Lahat ng Kabanata ng The Hybrid Mate : Kabanata 151 - Kabanata 160

Now Bella knew that it was Sarah, even if she didn't want it to be. Reliving the past was excruciating, but hindsight was powerful. There was always someone else watching her, guiding her in ways her young mind was too chaotic and self-centered to be aware of.There was no time to marvel at this new revelation. Jeff's debut was coming up soon. She watched him from a bird's eye view as he stalked her and waited for the perfect opportunity to approach her during her shift at the strip club she had been waiting tables at to pay her way through school. There were signs now, big neon ones, and she couldn't understand how she had missed them before. She wanted to scream at her younger self not to buy into Jeff's honeyed words and his obvious lies, but as she soon learned, there was no changing the past, only learning from it.Sometimes learning was painful. She watched as she confided in Jeff about her teenage habit of cutting and wretched at the way he twisted and manipulated it

Bella watched. “We don't have to do this if you're uncomfortable.” Victor's reassurance was directed at Darian rather than her. His hand rested on Darian's shoulder, and she recognized the same shift in demeanor he had shown when taking care of her. There wasn't a hint of mockery or insincerity in his offer. They were in his dungeon room again, which they had both mystifyingly agreed upon. Bella was beginning to realize that the dungeon's sterile setting actually put the wolves at ease. It made things somehow less intimate, offered a boundary that ensured that whatever transpired within its walls wouldn't seep into reality. “I'm fine,” Darian growled, shrugging out from under his touch. “Let's just get on with it.” Victor left his side and grabbed a pair of cuffs off the wall. Darian eyed them like they might bite until Victor brought them over to Bella. “What are those for?” asked Darian. Victor gave him a look. “I know you ha

“No,” Bella said when Victor reached for her, forcing herself to hold his gaze. The wolf in her squirmed and whined in discomfort, but something else held fast. “I still don't agree with this courtship nonsense, but the last thing the pack needs is for it to be postponed because one of the candidates for alpha thinks he's going to kill his potential mate. Am I wrong?” Victor watched her in silence. He wasn't about to give her an. actual response. “Like you said, this is a liability we can't afford,” she pressed, turning back to Darian. “If there's really some part of you that's capable of killing me, then everything is lost anyway.” He hung his head in shame, and Bella took his face in her hands as Victor had done. “You won't,” she said softly. “You won't hurt me.” “You don't know that,” he growled. “I know you,” she said, sweeping her thumb over his stubble. “Better than anyone except Victor. My mind is filled with the same doubts as y

“Very,” Bella agreed. “You smell like the air after a good, hard rain, when the earth is clean and the grass and the flowers are all still soaked. It's pure and soft and crisp all at the same time,” he murmured, staring off into space. “It's the kind of scent you can never get enough of. I've always thought if that was the way all blood smelled to vampires, I could kind of understand why they're the way they are.” “Azar...”He leaned in a little closer, and, to her deep shame, she didn't move away. “It's the truth,” he said, stroking her hair. “It's not just your scent, it's everything. It's the way you move, the way your voice is always just a little bit hoarse like you're just getting over a cold, the way your left eyebrow twitches whenever I say something that pisses you off. Everything about you just draws me in.” His lips hovered so close to hers she could almost feel them. Something about the light friction before contact brought her

"Yeah, I know," Bella said, feeling guilty for needling him. There was still part of her that couldn't understand how the obvious soulmate bond between Brendan and Mav hadn't put an immediate end to what was obviously a distant relationship to begin with. As far as she knew, there was no hard evidence of Maverick being marked, but from what Victor and Darian had told her about being a verndari wolf bonded to a fleur, resistance was damn near impossible. If there was one thing neither of them was lacking, it was will. It was shamefully shallow, but Bella would never understand how it was possible to live with someone like Maverick, who was as stunningly beautiful on the inside as he was on the outside, and not fall for him. Especially when the alternative was a guy who never even seemed to bother to call. She felt a pang of guilt for even thinking it and reminded herself that she had no room to talk. Not when Victor and Darian, of all people, loved someone like her.