Chapter 13
Unbound
Holly
The words reverberate between us, hanging in the air long after they’re spoken.
What’s supposed to happen? “I don’t—” A bolt of agony shoots through my brain, and my knees give way as I crash to the floor.
I’m vaguely aware of Zayne calling my name, but I can’t answer right now; I’m a little preoccupied by the fact that my brain is melting.
He must’ve hit the brain-melting spell by mistake. I press the heels of my hands into my eye sockets, trying to stop everything leaking out.
Then, as quickly as it came, the pain is gone.
And it’s so very quiet.
The voice that’s been in my head my whole life—shoving, twisting, hissing: not real, not real, not real—is gone.
For the first time I can remember, there’s only silence.
My own silence. My own thoughts. It’s so strange, like I’ve stepped off a cliff and the ground has disappeared from under my feet.
My chest feels too tight. My eyes sting.
Gods, I should be laughing, but all I can do is shake.
Because if this is freedom…then what the hell have I been living all these years?
“Holly? Talk to me, Holly.”
Zayne’s voice cuts through the silence.
I lower my hands and peer up at him. He looks really scared, like he thinks he might have blown my brain. I blink. The world looks somehow clearer.
“Holly, if you don’t goddamn say something soon, I’ll…I actually don’t know. I’m dying here. Just let me know you’re okay.”
I lick my lips. “It worked.”
“What? Is that it? How do you feel? Are you okay? For a second there, I thought your head was going to explode.”
“So did I.”
I search inside myself. It’s like alien territory, somewhere I’ve never been before.
It’s so…clear. And I realize I’ve lived a life in a haze of fog.
My thoughts now are all sharp as needles, whizzing around in my head, poking at my past, the choices I had, the decisions I’ve made.
Fucking totally wrong decisions, based on a completely fucked-up worldview. All the things I blanked from my mind.
There’s an ache in my chest that’s building. “I let you down,” I whisper. “I saw the Hunter that day. Leaving Silvergate. He vanished. He had blood on his hands. He was gone by the time you reached us—just your dad and mum. She was already dead.”
I can see it now so clearly, his dad on his knees beside her, so much blood.
Zayne appearing, a gash on his forehead, trauma in his eyes.
And I lied. Or at least I didn’t say anything.
Which was just as bad. And however much I tell myself that I had no choice, I know that the guilt will haunt me forever. My fault.
“The Hunter killed her,” Zayne murmurs.
“Yes. I’m so sorry you had to think your dad was a killer.”
“I never really believed it.”
“But you doubted. That’s why you left. You were scared you might be violent like your dad, that you might hurt someone you love.”
He looks away for a moment. “I was so angry. Just like my dad, so yeah, I was a little concerned.”
“You would never have hurt me or Tansy.”
“No, I understand that now. But come on, Holly, I was a stupid fucked-up kid back then. Not with you, maybe, but I fucking hated the rest of the world. I had to get away from this place.”
He holds out his hand to me, and I take it as he pulls me to my feet.
My knees wobble a little, and he wraps strong hands around my upper arms to hold me steady.
I stare into his beautiful, intense silver eyes and lose myself for a moment.
“The only thing I regret about leaving was walking away from you the way I did. Letting you think I hated you. I could never hate you. I just didn’t understand. ”
“Join the club,” I mutter.
“But know something,” he says.
I blink. “What?”
“I’m not walking away from you again.”
I have no idea what that means for the future, but I’m not arguing. There’s a connection between the two of us; it’s always been there. Maybe it’s forged in magic. I smile at that thought—how the mighty have fallen.
“What is it?” he asks.
“Just thinking about magic.” Then I shake my head. “How could my mother do this to me? Why?”
“Believe me, she was right to do what she did. There was this king on your world who basically drained all the mirror mages of their magic. He would have done that to you. Some of them took hundreds of years to die. She saved you from that.”
“Hundreds of years? How can that be?”
“You’re immortal, Holly. All Astralis are immortal.”
Okay, I think I’ve done really well in accepting all this. But immortal? No way. I can’t even think about what that means.
“Don’t worry; you can still die. No one lives forever.”
“That’s a relief.”
But what now? I still don’t know how to find the children or how to help.
I peer inside myself again, down, down deep inside.
Something is stirring. Something that fills me with primordial terror.
I’m not who I thought I was, and I have no clue who or even what I am.
And I have to face that terror because now I know this is real.
The children are gone to another world. And they will die within hours if I don’t find a way to get them out.
It’s down to me. And so far, I’ve made a complete fuck-up of everything.
My stomach clenches, and my heart races.
Zayne squeezes my arms. “Hey, take it slow. Deep breaths.”
“I can’t take it slow. We need to find them.”
