Chapter 45
forty-five
. . .
raea
A few days later, I settle into my chair, Ryker at my side, Kellan at my other, as Professor Becca discusses the Bonding serum.
Its classified ingredients prevent us from completing a Bond until the seers finish their measurements.
Once recorded, the individual with the highest reading receives a counter-serum, and the Bond is completed. My body physically recoils.
It feels so…systematic.
I wonder if we can avoid The Ceremony altogether.
If Ryker and I are mates, it’s all for nothing anyway.
He’s my future. I accept that, even if a pang of loss hits when I glance at Kellan.
He knows, yet he clings to hope. He doesn’t know about the mating Bond, just the prophecy.
Where the once green light was so easy to detect, it’s now vacant.
I should have known it was coming, but it’s still a shock nonetheless.
“You’ll be required to kiss each of the potential Bonds, linking your hands together…” Professor Becca says as I gasp, too audibly.
Everyone around me turns, glaring. It’s been a rough few days, and I’m pretty sure everyone hates me.
If I thought everyone whispered about me before, now it’s tenfold.
My cheeks flush as I sink further into the seat.
Kellan wraps an arm around me, rubbing my arm as he mutters that it will all work out.
I swear I hear Ryker growl. The thought has me tucking my lips to hide a smile when I look at him. He only lifts a questioning brow. I shrug but offer him my hand. He rolls his eyes but takes it, resting our interlaced fingers on his thigh.
“So what happens if your Bond is so strong that none of the other men even come close?” Ryker asks, interrupting the professor.
Everyone shifts their focus to him. “I mean, do they stop The Ceremony right then and there? No need to waste time.” He grins knowingly as a flush fills my cheeks and my gaze bores into him. If looks could kill…
“Well, since that’s never been the case, I wouldn’t know,” Professor Becca responds. “There are always two or three who are close runners-up.”
Kellan makes some indistinguishable noise beside me.
Ryker winks at me before responding, “Is there a way to test ahead of time?” He leans back as if comfortable. “I mean, I don’t like sharing.”
This earns a few giggles and whoops around the room.
“Unfortunately, Prince Anders,” Professor Becca argues, clearly annoyed with the display. Join the club. “A Ceremony is required of all royalty.”
She’s about to change the topic when he cuts her off. “But rules can be changed for specific circumstances.”
She sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Prince Anders, if you’d like to discuss this further, my door is always open.” He sits back with a smirk.
“See you on Veilan,” he replies. Professor Becca groans, then continues as if he never interrupted.
Veilan. The second day of the week. He’s always in meetings on Tempas, the first day of the school week.
“What are you doing?” I snap. “Don’t be an ass.”
His mouth comes intimately close to mine. “But you love it when I am.” He offers me that classic smirk before pulling away. “Mine,” he mouths silently.
I roll my eyes, focusing on the dais.
“For today’s exercise, you’ll be paired off with someone you reported feeling a Bond with during the last exercise.” She looks at Ryker and narrows her eyes. “And no, you don’t get to pick.”
I almost chuckle.
“You’ll find a spot somewhere in the room or out in the halls, and all I want you to do is focus on your Bond.
Feel your mental shield fall into place, and then lift it and watch how your Bond responds.
” She pauses in the middle of the dais. “We are not Bonding today, people.” This gets a good chuckle from the crowd.
She grabs her tablet and tells us our partner has been sent to our devices.
When I open mine up, it’s blank. So is Ryker’s. When we look down on Professor Becca, she’s watching us, her hand on her hip. She purses her lips and then taps a button. Both of our devices populate with each other’s names, but below it is a message for us to see her immediately after class.
“You got us in trouble,” I whisper-shout at him.
“I’m not practicing Bonding with anyone other than my mate.” This side of him makes my heart do some weird routine because, if I’m being honest, I love it. There’s something about his possessiveness that makes my toes curl.
The professor dismisses us to connect with our partners. Ryker finds a private nook in the entry, pulling me into his lap before I can protest. “Possessive flirt,” I tease, shifting off his lap so that we’re sitting knee to knee.
I link our hands, amazed at how he still manages to leave me breathless at a single touch. At least I can now handle the surge in power. Ryker lowers his forehead to mine as my eyes fall close.
