Episode Forty-Eight Change of Heart

N adira

"Yes. I can save people now. You've chosen me to help spearhead this mission. For that, I'll always be grateful."

We're quiet for long moments with just the logs snapping and the crickets chirping in the background. His powerful arm still circles my waist, and his downy wing still blankets us both, protecting us from the cold.

"I hadn't seen a human in decades, Nadira. Other than my night dreams, where they haunted me. And my waking dreams, where I fantasized endlessly about killing them in a hundred different ways."

He tightens his grip in mine.

"It was that male, that angry, vengeful male who you met at the rendezvous. I couldn't see anything about you other than your species."

His voice is soft, contrite.

"All that anger. No. It wasn't anger. It was hatred . All the hatred I'd harbored for all those years hadn't been simmering. It was boiling with the desperate appetite to take action. To hurt as many humans as I could."

He has the audacity to lean close and nuzzle his cheek against mine. Funny, I don't want to stop him. He smells different from my other mates. I guess it stands to reason that this male, born to fly, would smell more fresh and airy than my earthbound mates. It's everything I can do to keep myself from dipping my head to take a deep sniff of his feathery wing.

"I regret that the first human I saw in over a decade was you, Nadira. And I am desperately sorry I chose to act out my hatred toward the most beautiful, sweet, sensitive person I've ever met."

I don't say a word, don't know what to say. It's impossible to even know how I feel. I just watch the snapping sparks fly upward and disappear as I listen to his soft exhalations as they ghost along my cheek.

Rewinding that day in my mind, I watch our interactions and see the reality of it. I don't see the shockingly handsome, angry, arrogant male as he appeared that day. I look past his flesh and bones and see the hurt fifteen-year-old starflyer who lived inside that grown-up body. The male who had marinated in hatred for over a decade.

"Do you want to start over?" I whisper.

His exhale is almost a moan, filled with remorse and hope.

"I'd give anything for that," he husks.

"Tell me, Thallose. Tell me exactly what you wish had happened that day."

"Oh, Nadira, that's easy." He snugs me closer as he warms to his task. "I heard there was a female and her monk mate looking to enlist males to help attack Tower One. Seeing I was last in a long line angered me. What if I'd arrived too late? What if I'd spent so much time waiting in line for roasted rabbit I missed this opportunity? What terrible luck."

He turns his head to give me a quick peck on the cheek. I bite back my initial urge to snap at him, to put him in his place.

"I joined the males at the back of the line, then got my first good look at Azael. It was only when the fox-like vorrel in front of me moved that I saw you, Nadira. You were the most beautiful female I'd ever laid eyes on. I thought I'd stumbled into a fire because your sweet smile seared into my brain."

This time when he presses his lips to my cheek, I allow myself to pay attention to its effect on my body. His simple touch sparks something that travels from the point of contact through my body and terminates in the tender tips of my breasts. Thallose's kiss arouses me, just like my other mates' kisses. Perhaps we can salvage something between us.

"My emotions warred with each other. On one hand was interest, attraction, and desire at a level I'd never experienced before. On the other was the need to put you in the same box as the males who destroyed my family and left me an orphan. I wanted revenge, and you were the only target in sight."

He sighs, kisses my cheek again—this time it's less of a peck and more of a real kiss—and continues. "I pushed all my attraction down and added fuel to the fire of my rage. By the time the orc pulled me to the front of the line, I could only see you as a human. Complicit in the murder of my parents and the abduction of Kasseda."

Perhaps he knows he's used up his allotment of kisses, because now he glides his knuckles down my cheek. It's so sensual it gives me goosebumps.

"I was a total fucker to you. It just goes to show how successful I was at squashing my attraction that my cock couldn't even get hard when it was time to mate you."

He pauses, then shakes his head.

"What I wish had happened? When Dhar approached and strong-armed me to the front of the line, I wish I had looked you in the eyes, told you how beautiful you were, and said I'd be honored to be your third mate. I would have offered to fight at your side, hoping I'd be around you long enough to know why a human female wanted to wage war against her own kind."

His thumb traces lazy circles on my palm. It's so arousing it's as if he's sucking my nipples. Heat shoots, then pools between my legs, and thoughts of having sex with him in a dozen ways collide in my mind. Perhaps the altitude we were at all day addled my brain.

"When Azael and Dhar told me of your past, I vowed to fight even harder to avenge the humans' cruel treatment of you."

After one soft press of his lips to my cheek, he swears, "I'll spend the rest of my life making that horrible day, and night, up to you if you let me."

Though I'd chained a lock around my heart against him that night, I can feel it breaking open.

I turn in his arms and look at him in the reddish glow of the firelight.

"When did you have this change of heart?" I ask, wondering if it was spurred by the punches he received from Dhar and Azael the night of our mating.

"Before I bit you. I just didn't know how to fix it."

"It wasn't because Azael and Dhar forced you?"

"You knew about that?"

"It wasn't exactly a secret. You had a bloody lip."

"They were very protective of you, but they didn't need to be. I'd already decided I wanted to make things better between us."

For the first time since we met, I believe I can have a pack with three mates who all love me. I'll worry tomorrow about how to help the males get along. Tonight, maybe Thallose and I can begin to love each other.