Page 101 of Nikolay

“I heard how he humiliated you,” he said. “In public. More than once, from what reached my ears. That is what I mean when I say it is not natural. A true bond should not degrade the female meant for it.”

The bastard thing of it was that he was not entirely wrong.

Nikolay had hurt me. Deeply. Publicly. More than once. There were nights I had gone to bed in that big old vampire house with my pride skinned raw from him and my wolf aching under it.

And yet.

And yet.

He had also looked at me in the foyer like I were something fragile and treasured. He had sent a book no one else in my life would have understood enough to choose. He was trying, however badly, however late.

“We don’t choose our mates,” I said.

Something flickered over Sage’s face then. Quick. Sharp. Gone almost before I had it.

“No,” he said, and for one strange heartbeat it sounded as though he had nearly said something else entirely. “But some things can be corrected.”

Corrected?

I stared at him.

He seemed to hear his own words a second after they existed, because his expression altered, smoothing over too fast.

Then his voice lowered.

“You’re not mated yet, Maddie.”

The way he said my name made warning bells go off somewhere far away, muffled by wine and weariness and the heat of him.

Before I could answer, his mouth brushed mine.

Barely.

Just a pass of lips over lips. So light it could have been dismissed if my entire body had not shivered under it.

My fingers curled involuntarily in his shirt.

He felt it.

Of course, he felt it.

And then he kissed me properly.

Not rough. Not hesitant either. His hands came in at my waist and drew me against him with controlled certainty, his body boxing mine against the wall while his mouth took mine in a way that was practiced and warm and devastatingly skilled. I made a sound I did not mean to make. My traitorous body went soft in all the wrong places. Goddess help me, I kissed him back.

I did.

My hands left the barrier of his chest and caught in the fabric at his sides instead. The kiss deepened only slightly, enough to turn my knees uncertain. He tasted like dark wine and clean night air and some private masculine spice that belonged to him alone. Nothing about it felt fumbling. It felt like being persuaded by force, so polished it barely registered as force until you were already yielding.

That was what frightened me most.

Not that I wanted it.

That it felt for one horrible second like wanting had become irrelevant.

When he pulled back, my mouth felt warm and over-aware, and my pulse was beating in every soft place I had.

His eyes were dark. Certain.