Chapter 77

Rikash woke with his mate wrapped around him, her face pressed into his neck and her fingers tangled in his hair. He lay still beneath her, not wanting to disturb her, not wanting to cause her to move and release her grip on him. His heart ached, but it was a joyous pain. When he had taken Amelia home from the mate market, he had revelled in the thought of owning another person completely, he thought, but it was not the owning, but being owned in return, that brought the most reward. His ferocious little mate who behaved so submissively in the den and domicile, had killed another woman over him and now she slept half over him with her fingers wrapped in his hair, as she had formed beads of her own hair and woven them into his, claiming him even in sleep. She had bitten him, again and again, during the night, so that his chest and shoulder stung beneath the mauling of her blunt teeth, and he was sure that the scars she had left were overlapped and distorted – but it did not matt