“You’re no use like this. Just take a moment and relax.” He strokes my hair with his long fingers, then my cheek. I can feel the sense of calm assurance emanating from him, the belief in me. He always believed in me.
God, I missed him so much these last few years.
My best friend, but I’d always known long before he left that he would be more than that. He would be my everything.
Now, we’ve been given a second chance.
If we survive the night. Because it occurs to me that this “man” we’re after, this Khazim, is a killer. My brother. Zayne’s mother. And indirectly, his father. Others who have died over the centuries in the snow at Silvergate.
And suddenly, I need Zayne to know how I feel. What he means to me. Before it’s too late. I raise my hand and slide my fingers around his neck, pulling him closer. For a second, something flashes in his eyes; then he smiles.
“Princess?”
“Please. Kiss me, Zayne. Now before we go face the snow.”
He lowers his head, and his lips meet mine. There’s nothing tentative about the kiss, but it’s also totally different from the last time. This is hard and sweet, filled with everything he feels for me. I wrap my arms around him and kiss him back, needing him to know I feel the same.
His hands reach around me, and he scoops me up.
“You’re soooo strong,” I murmur.
I can feel the rumble of his chest as he carries me to the bed and lowers me onto the mattress. I stare up at him. He stares back as he shrugs out of his jacket. I come up on my elbows to get a better view as he kicks off his boots, then tugs his sweater over his head and tosses it on the floor.
Fuck. Where did all those muscles come from? His shoulders are wide, his arms corded with muscle, his abs…to die for.
I fan myself and then glance at his face, finding him smirking. I swallow. “You’ve filled out a little since I last saw you,” I mumble.
“So have you.”
Not so much, but I don’t argue. I’m waiting for the next installment. “Don’t stop there,” I urge when he continues to look at me.
He grins, then his hand goes to his belt, and my mouth goes dry.
He unbuckles it, then flicks open the button on his pants.
I can already see the hard line of his erection pressing against the leather, but I’m still super impressed when he shoves his pants down his legs and kicks them off to stand before me, naked and aroused.
And holy crap.
My body clenches, and my insides melt.
And then I’m scrambling out of my dressing gown, kicking off my slippers. The rest of my clothes disappear super fast, and I’m as naked as he is.
“That was…impressive,” he says. But then his eyes wander over me, darkening to pewter as his cheeks flush.
His cock twitches, and I hold out my hand to him.
He takes it, and I pull him down. I want to take this slow—really slow, unendingly slow—but at the back of my mind, the clock is ticking.
I know he feels the same sense of urgency.
He comes down on his elbows over me, lowers his mouth to mine, and kisses me, his tongue thrusting inside as he slides a hand between us to stroke between my thighs. I’m hot and wet and more than ready.
I feel him position himself, and then he thrusts into me with one fluid move, filling me. He gazes into my eyes. “Feel the magic, Holly.”
I stop thinking and let the feelings take over.
I close my eyes and just concentrate on his big, hard body on me.
In me. Joining us as one. And deep inside me, I sense the magic awakening—part of who I am.
Always there, always hidden, glad to be free at last. Filling me with starlight and infinite possibilities.
I’m magical.
It’s who I am—the missing piece of me.
I open my eyes, and the air around us sparkles and glows. Zayne smiles down at me. “Your eyes look like stars,” he murmurs.
And then he’s thrusting, hard and fast, each stroke lifting me higher as though I can touch the stars themselves.
Everything tingles, the pleasure swelling, spreading out from where we meet until my whole body is a raging fire of need.
I wrap my legs around him, holding him closer as he slows his movements, almost languid, as he holds my gaze and sends me flying.
I shatter into a thousand pieces and then come together again.
Remade. Reborn. Whole.
The guilt has eased. It will always be part of me, but at least I understand why I did what I did. And I know Zayne doesn’t blame me.
His weight settles over me, his breath ragged against my neck, and for once there’s no voice in my mind screaming denial. Just me. Just him. Just this fierce, burning truth I can’t hide from anymore.
He presses his forehead to mine, then raises his head. His silver eyes are raw, unguarded, like he’s offering me everything he is and daring me to break it.
I want to stay there, to curl into the warmth and pretend the world can wait. But that clock is a drum in my chest. The idea of waiting an hour—a minute—feels obscene.
“Now,” I whisper, and the single word is both a promise and an order.
His face hardens into the Zayne I know when he’s focused. “Now,” he answers.
We move before we can talk it to death—clothes, boots, breathless half-laughs that aren’t really laughter. I want to etch this quiet before the storm into my bones, but there’s no time.
There’s only the snow, and the mirror, and the children.
And the magic roiling inside me.
For the first time, I’m not afraid of it.