Tethered to a Mate
“Y ou are not a monster . If anyone is a monster, it is the Seelie King.”
Her hatred for him burned. Someone she’d once wanted to meet. Someone her mother had fought and died for, and he was a terrible being. One who killed innocents for pleasure. One who had made Weylyn’s entire life a nightmare for selfish, cruel reasons.
She understood Weylyn just a bit more now. She knew him. She felt him. Did his trauma forgive the cruel things he’d done since she met him, like invading her thoughts, breaking past her boundaries to take what she said she wouldn’t give? No. It didn’t. He was not good. But he was not a monster, either. He was something in between, a shade of gray in between darkness and light.
It was who he was. And it was something she knew she could not and would not change. She realized that now. Hadn’t he been the one to tell her that darkness lived in them all? For so long she’d been trying to follow a path of light and righteousness. The one her parents would have wanted her to follow.
But Bryson wasn’t her parents. She was a product of despair and war and loss. She had become anger and revenge. Predator and prey. She’d become a killer. Not light. Not darkness. But somewhere in between just like Weylyn had.
And after all, weren’t they all doing what they could in order to survive? Adapting to what their environment forced them into? Hadn’t they just become the creatures that the monsters made them into?
“Darkness lives in us all,” she reminded him. “And when faced with tragedy, you had to decide if you’d become predator or prey.” She leaned closer to him. “You did what you had to do to survive.”
Weylyn regarded her with an unreadable expression. “You... do not think I am a monster?”
Bryson shook her head. “No.”
He closed his eyes and leaned close, close enough that his forehead pressed to hers. Close enough that she was enveloped in the dizzying scent that had always made her lose her own inhibitions.
“How wrong you are, my perfect, beautiful little mate.” The tips of their noses touched. “So, so wrong.”
“Then if you’re a monster, I’m one too.”
Their eyes opened and held. Close enough she could see every fleck, every emotion. “No, my perfect little mate. You are no monster. You know what you are?”
Predator or prey.
“What am I?” she whispered.
“You are everything .”
Tears flowed from her eyes once again. All at once the earlier humiliation faded and made way for a sensation she was far too familiar with. An anger with all the force of a tornado, ready to sweep away anything if she only commanded it.
She wondered if Weylyn could sense it inside her or maybe he understood it as profoundly as he understood his own.
“Yes, little mate,” he praised. “Let that feeling consume you and hold onto it. Because together, we will bring our revenge to life, and we will let all those who wronged us perish beneath its force.”
She knew a part of her knew she should tame that wildness within him. She should temper his anger with her own calm. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She didn’t even want to. She wanted to unleash it. She wanted the both of them to do that and make everyone regret the day they crossed the two of them.
“Our revenge will happen,” he said the words like a vow of a mating bond. Like it was a promise, a deal he meant to keep.
Bryson opened her eyes. “I belong to her now,” she reminded him.
Between them, Weylyn grabbed the hand with the golden, burning brand. Like a leaf, it was stamped into her skin. Around the gold, her skin was red, itchy, and irritated. She had the urge to scratch at it, like she could claw the brand off herself, but she could not. It was there forever.
“No,” he said firmly. “You do not. I promise you, I will free you from this.” He held her hand up. “That is my vow to you. On my own life, I will free you from this, my little mate.”
She couldn’t bring herself to say anything, but she was sure the doubt was in her eyes. Her future was uncertain. Their future was uncertain. She belonged to his mother now. She could never go back to the human lands because she’d tethered herself to Unseelie the moment her teeth sunk into rotten fruit. And there was nothing anyone could do about it.
And she could read Weylyn easily enough. He would throw himself into danger and violence and promises to his own detriment if only to keep his promise to her. He would not lose another person he cared about. And Weylyn did care about her. In his own twisted way, he’d always had. And maybe Bryson had cared about him too. Even if on a surface level, she’d hated what he’d done, she’d always been drawn to the darker parts of him, because they mirrored her own. And she would not change that. She’d not ask him to not be violent. It was already so ingrained into him, that he could not stop.
And she didn’t want to stop him.
She wanted to embrace him. In all his vicious shades of gray, she wanted to embrace him. Because if this was the moment they both fought and died, she wanted it to be on her own terms. The Unseelie Queen might own her and keep her there, but she wouldn’t. Not truly. And Bryson was still the owner of her heart, her soul.
And she would do with those what she pleased.
“Weylyn...” Her breath picked up as she looked at him. at this terrible, vicious Fae. At her mate. “I want you,” she whispered. “Here, now, I want to bind myself to you. I want us to be mated. In every possible way.”
Weylyn’s eyes widened and even in his mindscape, she could hear the rapid, nervous beating of his heart in a way he’d never displayed before.
He took a breath. “You are sure...”
“I’ve never been more sure of anything. I want to be tethered to you. I want us to control our own fate. I want—”
Weylyn did not let her finish her thought.
Because he was already consuming her.