray eyes met hers briefly before he turned away. “I apologize. It won’t happen again.”

Thrown off-balance, she stared at his broad, powerful back. She thought she had understood what was happening, but this wasn’t anything like she imagined. After such ferocity, and a kiss so devastatingly tender she could still feel his lips on hers, he now acted almost as if he was embarrassed.

Could she have read the situation wrong? Had he really just been thrown back to the confrontation in Wembley?