“I’ll find a way out of this,” he promises.
I nod, tilting my head until his mouth meets mine. His tongue brushes along the seam of my lips and I open for him. He sweeps in, stroking and tasting with a low groan that makes me smile. At the sound of footsteps, we pull apart.
“Focus,” I command, “you’re distracting me.” I close my eyes again, focusing on the iridescent colors that wrap around us and flow on an invisible wave. “I love it.”
“I felt it that first day,” he admits. “When Cole had to open his damn mouth. The moment you looked at me, I saw it.”
I inhale deeply, letting my forehead rest against his.
I then search for that stone bridge between us, and for the first time, I step onto it.
I test my weight, then take another step and begin walking.
It feels weird to be standing on a bridge within myself—especially knowing it somehow connects my soul to Ryker’s.
Around me, there’s an endless void, but the bridge is illuminated with a soft, warm light.
I reach the halfway point only to be met with a wall, extending into the void and impenetrable.
It rises around us, not just a blanket of fog, but a living, breathing entity.
It swirls and shifts, tendrils curling, imbued with a shimmering, iridescent dust that catches the ambient light.
It tastes of ancient earth and raw magic, cool against my skin.
It pulls an invisible tether, drawing me forward, and I take a physical step, then another, walking toward the unseen.
I reach out, hoping to get through it, only for my hand to bounce back. Maybe if Ryker meets me in it?
“Go down the bridge,” I whisper. One second. Two. When nothing happens, I open my eyes. “Did you go?”
“It’s blocked.” He sighs. “The mating Bond?”
Immediately, the world around us shifts. My head swims with the sudden change. I tighten my grip on Ryker, only to realize that he’s in it with me.
We are standing on a mountain peak, the air thin and crisp.
Below us is a thick, ancient forest that stretches to the horizon.
A strange circle of glowing markings surrounds our feet, pulsating with a soft, rhythmic light.
My spine tingles like an itch I can’t scratch, but it also burns—a painful, searing heat radiates from my skin.
“My back.” I hiss, reaching for it.
Ryker spins me around, his hand tracing the line of my spine. “Raea.” I hear the confusion in his voice. “Your spine is marked with glowing tattoos.”
“What?” I attempt to look over my shoulder, but the vision holds me captive. Some ancient knowledge whispers, Complete. This is the final piece of the mating ritual.
The mountain peak dissolves, throwing us into a whirlwind as the sky turns a bruised, angry gray.
I stumble into Ryker as he steadies me. When I look around this time, we’re on a battlefield.
Scorched grass stretches in every direction cloaked in a sickly, green mist. Across the clearing, a girl stands.
Me. But different. Her hair is dulled to silver ash.
Black war paint slashes across her eyes.
And a smirk. Not kind. Not soft. Predatory.
Certain. Powerful. It’s the same woman I’ve been seeing this whole time.
Ryker looks down at his hand, his right arm is now inked from his wrist and into his sleeve, the tattoo swirling like it’s alive.
He now has sleeves up both arms, but the tattoos on his right look like runes.
He lifts his palm, and the air itself obeys, spinning as the skies darken, rain pelting us from above.
He releases it, and I feel a burst of power, raw and untamed.
The air around us charges as starlight swirls in the wind, meeting his gale, devouring enemy forces like a life of its own and out to do his bidding.
“What the hell is going on?” Ryker asks, his voice thick with awe and confusion, his eyes completely white and silver, like the flecks have taken over.
My gaze falls on the woman across the clearing. The shadows curl around her, a living extension of her will. Before I can say anything, or learn anything, my head spins again as we’re thrown back into our bodies, both holding each other and gasping for air.
Still breathless and a little dizzy, I look over my shoulder, hoping to catch a glimpse of my spine.
I don’t know why my response is disappointment when I realize it’s completely normal, no markings in sight.
Ryker leans over my shoulder, noting the same thing.
He must sense my disappointment because I’m yanked into him, my face buried in his chest while he strokes a soothing hand down my back.
After a few quiet minutes, he asks, “Does that happen often?”
When I shake my head, I tell him about the woman and the shadows. He claims he didn’t see her. But how could he not? The images stay with me long after, my thoughts spinning in search of answers I know won’t come.