The Mates of Monsters
Chapter 22

I enter the master bedroom as if it belongs to a stranger. The bed is in its center, and to the left is an archway into the en suite. There is also a pair of double doors that I assume opens to the closet. I follow in his footsteps as he leads to the bed. The decorative pillows have already been shed, and it's ready for me to slide in. I stare down at the duvet and sheets and pillows in their cases and wonder if I am ever ready for anything, or if I simply convince myself that I am. I wonder if there is even a difference. "You're allowed to change your mind," he says from behind me.

"I was hoping you would persuade me."

I feel him near as if his aura is pushing into me. With every second that passes, I expect him to reach out and touch me. Alternatively, he comes in front of me and sits on the end of the bed. "What are you scared of?" He asks. "A lot of things."

"And how many of those things truly matter?"

I press my lips together. "I wish I knew."

Before he can speak, I ask, "Does nothing about this scare you? Worry you?"

"I'm worried that you're being pushed too far too quickly."

"Normal mates do a lot of things too quickly," I mutter.

"This is anything but a normal-mate situation."

"Do you wish it was?"

David shrugs. "Maybe at first, but not anymore. Do you wish you got away that first night?"

My lips part. "I-I haven't thought about it."

Not wanting David to get the wrong idea, I move to one side of the bed and draw back the covers. While holding my breath, I lower down onto it. I shift under his gaze and pull the duvet over my shoulder.

He gets up and walks to the wall, turning off the light, blinding me. I feel the blankets move as he lays down-depending on my other senses until my eyes adjust-listening for his breaths, cautious of accidentally touching his leg with my own. As his figure slowly starts to shape out of the blackness, he says, "I've been waiting for the night you're here with me, and now that's it's come, I don't know if I can let you go."

"I won't go."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. Because I don't want to. I want to be with you."

"And what happens when you change your mind and revert to your old ways?"

I breathe out. "I don't know. I wake up each day, worried that I've gone back, worried that I won't be able to handle this and I'll retreat. So if it really does happen, please don't let me pull away. Even if you have to drag me in here and lock the doors. Promise me you won't let me go."

The reality of our pillow-talk seeps in, and I breathe in a shaky breath. I monitor him through the darkness and find his own eyes resting softly on my face. If he slid his hand over and touched me, I might let him get away with it.

"I won't," he says deeply.

My limbs feel as if they are sinking and weighing into the mattress like bags of sand. "You know, I never thought I would actually be here."

"You were never going to allow it?"

I shake my head, giving him a silent 'no.'

"Well, I'm glad you did."

"I was going to last night, but you told me to go to bed."

David's face falls. "I didn't mean "

"I know," I murmur. "I just get a little overly-sensitive sometimes. It's the girl in me always wanting, hoping, making-up perfect scenarios."

He watches me as if I am insulting myself, and I suppose-maybe just a bit-that I am. Is it wrong of me to call-out my sensitivities and blame it on my girlishness? Is it wrong to romanticize the stereotypes of women that I used to turn my nose up at? There is a conflict growing inside me, and my inner selves are at war.

When my mother's father was dying, when traveled across the country to visit him on his deathbed, he lucidly spoke about my grandmother. She had died eight years before, but the look in his eye told me that he still saw her, and her image was as fresh and as beautiful as ever.

He said she was a brilliant mate and mother, but her most memorable qualities were her skills with people-the way she charmed them and befriended them and convinced them. He said and I remember this exactly-that she could have talked her way to the top of the world. I knew my grandmother mesmerized him because he said it with the amazement of a child at the carnival. He couldn't believe she was capable of such things. David doesn't look at me this way.

He knows I am capable.

"When I wake up-will you be gone?"

"I leave early," he says. "I'll try not to wake you."