“I love you, Little Raven. You are mine and if you think that I will let you walk away from me, to have your own life with someone else, then you do not fully grasp the possessiveness of a male of my race towards his Chosen.”

“Are you sure?” she asked suddenly.

“Am I sure that you don’t grasp the possessiveness?” he began but she waved him off.

“No, not that you overgrown G.I. Joe. I mean are you sure you love me?”

A grin spread across Cush’s face. “Yes, Elora, I’m sure.”

She felt a tear drop from her eye and his thumb brushed it away. His face was slightly blurry from the unshed tears but she didn’t blink them away, she didn’t want to stop looking at him, not even for the length of time it would take her eyelids to close and reopen.

“Do you have something to tell me?” he finally asked as he stared down at her.

“I thought you already knew,” she teased.

“Elora,” Cush growled.

“I love you,” she said quickly. “I love everything about you and the idea of not being with you,” she choked back the sob. “The idea that you might not want me, gah, I feel like such a girl.” She reached up to wipe the tears away. When she opened her eyes and looked back up at Cush her breath caught at the powerful emotion pulsing over him.

“I will always want you,” he told her just before his lips met hers. Elora gasped and her mouth opened allowing Cush to deepen the kiss. Their tongues danced and he pulled her closer, wrapping one hand in her hair and the other around her waist. She didn’t need the encouragement. She pressed herself closer and was rewarded when he groaned her name against her lips.

“How could you think that I didn’t love you?” he whispered against her mouth as he pulled back breathless and drunk on her scent.

“Look, I might be slightly conceded at times, but I wasn’t about to assume that you loved me just because I’m your Chosen,” she told him as she looked up at him, wishing he would just shut up and kiss her some more.

A wicked grin spread across his face. “I heard that.”

Elora hadn’t realized that the wall she had so diligently erected had come crashing down the minute he confessed his feelings for her.

“Then why are we still talking?” she asked as she pulled his face back to hers.

“Good question,” his voice caressed her thoughts as his lips once again claimed hers.

Cush tried to reign in his desires even as he pushed her towards the hotel bed. His mind was all over the place with need, anger, love, lust, and then the intense need to claim and to merge their souls in the way of their people rushed over him. She had planned to leave him. She had honestly believed that he would just let her go and let her be with another. His foolish little raven needed a lesson in what it truly meant to be a Chosen—in what it meant to be his Chosen.

He pressed her into the mattress and covered her body with his much larger one. The little noises she was making were beginning to drive him crazy and when her hands drifted under his shirt to meet flesh on flesh he heard himself growl. He fought the need to take her, though his soul was telling him he had every right to her innocence because she belonged to him. The man knew that despite her urgency now, he knew she wanted to be married in the way of the humans. It was the only life she knew and he wouldn’t allow her to do something in the heat of passion and emotion and then regret it later. He let her explore him a little longer and even ran his hand across the warm skin of her stomach, enjoying her gasp before he finally began to pull back.

“Elora,” he murmured against her lips. “My precious little raven.” He nipped her bottom lip and had to quickly grab her wrists when her hands began to wander to places he would really like them to, but knew if he allowed it, she would be a naked little raven all too quickly.

“What?” she asked tilting her head to the side. “What were you just thinking?”

He considered blocking her, but he was tired of the walls between them so he showed her. She gasped and turned several beautiful shades of red.

“You’re expectations of me are much too high, Warrior,” she told him slightly embarrassed.

“You have already exceeded any expectation I’ve ever had, Love, and I know for a fact that you do not see yourself in an accurate light.”

Her eyes widened and he wanted to laugh at the worries he saw dancing in her mind. “Have you seen me? Like, through my own memory?”

He chuckled. “No, Elora, calm down. What I showed you is something that every guy wonders about their female. That was my imagination, Love, not your memories.”

“Well you’re very,” she cleared her throat and looked at him pointedly, “generous.”

He kissed her slowly one last time before standing and pulling her up with him. He held her stare, wanting to make sure she took his next words very seriously. “No more talk of being apart. Once Lorsan is dealt with, you will marry me. We can discuss where we will live once we are joined and then,” his lips twitched in amusement as he watched her hackles rise, “then you will give me lots and lots of children,” he paused and licked his lips then added for good measure, “lots.”

“If I kick you in the junk for being an asshat will you still be able to procreate later when I’m no longer mad at you?” Elora asked him calmly as if she were asking about the weather.

“You’re sexy when you’re violent,” he told her with a smirk.