26. Nikolai

26

NIKOLAI

“ D on’t touch her,” I snarl, fury pulsing through me as I take in the vrakken holding Jessa. I can smell her fear from here, and my sanity is holding on by a thread at the scene before me.

Brinda is watching with a look of pure amusement on her face while the vrakken still hasn’t pulled back from Jessa’ neck yet. And it’s not lost on me that he’s about to bite her but shows no sign of giving his own blood.

They weren’t actually going to Change her.

The thought crashes into me, and I let out a low growl, my wings expanding as I stalk toward the vrakken holding my mate. “I said don’t fucking touch her .” My words come out rough and inhuman, enough so that he drops her and stumbles back.

The thought of anyone touching Jessa – tasting her as I have – has me ready to rip apart everyone in this room, the consequences be damned. But the fact that they used her to gather intel, saw her as disposable and now were going to kill her despite the fact that she did what they asked, has me on another level.

But as I go to reach for Jessa, ready to drag her from this room and deal with the Council later, she jerks back. “Nikolai, what are you doing?” Her eyes narrow, and I blink, stunned as I realize she looks like she is seething. "I told you I wanted this! I expected that even if you didn’t want to Change me, you would let someone else."

I clench my jaw so tightly it aches, wings rustling and flexing in agitation, as I struggle to rein in my simmering fury. "I won't let them use you as a pawn in their games. You're playing right into their hands."

They are going to kill you! I want to shout, but I don’t dare. We are still in front of the Council, and they still could if they wanted to.

Jessa steps closer, her chin lifted defiantly, strands of her dark curly hair framing her face. She is so beautiful it hurts, and it makes it hard to focus. "It's my choice, Nikolai! This is what I want – I won't let you or anyone else take it from me again."

Frustration wars with desperate urgency within me. Why can't she see the likar’s den she's blindly stumbled into? "Jessa, listen to me. I was wrong to push you away before, I see that now. Please, you have to trust me." I reach for her slender arm, but she jerks back once more, just out of reach.

"It's too late for that!" Her voice wavers even as her hazel eyes flash. "I won't let anyone else decide my fate."

Her words slice through me like an icy dagger. Before I can stop myself, I erupt with sudden ferocity, the words tearing from my throat, "I don't want anyone else Changing you!"

Jessa stills, eyes widening, full lips parting slightly. The flickering torchlight dances over her stunned face. For once, the stubborn girl seems at a total loss for words.

I surge forward urgently, willing her to understand the dark truth here. "Only I have the right to change you. Me alone." I gesture sharply at the watching Council members. "Not anyone else, especially someone who doesn’t care for you.” I drop my voice low though I know they can still hear me. “To them you are just a human. They'll use you up and then toss you aside like rubbish."

I reach for her again and this time Jessa doesn't pull away, seeming frozen in indecision. Her throat bobs delicately as she holds my blazing gaze, searching my face with those endlessly deep eyes.

The tension between us hangs by the most fragile of threads, and before Jessa can speak, the words I've bottled up for so long spill desperately past my lips in a rush.

"Jessa, I'm hopelessly in love with you. I've felt this way from the very moment I saw you – from the second I heard you. My entire world shifted then, and ever since, there hasn’t been a moment that my body hasn’t cried out for you.”

I suck in a deep breath. “My entire soul has been begging for me to admit the one thing that has scared me. But I can’t deny it any longer. My heart is yours, my life is meant for you, and my soul was designed to answer to you.” I pull her closer. “Jessa, I want you as my mate. I will Change you so that it is my venom filling your veins, my bite marring your skin, my mouth healing your wounds. You were always meant for me… and I was Made for you.”

I search her stunned face intently, laying my tattered heart bare and exposed before her for judgment. "Don't you understand? It was always you who owned my soul. No one else could ever compare."

For a brief moment Jessa's hard mask seems to crack, something vulnerable flickering in her endlessly deep eyes. But then her expression shutters closed once more.

She shoves me back violently with unexpected strength, nearly knocking me off balance.

"Is this some kind of twisted joke?" she spits out, rage blazing in her eyes. "You already callously rejected me once before if you recall. Tossed me aside like garbage." Her jaw clenches, pain shadowing her face. "You don't actually care about me – you're just trying to use my feelings for your own agenda like everyone else does!" Jessa turns away, her slender body trembling with the force of her anguish and fury. "I won't be made a naive fool again."

Her bitter rejection cuts like an icy dagger twisting ruthlessly in my heart. But I refuse to surrender or back down. Not when our very future hangs precariously in the balance.

"You know that's not true," I rasp urgently. "Give me a chance to prove myself, Jessa. I'm begging you."

I reach for her, desperately aching to wipe away the pain I've caused through my own cowardice and blindness. But she recoils from my outstretched hand as if scalded, refusing to even meet my gaze.

Desperate, I step towards Jessa again, willing her to truly see that I was holding myself back before and I won’t do it anymore. "You were right before – I was so very wrong to ever resist what lives and burns between us. I was a fool, blinded by misplaced duty and cowardly fear."

I meet her guarded hazel gaze unflinchingly, allowing the stark truth of my words to show on my face.

"But I swear to you now that I will be the only one to Change you, Jessa." I pause, my heart hammering wildly. "Because I want to spend eternity with you. I don’t want to know another night without you in my arms, another morning without you being the first thing I see, another moment where you aren’t mine."

Jessa searches my face warily, arms wrapped around herself in unconscious protection. Steeling myself, I reach out and gently take her delicate hand in mine, so small and fragile compared to my own long fingers. I squeeze her hand, begging my silent question again.

Be mine.

After an agonizing, suspended moment, Jessa slowly turns her palm upwards to tentatively entwine her fingers with mine. Cautious hope ignites wildly in my chest.

"Yes, Nikolai," she finally whispers, lips barely moving. "I want to be your mate. I’ve felt it since we met, too, and I can’t take another second of it. I am yours."

I pull her into me, sealing my eternal promise with a fervent kiss as relief and joy crash over me. The moment between Jessa and I stretches on, infinite and profound, and I forget where we are as I lose myself in the scent and taste of her.

Then a slow, mocking clap shatters the heavy silence. The sharp sound makes us both flinch imperceptibly.

"How very touching," Brinda drawls, full lips curved in a cruel smirk, eyes glinting with malicious delight at having witnessed such an intimate, vulnerable scene. "My congratulations on your little union."

She leans back languidly, her stare remaining fixed on us. Her gaze is sharp, and I can tell she is calculating how this development impacts her complex plots and schemes. "I trust you can...take care of your pet human now, Nikolai?" Brinda asks with silken menace. "She seems to have served her purpose here."

Bitter rage flares within me at Brinda's dismissal of my mate as a mere pawn. My wings flare out aggressively as I turn toward her, but I catch myself at the last moment, careful to keep my expression carefully neutral.

Without looking away from Brinda's challenging stare, I address Jessa in a low, gentle voice. "Come, ómorfi . Let's go home."

I feel Jessa press close to my side, her warmth and nearness bolstering me. Together, we turn away dismissively from the Council's callous machinations and manipulations.

She survived tonight, and now that I have nothing holding me back, I’m going to praise every inch of her, happy that she has come back to me in one piece.