Chapter 40
The fountain outside the Divine Atrium dripped, each bead plopping against the stone beneath in a slow, monotonous rhythm that did nothing to slow the erratic stutter of my own heart. For whatever reason, the Sightkeepers seemed not to notice that the rush had slowed to a trickle.
Instead, they stared at me, brows a little too high, hands resting in mock casualness, like they could hide the fact that if I made a sudden movement they’d draw their weapons and try to skewer me to the marble.
If I wanted entrance, there was no stopping me, despite what they whispered to themselves. I smirked at the one whose lip boasted a purple bruise from the previous day’s training session.
He scowled in reply.
This was the game we played whenever I came to walk my mate to her healer.
At the thought of her, the chain linking our fates clawed at my chest. I gritted my teeth and looked away from the two, forcing slow breaths.
As always, it punished me severely for the times I missed our daily interaction, so much so that during my earlier training session with Maelsar, I’d fallen to my knees, breathless, thinking my heart had split open.
Iaoth stole every minute of my time, bleeding me dry without a care in all the worlds.
With her best hunter in Sivy, she set me to work from dawn until dusk, the shadow behind the crown.
Whether it was wealthy merchants in the city who needed wooing—or Commanding, if they weren’t inclined to offer a generous tithe—or murmurs of a rebel’s voice rising in the streets, I was always there, ensuring what the Koron and Korona wanted came to pass.
Sylaira still hadn’t emerged from the atrium. I sensed her, just beyond, yet out of reach. Physically and emotionally. Like I was easing myself onto a frozen lake, I tiptoed into our connection, trying to see what was happening behind those closed doors.
A frozen vault blocked my entry into her mind.
With a grumble, I retreated, fishing into my pocket and pulling out a notebook. Iaoth had tasked me with the table arrangement for the ball—something any servant could do, but instead reserved as a special kind of torture for me.
At this rate, I was never going to find a moment where her exacting standards were low enough to admit to that the Goddess had blessed me with a mate.
Sweat rolled down my spine as I scratched the parchment.
Sylaira didn’t understand what was at stake. I was being squeezed from all sides. Especially with Iaoth’s cutting remark about how pretty the new Seers I’d brought her were.
What did she know? And better yet, who had told her?
She was adept at keeping spies in her own realm—ones even I didn’t know about. Brittle at best, paranoid at worst. All because of our father and her husband.
The bond twirled in my chest, reveling in the well of undulating white. My head shot up, focus colliding with the door as it swung open, revealing my mate.
Eyes rimmed red.
Skin around them puffy.
Lips swollen.
She didn’t need to speak for me to know I was the cause. The feral desire to fix it all roared in my chest.
No crutches held her upright as she hobbled into the hall. The limp in her step was pronounced, but she lifted her chin and carried herself like she’d been born royal.
“Sylaira.” Her name slipped past my lips with a desperation that almost made me cringe.
My mate ignored me and walked on, digging at a wound I hadn’t realized I carried until the moment we returned to Sivy. The Sightkeepers watched us with pointed interest, as they always did. I hurried after her. By now, she knew the way to the healers, so I didn’t have to guide her.
And why the fuck was she in such a hurry today?
“Slow down,” I growled, my long strides eating up the distance between us.
Still, she did not speak.
I probed our connection, but the mental barricade she’d erected was still too strong. Damn Angel mind magic. If we were Demons, I’d slither into her thoughts in seconds. Not that their mating bonds were real, like mine and Sylaira’s was. Their Fates offered them a falsity and called it true.
“You know nothing of them.” Sylaira stopped suddenly, whirling on me.
My brows lifted at the intensity of her words. Her lithe frame vibrated, shoulders set in a hard line, fury dancing across her delicate features. “You believe that they are not like us, truly?”
I blinked at her. “The Demons?”
“Who else?”
A small grin curved my lips. “Were you spying in my head, little fugitive?” This I could work with. It meant she cared.
“You think I’m an intruder, but your thoughts spill into mine without regard.
You don’t even attempt to keep up a barrier anymore,” she hissed, her fingers curling into fists at her sides.
“And somehow, you barge into my dreams too. Though really, I should call them nightmares from your presence alone.”
My smile dipped into a frown. “So you’re upset because you were snooping when I was speaking with my sister?”
“Answer my question,” she demanded, completely ignoring mine.
I took a measured step forward. She shrank back. I kept coming until her back was pinned against smooth stone. Her attention darted in either direction before landing on me again.
But no one was around to hear us.
I pressed my body against hers. Our bond coiled tight, purring in delight, like it lived for the moments we came undone.
We hadn’t touched like this since we’d returned.
I hadn’t felt her lips pressed against mine.
Hadn’t tasted her divine source. Hadn’t heard her moan as I unraveled her with my tongue.
And my cock was as desperate as our fated connection for me to be inside her wet heat.
“Answer me,” she repeated, but breathiness billowed in place of the bite.
“Their magic is dark. Unholy. It must be eradicated,” I ground out, the cool rock doing nothing to temper the emotion swirling inside me. Nothing to tame the beast that only wanted me to claim.
“Says who?” she challenged, her tone stronger this time.
“The Goddess,” I snapped, self-control slipping like smoke between my fingers. “It is by Her will that we wage this holy war. I know what you Elessarum think. You are too young to remember what it was like before Stadiel took the throne.”
Memories of my mother rose and sliced between my ribs.
