Chapter 19
VINCULA
Wildflowers covered Caius and Rory’s bedroom floor, and he looked around, hoping everything he set up transferred to the soulscape. A long breath pushed past his lips when he saw the twinkling lights, refreshment table, and music box sitting exactly where he left them.
“Caius,” came Rory’s frantic voice from behind him, and when he turned around, he was stunned.
Her hair hung straight around her face, and her skin was radiant against the golden silk of her floor-length dress. He wanted to stare at her for an eternity. “You look good enough to eat, Miss Raven.”
Alarm bells blared in his mind when he saw the expression on her face as she hurried across the room. “What’s happened?” he demanded.
“You’re real,” she claimed as she closed the distance between them. “Don’t deny it because I know I’m right.” Her teeth dug into her bottom lip, and he could tell she was staving off tears.
Wrapping his hand around the back of her neck, he pulled her closer. Their lips were only a breath apart, and he couldn’t help but smile. “Am I?”
Her hands pushed against his chest. “I found your names.”
Keeping his composure, he smirked at her.
“Are you stalking me, Miss Raven?” He couldn’t keep his distance and moved into her space again.
“Tell me. Were you looking for my pictures to hang above your bed?” Her eyes flared, and he brushed his lips over hers.
“Do you want to touch yourself as you stare at my face?”
She drew back. “Do you always think with your dick?”
“Yes,” he answered immediately, and she pursed her lips as he fought a smile. What she told him was monumental, but he couldn’t let her panic. Teasing her always calmed her down.
Caius longed to tell her that, no, he didn’t always think with his dick because his thoughts were consumed with all of her, not just her body.
He missed everything about her. Their late-night talks in bed, her temper, her teasing, the way she’d bring him sweets or a book if he had trouble sleeping.
He loved this woman more than he’d ever loved anything, and without her, he felt broken.
“In the treehouse,” she snapped, and he grinned widely. There she was. “The names you carved into the bookshelf. I found them.”
Her golden dress swished as she paced back and forth. “I thought this was a dream.” She twirled her finger in the air and redirected her steps toward him. “I thought you were a dream.”
When she looked up, he winked. “I am.”
Her scowl was as beautiful as her smile. “Will you be serious? Seraphim, are you always this arrogant?”
He opened his mouth to answer, but she pressed a finger to his lips. “It was a rhetorical question.” When he nipped at her finger, she pulled it back. “How is this possible?” she whispered. “You’re real. I know you are.”
He shrugged out of his suit jacket and laid it on the bed. “It’s possible because you are my Aeternum, and this is our soulscape.” Her eyes were glued to his chest. “My eyes are up here, Miss Raven.”
Jerking her head up, she glared at him. “It’s not my fault your shirt doesn’t fit properly.”
He looked down at the material stretched across his broad chest. “It’s buttoned fine, and while we’re on the subject, you look beautiful in that dress.”
“You should see what’s underneath it.” Her eyes widened as though she hadn’t meant to let those words slip from her mouth.
He ate up the distance between them and grabbed the side of her neck, ghosting his thumb across her jaw. “I will.”
A smile almost appeared on her pretty face before she remembered herself and pressed him back. “This is serious. What is a soulscape?”
“A soulscape is where our souls meet when we’re apart,” he explained.
“We meet here when we are both asleep.” He watched her absorb the information and added, “We’ve been meeting in the soulscape since you turned twenty-one, but neither of us remembered them.
Mates don’t remember their soulscapes until they solidify the bond. ”
Rory scanned the room, distracted by the decorations. “Did you do all of this?” When he nodded, she reached up and ran her finger over a strand of low-hanging lights. “Why are we dressed up, Caius?”
“You’re not in Vincula to attend our Plenilune ball.” He strode to the music box and cranked the volume a little higher. “I made us our own.”
“Plenilune ball? What is that?”
“You don’t know what the Plenilune is?” he teased. “I thought the education system in Erdikoa was top-notch.”
“I know what the Plenilune is,” she said through clenched teeth. “But we don’t have Plenilune balls in Erdikoa.”
Caius knew this because there was nothing special about the Plenilune there.
In Vincula, it was the one night a month when they could see the stars and full moon that revolved around the Vincula sun.
He never understood the anomaly, but it was beautiful and something to be celebrated. “We do in Vincula.”
