Prince of Shadows by Susan Krinard

“Yes.”

She let him go, as he’d known she would. “You… I know about your needing to touch, to have physical contact. I should have accepted that from the beginning. The wolf in you—”

“It isn’t the wolf,” he rasped. “It’s the man. It was always the man.” He strode away so she couldn’t see his expression. “I should have left you when we first crossed the border, but I couldn’t do it. I’m a coward, Alexandra. I couldn’t leave you.”

Her footsteps whispered behind him. “I’m glad, Kieran. So glad.”

The tension in his body sang like a scream along his nerves. “Do you remember when I kissed you?”

“Yes.” Her voice was so faint, so hesitant.

“Did you like any of it, Alexandra?”

She laughed, hardly more than a breath of air. “Like it? Oh, God.”

He turned halfway, heart near the top of his throat. She took one step toward him, and then another, until she was facing him again. She lifted her hand, stroked the tips of her fingers along his jaw. “I fought it. I was terrified. Terrified by what was happening to me. Because when I started seeing you as a man, I was afraid you’d see—”

“See you as you are,” he finished huskily. “But I always did, Alexandra.”

Her gaze dropped. “I wanted something I didn’t think I deserved,” she whispered. “I wanted you, Kieran.”

He went still, disbelieving. “Why? Why would you want a creature that isn’t even human?”

She grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him around to face the mirror’s unwavering stare. “Look. See what I see. You’re beautiful, Kieran.” Her gaze met his in reflection, bright and clear and true. “You were right that night, when you said I was afraid of you. All the time I was trying to mold you into something safe, a creature I could control. And yet you were so much more than I imagined. I was scared that I was losing myself and the life I’d made. Scared of my past, and most of all myself. But I can’t let my fears rule me anymore.”

“Sometimes fears have a purpose,” he said hoarsely.

“And sometimes they force us to look in the mirror.”

She turned to catch and hold his face between her small hands. “When I look at you, I see myself. Not myself as I’ve always thought I was. But… myself as I want to be.”

Her voice was low with wonder, with joy, with emotions he could hardly compass. “You said before you were a coward because you couldn’t leave me. Well, that makes two of us.” She smiled crookedly. “It’s damned lonely being a coward by yourself. I think we’d better stick together Kieran. You and I.”

Her eyes were brilliant with tears and courage and conviction. Her lips parted. And she reached up, buried her hands in his hair and pulled his mouth to hers.

Her kiss was almost wild, conveying all the turmoil he knew she felt. But it was real—achingly, deliriously real. Kieran wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her, lost in his need and hers.

“If you… still want me…” She shivered and looked away. Even now, after all he’d said, she was afraid of rejection. From him.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I want you.”

She looked up, humbling him again with the naked emotion in her eyes. The need. The simple, gut-wrenching joy.

He lifted his hand and traced her lips with his finger, brushed her cheek with his knuckles, marveled in the sweet contours of her face. He touched the different texture of her scar, lingering deliberately on that part of herself she despised.

She flinched, but only for a moment. Her gazed fixed on his face with heartbreaking trust.

“Are you sure, Alexandra?”

“It’s the only thing I am sure of.”

“I don’t deserve you,” he murmured.

“The feeling is mutual,” she said, covering his hand with her own. She bit her lip. “Are you going to make me beg?”

“Never.”

“Then love me, Kieran. Make love to me.”

* * *

His response was without pretense, tender and gentle and fierce all at once. Alex melted into him with a little flutter of surrender and release, let the last of her doubts slip away as he pulled her into his arms, lowered his head, and kissed her.