Exhale Read online

  No! I can’t bear to hurt her emotionally.

  Better to keep my distance, give her the chance to find herself first. Time to discover the world and find out more about the kind of male she wants to be with. The thought of Tara with anyone else sends a pulse of red hot rage through me.

  Damn! I grit my teeth and push aside the feelings that twist my heart.

  “I killed her…the one who was to be my mate,” I say. I owe her the truth so she knows what kind of a male I really am. One who was so forceful he pushed the woman who was his mate to kill herself.

  Silence stretches.

  Then she chuckles. “You’re obstinate, and your damn pig-headedness is just so annoying, but you’re not a killer.”

  “Fia’s dead because of me,” I snap.

  “How?” This time when she tugs her hand, I let it go, only to have her turn her palm up and curl her fingers around mine.

  Whatever I expected, it wasn’t this.

  I didn’t expect her to understand my guilt, my grief. I wanted her to be horrified enough to leave, not for her to try to understand the conflict that tears me apart.

  “Fia was barely out of her teens when she found her way to me. She wasn’t ready for the mating bond, wasn’t ready for her destiny to be laid out. I let her go the first time but then I got impatient. A few years later, I tracked her down and pushed her to accept the bond. She resisted, chose to throw herself into the sea and drown instead of accepting me.”

  “So you swore to punish yourself?”

  “I swore to never force my dominance on another female. To never put a female in a situation where she has to handle what I am,” I correct her.

  “How? By never allowing yourself to feel again?”

  I swear.

  Infuriating female!

  “Don’t you understand what I’m trying to say? Let me close and I’ll hurt you. I can’t let that happen. I couldn’t live with myself if I did that.”

  “Perhaps you’re just afraid of hurting yourself?”

  Her words arrow straight to my heart, and I tighten my fingers on the wheel.

  “You’re right,” I finally say. “I’m afraid… Afraid that I can’t give you the happiness you deserve. The tenderness of a mate. The feeling of being one with another soul, to feel their breath as you breathe, to wear their skin over yours. To be theirs.”

  Be mine.

  I push away the words, even as they bounce around in my head.

  “Yet you care about me,” she insists. “Enough to track me down and to be upset that I danced half naked in the bar. Enough not to want to share me with anyone else.”

  The thought of her up on that bar counter, every male in that place ripping her clothes off with their eyes…it sends a dense pulse of rage through me.

  The truck speeds up, plowing through the sea breeze that continues to whip against the big vehicle.

  “I was sent to get you for a Council meeting. I was only doing my duty,” I assert.

  She laughs, the sound harsh. “Right! So, it was duty that made you carry me out of there, dump me in your car, and drive away from the other males in there.”

  I’m not aware of growling, not until I hear the guttural sound. I bang the dashboard with my fist so hard it cracks.

  “I’d rather take a chance and risk being hurt than not try at all. I’m not a coward like you,” she says.

  Coward.

  The fine hairs on the back of my neck rise, and my instincts scream a warning just before a vehicle leaps out from the beach.

  I slam on the brakes a second before the massive truck lands right in the front of us on the road.

  Want more? Get Claimed here

  Register your book to get a FREE story in the same universe as Exhale. Click here.

  Order of reading

  Awakened (Ruby and Vik)

  Feral (Maya and Luke)

  Taken (Jai and Ariana)

  Redemption (Mikhail and Leana)

  Claimed(Kris and Tara)

  Complete boxset

  Dragon Protectors Series

  Inception (Aaron and Hope)

  Obsession (Cain and Eve)

  Deception (Pandora and Rage)

  Forbidden (Axel and Freya)

  About the Many Lives Series

  How far will you go to save the one you love?

  Would you turn your back on your blood family?

  Would you kill?

  Sleep with someone else?

  …Even destroy yourself?

  Want to find out? Pick up the Many Lives Series

  Order of reading

  Awakened (Ruby and Vik)

  Feral (Maya and Luke)

  Taken (Jai and Ariana)

  Redemption (Mikhail and Leana)

  Claimed (Kris and Tara)

  Complete boxset

  Dragon Protectors Series

  Inception (Aaron and Hope)

  Obsession (Cain and Eve)

  Deception (Pandora and Rage)

  Forbidden (Axel and Freya

  The Original Seven Islands of Bombay that feature in the Many Lives Series

  About the Author

  Laxmi Hariharan is a New York Times bestselling author. She loves to dig deep and write about relationships. Pick up her books because you love kickass heroines going toe to toe with sexy shifters, charismatic vampires and immortal warriors.

  Claim your free books from Laxmi here

  Follow Laxmi

  www.laxmihariharan.com

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Created with Vellum