He saw the moment of recognition in her eyes and the look of concentration as she chased the memory. “You’ve done this for me before?”
“I have,” he confirmed with a soft chuckle. “But instead of surprising you, you barged into the room in a murderous rage.”
She eyed him curiously. “Why was I mad?”
He shrugged. “You were always mad at me for one thing or another.” Two flutes of champagne sat on the table, and he handed her one. “You were planning my murder when we met.”
After taking a long drink, she licked her lips. “Because I thought you killed Cora.”
He nodded. “I won you over then, Miss Raven, and I will do it again.”
“Oh? And how do you plan on doing that?” Her voice held a challenge he was happy to accept.
Tracing his eyes down the length of her, he slowly unbuttoned his shirt, savoring how her eyes darkened with desire. “Sleep with me.”
Champagne spewed from her mouth. “No. You can’t go around asking people to fuck you. What is wrong with you?”
The smooth fabric of his shirt slid off his shoulders and onto the floor. “I didn’t ask you to fuck me, Miss Raven. I asked you to sleep with me, but if you’d like me to, I’d be happy to make you come before I hold you.”
Her mouth moved wordlessly as he unbuckled his pants. There would be no dancing tonight, and some of his favorite memories with Rory were the nights they lay awake, talking.
He folded the comforter back, grabbed one of her old shifts from her dresser drawer, and moved across the room toward her. Never breaking eye contact, he kneeled and grabbed the hem of her dress, dragging it up, but she stopped him.
“There’s a zipper,” she said softly, setting her glass down.
His fingers trailed down her legs as he lowered the hem of her dress. Goosebumps cascaded across her skin, and when he stood to unzip her, he couldn’t help but place a kiss on the nape of her neck.
He reached for the shift and held it out to her without looking. He knew her body as well as his own, but she didn’t know that yet.
While he held out the garment, he heard the bed dip and glanced over to see her tucking herself in. The shift slipped from his fingers without a second thought as he slid into bed beside her.
Was she naked under the blanket, or was she wearing a bra and panties? Had there been a bra when he unzipped her? He couldn’t remember, and it was all he could think about.
Flipping onto her side, she stuck her hands under her head and watched him do the same. “It’s strange,” she murmured. “To have no memory of someone you love.”
His breath caught in his throat. “How do you know you love me?”
She brought her hand to her chest, pressing lightly. “Here. I know it as well as I know my name. I may not remember falling, but my heart remembers loving you.”
A tear trailed down her cheek, and he leaned forward to kiss it away. “Don’t cry. I will find my way back to you,” he vowed as the room shimmered. Smoothing her hair back, he kissed her forehead. “Time to wake up.”
Lying in bed, Caius stared at nothing and rehashed every word Rory said in their soulscape. He knew she was on the verge of remembering, and he needed to give her the extra push. But how?
When he looked back on all the poor decisions leading to their current situation, he hated himself. Everyone ostracized him for his choices, but had they been in his shoes, would they have followed their own advice?
Love blinds your brain and binds your will, and once it takes hold, you become a slave to it. He’d read that in a book somewhere but never understood it until now.
Getting up, he prepared for the day and took the corridor to his office, determined to learn to create. Without access to Erdikoa, he didn’t know if he possessed enough power, but he had to try.
He needed Sam, but the commander wasn’t due back for another couple of days. Caius would send Lauren to Erdikoa early to switch places, and he needed to assign an enforcer to finish her work.
It took a lot to run and maintain an efficient town, let alone a prison town.
And despite it being relatively peaceful, there were those who teetered on the edge and required close monitoring.
Lauren took daily reports from every legion member to know which prisoners to watch.
She barely had time to do her work as it was.
Sam, too.
Caius didn’t trust anyone else to do their jobs, nor did anyone else possess their power. All the legion enforcers were Aatxe with honest souls, but even Aatxe could unknowingly be manipulated by others.
A few weeks ago, a legion guard stopped Lauren to report a disturbance. She detected no lies from the guard because the guard herself believed her story to be true, but they later learned she had been poisoned by Nina’s back-alley potion, allowing Nina to manipulate her mind with falsities.
Thinking back to the day when Nina’s henchmen attacked Rory in the banquet room made Caius’ rage seep into the air.