The Liger's Mark Read Free

you this.”
    “Anything but stay,” she whispered. “Anything but take me with you.”
    “I can’t.”
    She saw it then, an answering brokenness in his gaze, briefly there then gone. In that one moment, she’d seen the reflection of the deep pain she felt.
    “My life is not my own.” He said the same words as if they were an oath he’d sworn. “There are people counting on me.”
    “I see,” she said, trying desperately to hold herself together. She wanted to ask why again, to keep pushing until he gave her more than the sentences he seemed to be speaking by rote.
    “You were never supposed to exist,” he growled, and something locked down inside her. Her whole life, people had made her feel as if she shouldn’t exist. Why would her mate be any different?
    “Stop,” he commanded. “That wasn’t how I meant it. I was never supposed to have a mate. Mates are for others. My enemies are vast. Taking you, claiming you… Those rights were never meant for a man like me.”
    “Maybe we’ll be lucky then,” she said. “Maybe someone else can claim what you don’t want.”
    “Don’t even think about letting another man touch you,” he warned.
    “Another already has, and he never left me.”
    He growled again, his body growing tense where he surrounded her. “I might not have planned to claim you, but make no mistake. You are mine.”
    “Your claim ceases the moment you walk away from me,” she told him.
    He shook his head. “No. We both know that’s not how this works. Our DNA is meshing, even now. I know you feel it. Soon, we’ll be connected.”
    Yet, she knew he feared it. She felt how much he didn’t want them tied together like that. “That type of bond grows over time. It isn’t instantaneous. It should weaken the longer we stay apart.”
    He grimaced, his sharp canines flashing as a rumble sounded in his chest. “My mark will not fade. If he touches you again, he’ll be a dead man.”
    “When you send me back, he’ll be there, just as he’s always been. I pushed him away before because I was waiting for you. Don’t expect me to keep pushing him away now that I know my mate doesn’t want me.”
    “Damn you,” he whispered and pressed fully against her.
    “Damn us both,” she countered, glaring up at him.
    His lips claimed hers, and she clawed at him, fighting his clothes to touch flesh. Her heart was broken, her soul tattered and torn. Still, her body wanted. Her blood fired with the wanton need to feel her mate skin on skin. If he was leaving, she’d make damned sure she gave them both something more to remember than what had happened in that cabin surrounded by blood and death.
    He swept her into his arms, and she didn’t care where he carried her. She heard the soft click of a door opening, and Gabriel broke the kiss long enough for her to glimpse the SUV and the back hatch he’d opened. The seats were folded down, leaving nothing but a large empty bed between the back and the front seats. He slid her in, following after and pressing her flat as he clicked the button again, shutting the door and locking them inside. Clothes were pulled off and tossed aside, and the next time they touched, there was nothing between them except an emotional wall they couldn’t strip away. His lips painted a path from her mouth, along her jaw, and down her neck where he left a searing kiss against the spot where he’d claimed her before continuing lower.
    “Gabriel!” His name was a cry torn from her lips as he took her nipple and sucked it against the roof of his mouth. He used one hand to pinch and tug the other one.
    She was on fire. Each stroke of teeth and tongue against her skin felt as if he were sinking farther inside her. He moved his mouth to her other nipple, and she shuddered beneath him, eagerly pushing her flesh into him. This. She would have this before he left her. She would soon cross into full heat, the perfect time for her to conceive a child with her mate, only her mate.