A shadow passed over Mathieu’s brow momentarily before he bent down to kiss her. “I love you so much, Octavia.”
She needed to love a man like Mathieu—a man who was real live flesh and blood, who wasn’t a fabrication of her own subconscious. Mathieu was convinced he was her Klawinken mate. Her own sister had confirmed it. He had not only saved her from rape at the hands of her professor, but he had brought her sister back into her life. She knew there was nothing he wouldn’t do for her. He was the kind of man that would be there for her always.
“I’ll try to be everything you need.” She wanted with all her heart for those words to be true.
“All I need is you,” he whispered into her hair.
Epilogue
Tobias Morgan looked down at the empty space beneath him where Octavia had been only moments before, naked and spent from their lovemaking. He had been with many women, but he had never felt the depth of desire and oneness he had just experienced with any of them. Octavia’s touch had not been that of a novice but of a woman who knew his body better than the most-experienced lover he had ever found pleasure with. And yet, to her, he was nothing more than a dream. How, he wondered, would she react if she knew he was every bit as real as the man she had been led to believe was her mate?
As a Klawinken of the highest order, his enlightenment had brought him many gifts. Time and relation being the ones that had tapped into Octavia’s gift, thus bringing them together easily whenever he dreamed, and of late, whenever he willed it. Although he had banished her body from his in jealous anger, they were still connected. He could feel Mathieu professing his love, ignorant of the fact that she was no more his mate than he was hers. Rage of a magnitude he didn’t know he possessed swept through his body with a force that left him trembling like a child. He groaned with the knowledge that Octavia, who he could no longer deny was his one true mate, was in the arms of another man.
What arrogance and lack of foresight he had displayed that night at Evenela’s party when he had deliberately baited Mathieu by using Octavia as a pawn in what he thought was a simple game of fantasy and control. That same arrogance had prohibited him from seeing what was now all too obvious. His dreams had not been spawned from his selfish desire to possess her but from an inherent need to find what he had thought he had evolved beyond, the woman born to be with him forever, his mate.
Unknown forces had found a way to suppress the true nature of not only Mathieu’s and Octavia’s dreams, but his own. And yet they had failed to keep him from falling in love with the auburn-haired beauty that he could still feel surrounding him like a second skin. With sudden insight came a flash of clarity that jolted him to his very core. The veil that had been allowed to blur his inner senses with such cunning precision of purpose had been torn to reveal the feel of Octavia’s lips on his, moving without sound. Over and over he felt the vibration of her breath pushing itself into the recesses of his mind.
Images of people he didn’t know passed by him, and through it all, Octavia’s breath filled his head. She was the key that would take them both on a journey into a realm of existence that could change the path of the Klawinken forever. He felt the fear of those who would do anything to keep Octavia in check and away from him. The vision faded, leaving him more confused than ever.
With renewed energy, he turned his rage from Mathieu to those responsible for daring to control the sacred dreams that were the center of his people’s lifeblood. Dreams that were not only responsible for mating and gift acceptance but strengthened the bond of kinship that each Klawinken needed to know was theirs, as they traveled on their own journey of discovery. It defined them as one with their ancestors, a race of people who had traveled to the far reaches of many universes before settling for the imperfect but breathtaking world they still inhabited. Their story had been preserved within the bowels of the Klawinken Council’s lair, a place where even he had never entered.
He didn’t know why or how, but an unnatural alliance had been forged that had taken those responsible to a level of unholiness he would have never believed possible. To create a force of such magnitude that could manipulate the natural order of the Klawinken was not something that had been planned in a day, a month, or a year. Regardless of the forces that had been put into play, he was not going to let anyone or anything keep him from being with his one true mate, the one woman he would rather die a thousand deaths than live without.
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Natalie Rosewood resides in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with her husband and their two children. She has a great job as an administrator that offers her the flexibility she needs to care for her family and write. Attending a Phillies baseball game or watching it on television is a fun activity that she and her family share. Her days are busy, however, at night and sometimes into the early hours of the morning when the house is quiet; her fantasies unfold into the stories that bring her as much pleasure as the characters she breathes life into.
Also by Natalie Rosewood
Siren Allure: Submission of Innocence
Available at
BOOKSTRAND.COM
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
Rosewood, Natalie - Octavia's Time [The Klawinken] (Siren Publishing Allure) Page 8