“But you don’t want me.” I shrugged. “Ergo,” I held out one hand. “Die of heat stroke.” I held out my other hand. “Or take off my ugly sweater.” I shrugged. “Seemed like the only choice I’ve been given since being trapped in here.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said quickly. “If I want you or if I despise every inch of you.” With a snarl, a faraway look passed across his perfect features, he was sweating more now, heavily, and I wished it looked horrible on him, but somehow it enhanced every single muscle on his body. “We cannot leave this room unless I make you my mate. The doors unlock the minute I claim you.”
I gulped. “That sounds….” Primitive. Exciting. Horrible.
“Elf.” He spat the name. “I would rather die than mate with one of your kind.”
“I’m not an elf or whatever you call it.” I waved my hand in the air. “So I’d appreciate it if you’d stop looking at me like I singlehandedly destroyed the entire universe by merely existing.”
Alex sucked in a breath, and his eyes roamed over me again. He leaned forward and then jerked away as his eyes flashed with something familiar. My chest flipped because of the way he had looked at me, as if he’d seen me before and my body physically responded to him like it knew him. Maybe it was a siren thing.
I, however, was still ready to die, and it seemed the hotter I became, the more irritated Alex got. It didn’t help that he smelled like fresh rain, that my brain had me completely convinced that if I just touched his skin, it would soothe me.
Which was stupid.
I mean he was just as hot.
Physically.
In every way.
I exhaled slowly and swiped his phone before he could stop me, which meant he probably let me since he didn’t seem to be the type who had slow reflexes. I turned off his heavy metal rocker music or whatever the heck it was and put on classical music.
“I’ve entered into Hell,” he muttered to himself. “And violins shall escort me there. Funeral music, how poetic.”
“You should like this music, after all, weren’t you born before any of it was created?” I joked. “You are old.”
That pissed him off.
Nostrils flaring, he sat up on his knees “Did you just call me… old? Me?”
A little thrill of triumph traveled along my nerve endings as I inclined my head in query. “Is there anyone else in the room?”
“That’s it.” He whispered the words almost too low for me to hear. I’d crossed some sort of invisible line I hadn’t even known existed.
He stalked me like I was his prey. I scrambled away from him, but he didn’t stop until my back touched one of the walls, and he was a mere inch from me.
My body swayed toward him. I couldn’t help it.
“By God, you’ll not deny me anymore, human.”
A buzzing filled my ears as my body hummed.
“Bow.”
Alex
SHE WAS DEFIANT.
I hated defiance.
She reminded me of myself, which is the last thing I needed to be reminded of. The fact that many years ago I wore that exact same expression on my face for all the world to see, a hard mask of impenetrable strength just daring the world to try and take me down.
It was a lonely look.
Worn by those who had nobody but themselves.
And it made me feel.
Oh, I felt, daily, but this type of feeling wasn’t the typical lust I was used to. It was protective in nature.
It was familiar.
I longed for it.
And hated her because of it.
What made matters worse, she was a direct descendent of the very creatures that so long ago, I’d failed to protect. Memories were fuzzy, they always were when I thought upon that time in my life, like someone had ripped away every important piece of information except for the main story. They had died. And it was my fault.
How, I wondered, would she react if she knew that I alone was responsible for the death of an entire race because I was in bed between the thighs of a woman who I later cursed to a slow painful death by sexual disease?
Impossible.
She was impossible.
Her presence. Was an impossibility. And yet there she stood, a mere inch from me and if I looked close enough her skin was almost translucent with the remnants, small pieces of blue blood that were hidden within her human DNA.
Of course, she didn’t know.
She would die without me.
Literally cook from the inside out, because the mating process started the minute the door sealed us in. Stupidly, I’d walked into that room and released my scent into the air to choose.
And — unfortunately for both of us — I’d chosen her.
I was selfish. Not so selfish that I would allow myself or her to die just because I’d rather turn her over my knee.
I let out a low groan. The vision too erotic for someone so weak, she’d probably bruise from a mere pat on the ass.
The last thing I needed was someone who would fear sex.
And I had a sinking feeling she would fear anything sexual from me, she would shy away, defy me, deny me my rights as a siren because of her damn pride, not realizing that the only way to stay strong was to take that strength from my mate.
“I said,” I repeated the word. “Bow.”
“No.” She blinked her large eyes up at me. “I… can’t.”
“You will.”
“I won’t.”
“Human—“
“I’m a human now? Not an elf?”