The Alpha Assassin novel Chapter 71

I wanted so badly for that to be an easy yes. I knew beyond a doubt that I wanted what was best for him, and I was not his mate. Even if I had lost faith in The Goddess, it did not mean she had forsaken him.

And what of his mate? What of her?

Could I add any more terrible things to my list by denying her a mate? The thought of his destined mate met me with sadness and a hot jealousy. I bet she was fucking perfect. But that’s what he deserved. He deserved true, unrelenting happiness. But it wasn’t just because of the horrible things he went through; it was because of who he was.

“What of your mate?” I asked.

“I told you, we made sure we didn’t get one.” I sat up and turned his arm over, tracing the outlines of that mark he and his brothers shared. It felt cold at first but then sent a jolt through me. Ezra’s eyes widened. “Whose to say you’re not my true mate, anyway?” he asked.

I snorted. “I don’t think The Moon Goddess thinks that highly of me.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I’m worried I’m not enough for you,” I whispered, my throat constricting against those words because I knew they were true, and I knew beyond a doubt I wanted him entirely.

He stilled as if it were possible for him to get even more stoic, but I felt as if I was attuned to him.

“Enough for me?” he asked incredulously. “Enough for me?” he repeated.

“We both have had difficult lives,” I tried to explain my fears even though I didn’t want to admit them. I wouldn’t hide anything from him. “But where you chose goodness and rigorousness, I chose death and destruction.”

“I don’t know if I would have chosen differently,” Ezra responded. “And you did not choose destruction. You chose honor for your family; you chose restoration and peace for the werecats. You challenged a line and a territory that who knows what countless evils would have come from them in the future.”

I opened my mouth to say those were just accidental outcomes, but he went on, “You had your own reasonings. I know they were more personal, but there is nothing you have done or could do that I would judge you for. There is nothing you can share that will not make me fall deeper in love with you.”

“What happened to you was…” His jaw clenched. “It was unforgivable. The situation you were put in would have broken most, but you have not only weathered through but you have come out as its master. I have never seen anything like you. You are my constant.”

“You are mine,” I responded. He had been even before I knew it, but I didn’t think anyone, even him, could see me as anything resembling sturdy.

I opened my mouth to say more, to let more of my doubts spill out, but I was silenced by his lips pressed against mine. They were hungry, and he palmed the side of my cheek, tangling his fingers in my hair.

My breath hitched, and I met his hunger. Leaning into him, expressing ourselves in a way words could not.

He pulled back too soon, our breathing ragged, and my body filled with warmth and happiness that was unfamiliar before him.

The corners of his lips tugged down. “I don’t want to hurt-” I put my fingers over his lips.

He breathed in sharply, and I let my fingertips trail over his lips, and then his scar there, and the rest of his face, wanting to memorize his haunting beauty.

“I’m okay, more than okay,” I told him the truth. “These moments are nice, to pretend there is nothing else.”