Read Denying Ecstasy (The Guardians of the Realms Series) for Free Online Page B

couch. She still felt a little twitchy. Creators… None of that mattered… It didn’t matter why she missed the signs. Sirena was right. Her flesh felt heated, and her nipples strained against her bra as she sat there. Her body was telling her what it wanted. Those thoughts did nothing but jack up her heart rate.
    Sirena’s melodic voice relaxed her some. “Take a deep breath. We’ll figure it out.”
    She would have snorted if she had the extra breath to spare. She hadn’t been able to say more than a few words since the healer had shown up at her door and informed her she was mated.
    “Can you tell me what you’re feeling?” Sirena asked.
    She put a hand up. “Just give me another second.” She tried to do what Sirena instructed. Taking deep breaths was proving difficult, but she was finally getting it together. The air stuttered as if catching in her lungs.
    Rain couldn’t help thinking about the events of the past weeks, everything leading up to that point. She and Alyssa had rushed to an island paradise so that her friend could reassess her life. She closed her eyes, remembering how wonderfully it’d all begun. She’d always longed for a vacation and managed to have one, for all of a day. She had a little over twenty-four hours of experiencing soft sand under her toes and being pampered before going on a huge boat with the charming owner of the island resort. Shortly after that, everything had erupted into chaos. Alyssa’s destiny had come raining down on them in the form of an attempted abduction thwarted by her friend’s possessive-as-shit Guardian mate. The one Alyssa thought had rejected her.
    “Rain?” Sirena, the stunning blonde Guardian, asked her in a gentle voice while crouching in front of her in a stylish pencil skirt and heels. It felt like her new cozy home was closing in around them. The stone fireplace seemed to be moving toward her.
    What if Sirena was wrong and this was all some kind of mistake? “How do you know for sure?”
    “The blood tests I took a couple of days ago, when we got you and Alyssa back from the abduction, indicate you’ve come in contact with your mate.”
    Wait. Contact? She furrowed her brow. Instinctually she was sure her mate could only be one male, but if what the healer said was true, that wasn’t possible. Her stomach clenched as she shook her head. She needed to shake off the dread and get some answers.
    “You’re sure? Because the only one I can imagine it being has never touched me.” She couldn’t envision her mate being any other than the Nereid Guardian that had been haunting her dreams every night since she’d first seen him at Alyssa and Gregoire’s mating.
    She remembered the night, less than a week ago. She had gone in with a heavy heart. Her best friend in the world had found her mate, but the minute she’d walked into the golden temple, that thought was gone. She’d been hit with the same seductive scent she’d only detected hints of while walking in the Guardians’ manor. It had been taunting her for the past couple of weeks as she’d gotten to know her new home.
    Thoughts of her friend’s new life and her own fleeting mortality had fallen away, and her whole world had focused in on one male. Her heart had slammed against her chest as her skin flushed. He was the most gorgeous male she’d ever seen. She’d been struck dumb by how perfectly edible he was. His hair was sun-kissed and spiked up with blue tips. She’d fantasized about ripping the clothes from his broad chest. Tearing her eyes from the big blond Guardian to watch her friend’s mating had been nearly impossible. Her eyes tracked back to him over and over through the event, but it was his hard glare that was tough to shake. It jarred her. She had no clue what caused it, she hadn’t even met the male, and his animosity was palpable in the ten feet that had separated them.
    “Rain?” Sirena was watching her carefully.
    She pushed back her shoulder-length blonde hair,