~ CASIMIR ~“Cazz… you’re safe with me.”A ball of feeling detonated in my gut, an eruption of need and heat that roared through me in a flood, coursing through my veins until my entire body trembled. And as that flash-flood reached my extremities, as the first surge of tide eased and the waters settled, the fading of power revealed something fragile in its wake.A string, a thread tying me to her. So tenuous, so delicate. It glowed and sizzled, turning water to steam. And yet, one wrong move and it would snap.But it pulled me in, twisted me up in her, tied me to her… undeniable.When I took her mouth it was so electric, I twitched, gasping. My body quaked, unable to contain the rush.“God, Jesse.”She felt it too—that was the thing about that little thread. It was delicate, but it conducted—taking the explosion in me and feeding it to her, coursing in her veins, crackling where I touched, then rushing back to me expanded with her need to tumble me, head over heels until I could bare

~ JESSE ~The couple weeks after the claiming were some of the most confusing and unsteady of my life.In the days immediately following that harrowing night, I was dragged to several meetings in which my duties as Queen and the ways I would need to be trained were discussed.Time and again, with different audiences each time, my education, intelligence, and physical strength—or lack thereof—were discussed in perfunctory tones and analyzed with a ruthless eye. Cazz would list my deficiencies in a way that, had they been spoken with any tone at all, would have felt like he had nothing but contempt for me. Yet, he seemed… unconcerned. Listing off my failings like they were merely points on a board to be identified and then crossed off.To hear him speak about it, these were simply the challenges of mating a human—I would be educated. I would be trained. And my physical weakness would be protected for me.He didn’t curl up his lip in a sneer when he mentioned the fact that I hadn’t gone

~ JESSE ~No matter how I tried, I couldn’t figure out where I stood with Cazz.I had grown up on alert. I knew a man’s anger, and a man’s control. I understood intimidation and manipulation. But this wild swinging between sweet thoughtfulness, undeniable passion, and intense indifference… It had my head spinning. And my heart aching. Every day I rode a roller coaster of signals that had me convinced he was in love with me one minute, and loathed me the next. And no way to tell which was right.Because they couldn’t both be true.Could they?The final blow came the next morning when I realized Cazz had been right and my cycle had started.I definitely wasn’t pregnant. And even though that was something of a relief, it was also a blow. Because if I had been, then at least maybe he would have just left me and my shredded, baffled heart alone. And we could have got on with the healing. But instead… instead I had to wait and see what was going to happen tomorrow. And the next day. And eve

~ JESSE ~~ JESSE ~“Rake, if you’re going to stand here and tell me to let him go find other females—”“Whoa, whoa, whoa! No! That’s not… that’s not what I meant,” he said, wincing. “Not at all.”“Then what do you mean by hunt?”Rake sighed and met my eyes like he was bracing for impact. “I mean… let him chase you.”I waited, but it was obvious that was all he intended to say. “You’re telling me to play hard to get? I don’t play games, Rake.”

~ CASIMIR ~I didn't leave Ghere and the servants until hours after dinner, and even when I was finally alone, I was left cursing under my breath because that fucking tension that had been raising my hackles since the moment I woke, didn't ease.I had spent the entire day edgy and frustrated, and I wasn’t even sure why. There were some tensions with the humans, a few scuffles between neighboring Alphas, but nothing significant. Nothing that warranted the tight muscles that made me want to roll my head to loosen my neck, and the itch between my shoulder blades.I had thought it was the constant presence of servants and calls for my attention and decision-making. It was the life of an Alpha. Particularly a King. And it wearied me at times.When I stepped out of the