“Yes, sir, colonel…ah…alpha.” Edgar puffed into his insect form and zipped from the space.
“Edgar got in by knocking,” I said, heat pooling in my middle. Power still pounded in my chest, filled the air, sizzled through my blood and bones.
Mate.
I wanted to give him his due. I was ready to merge our beasts.
Mate.
I didn’t know what any of that meant, but the need was there, pulsing within me, insistent.
“I was giving orders,” Austin said, and I could barely focus on the words. “He ignored them. His first inclination was to get to your side. He’s nuts, but he’s got his heart in the right place. I won’t fault him for it.”
And then he unwrapped me, blood trickling down his cut chest, and all I could do was stand there, buzzing. Aching. Desperate for him. Wanting his arms around me, his body inside mine, his heart beating in my chest.
Click.
It felt like a giant’s hand punched through my chest, grabbed my very center—my life’s essence—and squeezed.
Suddenly I couldn’t breathe. I clutched my chest, and his heart gave one hard throb before settling into mine, our link deeper than my connection to Ivy House. Stronger than the roots of a mighty oak. Permanent.
MATE!
The world shifted, but it didn’t go anywhere. Everything changed, but nothing did.
His eyes moved over me for a beat, and then suddenly I was in his arms and he was hurriedly walking through the halls. The basajaun froze when we neared him, a head in each of his huge hands, doing some sort of end-zone dance.
Cyra looked up from a pile of char, and I did not want to know what that had been. This crew was getting out of hand.
I’d deal with them later.
“What’s happening?” But I didn’t need to ask. I already knew.
Twenty-Two
Mate. Mate. Mate. Mate. Mate.
It was a pulse within me. It was an assurance. My beast had finally accepted Austin. And so had I.
“I lo—”
“No,” he growled, reaching the end of the tunnel and cutting across the foyer. A man in a red coat paused as we passed, his eyes widening, clearly responding to a naked and bleeding man carrying a woman through the hallway like Tarzan. “Not here.”
I tightened my hold around his neck and ran my lips down the shell of his ear. “I can’t wait much longer.”
“I know. I…” He shook his head, his breathing ragged. “Almost to our room. I didn’t want us to claim each other in enemy territory, but…”
“It’s happening.”
“Yes,” he growled, and he staggered into the wall, his knees nearly giving out.
I sucked in the fevered skin of his neck. “I lo—”
“No! Not here. Not yet, baby. Please. Not yet.”
“Why not yet?” My voice was thick and sultry. “You saved me. You gave a blood price. You appeased the beast.” I sucked in his earlobe. “I want to fu—”
“No, no, no—” He staggered again, crushing me to his chest, nearly going down. “I’m not going to make it,” he murmured, barely loud enough to hear.
I laughed, emotion gushing through me. Power. Desire.
“Oh God,” Austin breathed, reaching our front door and kicking it open. On the other side, he kicked it closed again. He pushed off the frame, his hand beneath my shirt, holding me up, cradling me. Panting, he settled next to it. “Do the ward. Hurry.”
Passion built. Expectation. My core throbbed, and pleasure unfurled from every point of contact between us, driving me to the brink.
Breathing heavily, barely able to focus, I laid the ward. My people could come in but no one else.
“Good,” I said, pulling his face up so I could suck in his bottom lip.
He groaned and staggered toward our room, pushing it closed with his backside and then ripping at my clothes, tearing off my shirt and shoving down my jeans and panties.
“Now,” he said, stilling for a moment, his eyes dazed and soaked with feeling and passion. His presence inside my chest was more comforting now than it had ever been.
This felt right. What was happening felt right.
“I love you, Austin,” I said, and tears came to my eyes. “I trust you. I cherish you. My heart is safe in your hands. The other Ivy House heirs chose men who wanted to be more powerful. Men who wanted their woman to stoop lower so that they could stand taller. But you’ve always tried to build me up. Even when I don’t feel I need it, you put me above yourself. I’m lucky to have you. I’ve always been lucky to have you. I love you.”
He pulled me to him with a hand at the back of my neck, his kiss hard and insistent. When he let up, I had to catch my breath.
“I love you too,” he said. “It’s been a long road for me, finding you. Finding my mate. But it was worth it, because I appreciate you so much more. I appreciate what you mean to my life. You’re the light in my darkness. You’re my hope in a bleak world. You’re the reason I strive to reach my true potential. You make me a better man, Jacinta Ironheart. With you in my life, there is nothing holding me back.”