Mine to Possess Read Online Free PDF Page A

brutal,” she found herself saying instead of asking for what she wanted, the reason she’d fought the vicious truths of the past and tracked him down. She needed him to understand, to forgive her betrayal.
    â€œYou were my one point of safety, the one person I trusted to never lose himself in anger and hurt me,” she persisted in the face of his silence. “Yet you ended up being more violent than anyone else. How could I help but wonder if the violence wouldn’t be directed at me one day, huh, Clay?”
    His growl raised every hair on her body.

CHAPTER 3
    Run! her mind screamed.
    Talin didn’t run. She was through with running. But her heart was a drumbeat in her throat.
    â€œYou always knew what I was,” Clay said, tone full of a bone-deep fury. “You chose not to think about it, chose to pretend I was what you wanted me to be.”
    â€œNo.” She refused to back down. “You were different before.” Before he’d discovered what Orrin had done. Before he’d killed to keep her safe. “You were—”
    â€œYou’re making up fairy tales.” The harshest of rejoinders. “The only thing different about me was that I treated you like a kid. You’re not a kid anymore.”
    And he wasn’t going to sheathe his claws, she thought. “I don’t care what you say. We’re still friends.”
    â€œNo, we’re not. Not when you’re quaking in your boots at the sight of me. My friends don’t look at me and see a monster.”
    She couldn’t say anything to that. She did fear him, maybe more than she feared anyone else on this planet. Clay had almost destroyed her once, was the sole person who could do that even now. “I’m sorry.” Sorry that her weakness had made him a murderer, sorry that she wasn’t strong enough to get past what she’d seen in that blood-soaked room. Sorry that she’d come here.
    No .
    She wasn’t sorry about finding him. “I missed you.” Every single day without him, she had missed him. Now, he was a shadow in the darkness. All she could see clearly were those cat eyes of his. Then she sensed him move and realized he’d crossed his arms. Closing her out.
    â€œThis isn’t going to work,” she whispered, conscious of something very fragile breaking inside of her. “It’s my fault, I know.” If she had come to him at eighteen, he might have been angry at what she’d done, but he would have forgiven her, would have understood her need to grow strong enough to deal with him. But she had waited too long and now he wasn’t hers anymore. “I should go back.”
    â€œTell me what you want, then I’ll decide.” The roughness of his voice stroked over her in a disturbingly intimate caress.
    She shivered. “Don’t give me orders.” It was out before she could censor herself. As a child, she had learned to keep her opinions to herself. It was far safer. But half an hour with Clay—a Clay who was almost all stranger—and she was already falling into the old patterns between them. He was the one person who’d gotten mad if she had kept her mouth shut, rather than the other way around. Maybe, she thought, a bright spark of hope igniting, maybe he hadn’t changed in that way. “I’m not a dog to be brought to heel.”
    A small silence, followed by the sound of clothes shifting over skin. “Still got a smart mouth on you.”
    The tightness in her chest eased. If Clay had told her to shut up…“Can I ask you some questions?”
    â€œAuditioning me for your job? Sorry, Talin, I hold the power here.”
    The emotional taunt hurt more than any physical blow. They had always been equals—friends. “I want to know you again.”
    â€œAll you need to know is that I’m even more deadly than I used to be.” He moved far enough out of the shadows that she could