She wasn’t the only Angel who lost her life to their violent, greedy hands.
Stadiel might have fought off all other contenders for the throne, but he was popular well before that with how he preached defending our realm against the wicked creatures.
It wasn’t our fault their land dried up.
That rain fell plenty here. That our crops were lush and our seas brimming.
“I know enough,” she spat, furiously tucking her hair behind her pointed ears.
“The Elessarum formed long before the change of power took place. Some members managed to survive that long. Not many, though, with how thoroughly you hunted us into near extinction. And we are Angels. I can’t imagine how you treat someone with red irises and black hair. ”
The accusation in her expression was undeniable. She thought me a violent murderer of the worst variety. My chest heaved against my tunic as I attempted to rein myself in.
Get a fucking grip, Vaeron, before you lose everything.
“I’d much rather be on the front lines slaughtering those beasts and protecting our realm than hunting your foolish kind down. It is a waste of my power,” I ground out. My fingers dug into the stone on either side of her head. I was losing the battle against my own honed will.
Her tongue flicked out and wetted her lips, my attention immediately drawn to them.
“It is, truly. You waste it so often. You could Command the Korona to break off your betrothal and yet you do not. Instead, she tells you to visit Dasha’s bed.
And you’ll go. Because you think you’re a wolf.
But really you’re a fucking dog, obeying his master’s directions. ”
The last thread of self-control I possessed snapped.
My mouth crashed against hers in a brutal claim—if only to get her to shut the fuck up. A moan rumbled out of me as I swiped my tongue against hers. She tasted like a ripe, juicy fruit, and she opened for me just the same.
A whimper escaped her as I raked my teeth over her bottom lip. I ground my hips into hers, hands snaking behind her to capture her waist. Hoisting her up, I pinned her against the wall so she was completely at my mercy.
Awareness flickered in my mate, and her fingers twisted in the fabric of my linen shirt. I didn’t think—simply reacted.
Light burst from me, pinning her wrists to the stone.
It was wrong, so wrong, and yet I couldn’t stop myself. Chest heaving, I broke our kiss, capturing those icy blue orbs and begging her to see how completely and utterly lost I was to her. How her continued rejection stung like I’d stepped into a hive of bees.
Instead, her lips curled back from her teeth.
“You stubborn, stubborn female,” I growled, tracking the motion. “I know you want me. You just hate that you do. That’s why you tattoo this list of my sins onto your skin. So when you want to feel superior, when you want to justify your loathing, you have a book of scripture.”
I leaned in, breathing my next words over the shell of her ear—only loud enough for her to hear. “We both know it will never be enough. You are mine, Sylaira. We are one, bound by this bond. Our Radiant Mother deemed it so.”
“We are nothing alike.” She forced in a breath, body trembling.
“There is no possibility of us being one. There is no world where I will ever be willingly yours.” Her low, melodic voice shook—for the briefest of moments.
Then, a crazed laugh slipped out of her, along with one teardrop.
“I’m not sure if this is the first time we’ve ever been mated, but it will be the last. In my next world, and all the ones after, I will avoid your soul at all costs.
I should have gotten on a boat to északi, Déli, or Nugati the second I could.
Then, we never would have crossed paths and my life would be all the better for it. ”
I flinched away from her like she’d slapped me.
Then, rage surged like an angry wave, and more of my radiant power slammed into her.
I took two steps back, hands smoothing my mussed hair, while my magic held her in place.
She glared at me like there was no way I’d ever work my way back into her heart.
Because once again, I’d violated her agency.
I just couldn’t find it within me to care.
“Maybe I should visit Dasha’s bed,” I snapped, hurt slamming the door on logic—and bolting it shut behind me. “Since you don’t want me in yours. I’ve got to work this,” I gestured to the erection bulging out of my trousers, “out somehow.”
As soon as the final word landed, regret knifed through me, sharp and merciless.
A keening echo of my own pain reverberated between Sylaira and me. The satisfaction I should have felt from wounding her was hollow, empty, and mourning.
Tears tumbled down my mate’s cheeks. She closed her eyes, hiding the glacial color, and turned her head away, chin falling onto her shoulder. The storm I loved so much drained from her like my words had been a brutal wind.
I’d wanted to hurt her. And Goddess, I fucking had. But the way she slumped, too heavy to hold herself against the ethereal white locking her to the wall, made me wish I could claw the memory out of her skull.
“Go ahead, Issaraeth. I’ll add it to my list.” The way she said those words—so broken, so defeated—gutted me.
I have to get out of here.
The thought broke through the thunderhead of my mistakes. I snatched onto it like the lifeline it was. On my next ragged exhale, I lowered Sylaira to the ground—so gentle, like she might shatter if I so much as let her drop.
When her feet touched stone, she revealed her stormy irises, lifted her chin, and stared at me like she could command the moody sky to bring forth a purple bolt to strike me dead. Sylaira was defiance made flesh, and I was a monster.
How was I the one always drenched in the storm that was us?
Tearing my gaze away from her, I stalked down the hall, away from the healing feather. The chain binding us tightened, twisted, tugged, but even its magic couldn’t force me to return to her. Not when I would only make things worse. Not when my heart was breaking.
Sylaira’s sobs chased me around the corner, soft at first, then louder than the slap of my boots against stone. Louder than the staccato beat of my heart. Louder than my mistakes.
I’d lost her. And along the way, I’d lost myself too.