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"You need to stop with that teleportation abra dabra stuff. What are you even doing here?" My eyes narrow at Zander's silhouette hidden within the shadows.

His dark hair is messily fallen over his forehead, those grey eyes peeking through them with a look so blank on his face that he could even beat the emoji resembling the expression.

"Can't sleep?" He asks again, his voice calmner this time.

My eyes grow narrower, "What does it matter?"

His gaze accesses me observing silently, something about it causing a chill to run down my spine. It was as if he could read all the messy emotions running through my mind, all the conflict filled in it with having to stay in this house and be thrown over by a horde of unpleasant memories.

It felt like being stripped off the soul. It felt...vulnerable in a sense and that was bothersome.

I watch as he takes a step forward and then another and then another until he's standing right in front of me at the foot of the bed.

"Shift. I'm sleeping here." He quite literally shrugs me to the side before flopping down on the bed.

A roll of my eyes follows as I nudge at his foot to push him out of the bed, "There are plenty of rooms in this house. Go sleep somewhere else."

The brick of a man doesn't as much as move an inch.

His head flattens on the soft white silk cushion and he gives me a single serious stare, "The house is haunted. I can't sleep somewhere else. Can't handle ghosts fawning over my beauty now."

I grab a pillow from the bed and throw it at his face, "Get lost, Zander."

"What a surprise this is," He suddenly sits straight up and inches his face closer to mine.

I stare with slitted sight, "What is?"

His hand reaches out to coil a strand of my hair around his finger, "You've been calling me by my name a lot lately. Tell me, fish. Does your heart flutter at my sight too now?"

I give him a blank look as he wiggles his brows at me suggestively. Flattening my palm on his face, I wring my hair from his grasp and push him away.

I don't have the energy to argue with him on baseless things now.

"You know what? Sleep here. I'll go sleep somewhere else." I attempt to get up and leave him to himself when his hand grasps my wrist last moment and tugs me backwards.

My back softly hits against the mattress, my hair cascading around me like a flair of a ball gown.

Annoyed, I raise my eyes to grill holes into Zander's skull whose caging me between his body and the bed below.

"What in the-"

"Something's bothering you." His eyes peer into mine with stark observation.

I give a vicious glare in response.

Zander's head tilts to the side, "Why do you despise this house so much?"

"Didn't anyone tell you not to meddle in other's business?" My tone is as venomous as I feel right now, "Shouldn't you be more concerned about why I let your mother and wife be taken by the witch?"

Zander's form stills at my words but his eyes, they remained trained on my face in stark concentration. His brows furrow as he pulls his bottom lip between teeth before letting it go as a small smile graces his lips.

"I've noticed." He mumbles absent-mindedly, "Whenever you feel like someone is going to see your vulnerable side or someone asks you something personal that you do not wish to share about or someone starts showing signs of care towards you, you turn them away with the most nastiest way. You either avoid them, fight them or make them hate you by pricking them where it hurts the most."

The gravity of his words renders me speechless because no matter how badly I wanted to be stubborn, how badly I wanted to act blatant and deny it, somewhere someplace at a shady corner in my heart I knew those words carried a fraction of truth.

It disturbed me that he could figure things about me so easily. First with understanding about why I couldn't kill Layla and now again.

He didn't seem like the observatory type but I knew he did carry that trait in his blood. His mother, Queen Annabeth's most deadly trait. It wouldn't be a wonder to known her son shared the genes.

A finger settling beneath my chin and tilting my face up has me staring into Zander's eyes.

"I know there must be a solid reason why you seeked Charlotte-"

I cut him off before he could complete, "There really wasn't. I was selfish."

Those dark brows raise almost as if amused and a smile pulled at his lips, "Okay then, I trust the selfish you. My mother used to say that you can't change the past, but you can always better the future. And I don't want us to end in bad terms. So even if you think it was wrong and selfish, I forgive you."

My eyebrows furrow as a sudden feeling of a weight being lifted off my shoulder blossomed within my heart, "You're a load of bullshit today."

"I know right?" His words make me glance at him in surprise.

Look who agreed.

But the moment my eyes peer into his, I see confusion and something darker in them. His gaze scans my face, furrows the slightest bit before ever so slowly lowering down to my lips.

I bite my lip against the sudden spike of my heartbeat. Zander's eyes follow the action and grow darker.

He traces a thumb accross my bottom lip tugging it away from the teeth, "Don't do that."

"Why?" I look through hooded lashes.

Zander's gaze drills into mine and I hear the faint beat of his equally rapidly beating heart as mine.

His eyes drops to my lips again but he shuts them last moment and shakes his head, "Because mate bond is a horny bitch, Marilla."

And then he's getting off me in a hurry.

"I think you're right. I should go sleep somewhere else." He attempts to rush out of the room but then pauses at the door on my next words,

"You know what I think?" I ask getting off the bed myself.

Zander stands still but I know he's listening.

"I think everytime you want to do something to me, you just run away. Because you're a coward."

His head turns to me in one quick move, "You're wrong."

"I'm no-"

Zander's in front of me in a flash. His eyes drill daggers at me as he cups my face with both his hands and makes me look at him straight in the eye.

"I run away because I don't trust myself to stop thinking about every nasty thing possible I could do if I proceed with even a single one." He speaks the whole sentence in a single sensual whisper.

I blink, "What?"

Zander's lips tug at the sides but instead of answering, he inches his face closer before lowering his head to the left side of my neck.

"I might kiss you here today," A shiver runs down my spine as he swipes my hair from my shoulders and I feel his lips touch the skin on my neck.

My eyes fall shut as his hands drop from my face as one goes to cup the other side of my neck tilting it sideways so that he gets better access. The other wraps around my waist pulling me flush against his body.

"Or lick you." His lips part and I shudder as the slicky warmth of his tongue glides against the softness of my skin.

"Or suck you." The hold of his palm cupping the other side of my neck becomes firmer as his teeth nip at the flesh in a sultry way.

My fists clench at my sides as I try to fight back a gasp or worst yet a moan at the endless tingles running through my veins right now.

I feel Zander's lips tug into somewhat of a smirk over my skin as if he could sense the struggle brewing inside me on not to pull him closer or jump his bones.

"Or bite you." He continues clenching his teeth down over the place he'd been kissing and sucking.

This time, I couldn't hold back the gasp.

My heart hammers against my heart as he backs away instantly. There's an almost victorious glint in his eyes and a mischievous smirk etched to his lips that makes me want to claw at them.

Zander inches his face closer again, his lips grazing over the edge of my jaw to my ear.

His hot breath fans the lobe as he whispers, "But next time I might want to do all of that to every forbidden place on your body and this is why I back out."

And then before I could comprehend his words, before I could even fathom how it made my entire body sizzle with a different kind of sweltering heat, he was gone.

He vanished into thin air leaving me in a state of constipation and itchy frustration, thinking what would happen if he actually went with his last words.

Ugh. Marilla, stop it!

A loud groan escapes my mouth as I fall back onto the bed.

Guess I'm not getting any sleep tonight.

Zander was right. Mate bond is a horny bitch.

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