Chapter 45
Elodie
The invigorating effect of sparking with your match only lasts so long.
Hand in hand, Salvatore and I slog through the churning water to the shore. As we heave ourselves out onto the bank, his arms give out.
He slumps over on his side with a whoosh of expelled breath.
“Tore!” I yelp, scrambling over to him.
Fresh blood seeps through the dark hair plastered to his head from the spot where it hit the railing. My mind stutters between the image before me and the memory of another match lying bleeding on the ground three years ago.
No, no, not after all this…
I rip off my other glove and hold my hands over his head. I’m physically exhausted too, but the awakening of my glim has boosted all of my magical strength.
Drawing on every lesson I can remember from our Curative Magic classes, I gather ephemera over his worst wound. I plaster the condensed energy against the broken flesh like a bandage. Then I drape warmth across the rest of his body to ward off shock.
A renewed ache radiates through my joints, but the trickle of Salvatore’s blood slows. I push a little more ephemera into place.
The words stick in my raw throat. “Come on, Tore. We made it. You saved us.”
His eyelids flutter. He peers at me hazily for a moment before a smile I can honestly call sly crosses his lips.
“Tore,” he repeats. “You called me ‘Tore.’ Nobody’s gone with that one before.”
My face flushes through the surge of my relief. I reverted to calling him by the nickname I used for my Salvatore without realizing it.
I blink back the tears that welled up while I tried to heal him. “It just seems… fitting.”
“It’s good. I like it. Better than Sal. Never call me ‘Sal.’”
Despite the worry still squeezed around my gut, my mouth twitches with a smile of my own. He’s just like my Tore that way too.
“I won’t,” I say. “I promise.”
The cooling night air is turning my wet clothes glacial. A shiver wracks my body.
Salvatore grunts in objection. With a clench of his jaw, he shoves himself upright. He yanks off his sodden jacket and tosses it aside. It looks like the cut over his ribs must have been shallow enough to stop bleeding on its own.
He hesitates when he catches sight of the exposed skin of his arms. Matching tattoos curve along his biceps beneath his sleeves: the tails of coiling snakes, it looks like. My Salvatore went with strands of barbed wire.
Across the tan skin of his wrist and the black ink higher up, the cuts I took on my arm earlier gleam red on his. Neither is bleeding badly, but he won’t know how they got there.
He frowns at them but must assume he was battered during his turbulent journey downriver.
His head jerks toward me. “Are you hurt? That scalder with his knife and those stupid tricks…”
He starts running his hands over my sleeves as he asks. I tuck my arms closer to my chest before he can stumble on the severed fabric and shake my head. “I managed to block everything.”
Salvatore’s snarl rumbles from deep in his chest. “When I get my hands on him—”
I swallow thickly, remembering Kenneth’s limp body, the blood gushing across the bridge. “It’s already done. I—I had to stab him to stop him. Fatally.”
Salvatore blinks at me and then lets out a low whistle. His familiar grin stretches across his face. “That’s my girl.”
Another shiver courses through my body. Salvatore’s expression hardens. He pulls me close into the shelter of his brawn.
The heat of his body emanates into me, easing the worst of the chill. We’re both still drenched, though. The magical warmth I conjured for him is fading, and I don’t have the energy to gather more.
I press close against Salvatore’s chest for what feels like centuries, absorbing all the comfort I can. Trying not to think too much about the events I just set in motion. About all the questions still whirling in the back of my head that I don’t know how I’ll answer.
Just sitting this close to him has set off a heady tremor through my nerves. Every particle in my body seems to lean toward him.
Salvatore hugs me tighter and tucks my head under his chin, no doubt gripped by the same urge. He turns his gaze toward the wall he created instinctively in the river.
It’s a solid construction—no sign of deterioration despite the pummeling of the water. He considers it for a long moment. Another laugh tumbles out of him, this one breathless with awe.
“Everyone figured I’d have a blight talent. That is fucking bloom. Refined too, if you can believe it. Look at that shit. Worth’s head is going to fucking explode when I show this off.”
He pauses. “I wonder…”
He extends one of the arms he’d wrapped around me and closes his fingers.
A stream of sticks rattle out of the brush, shedding the dampness of the past rain in droplets as they come. They collapse into a small heap. With a chemical crackle, whatever minerals his glim gathered flicker into a flame that catches on the wood.
In a matter of seconds, a small fire is dancing a couple of feet away from us, wafting a sharper heat.
“You’re an alchemist,” I say. As if I didn’t already know that, as if it only just occurred to me as I watched him work his power.
Not the kind of alchemist drabs once attempted to be, with apparatus and tinctures to break materials down to their component parts and reconstruct them. The lucent kind, building something new from the world around him through sheer magic.
“Thanks to you.” Salvatore looks down at me and peels off his own gloves. He cups my right hand in both of his, angling them so the nearly identical bond marks on our palms show side by side.
When he runs his thumb over the darker center of mine between the four spires, his touch is so reverent it sends a much more pleasant shiver down my spine. “I knew I was meant for you, mia amata. So what if you’ve got three more matches hanging around? I’ll obviously be the best of them.”
Even as my smile returns at his unfiltered confidence, a pang shoots through my heart.
That’s the first nickname he’s used that I recognize, that my Salvatore called me. He told me it means “my beloved.”
How can this man be so much like the man I loved and yet not really be him?
I’m tied to this Salvatore now. No matter where I go, he’ll be able to find me through our bond.
After everything we’ve just been through, I can’t bring myself to regret that fact. Not yet.
Salvatore circles the center of my mark with an even gentler caress. He bumps his nose against my temple. “What incredible power did you wake up, my match?”
The deflection I used in my old life tumbles off my tongue automatically. “I don’t know. I didn’t feel anything happening.”
Salvatore gives a dismissive huff and turns me in his arms so he can bow his head toward mine. “There’s no way Elodie Devine doesn’t have a fucking fantastic glim. I can’t wait to see it in action.”
My throat starts to close up at the thought of how not-fantastic that would be, but then he’s teasing his fingers along my jaw. My whole body lights up, my nerves quivering in anticipation. The ache of longing expands between my thighs.
A new bond always compels matches closer together, sparking passion as well as our glims. Fate encourages new mates to find harmony between every part of our being, to solidify our connection in every way.
It’s already done. It feels so right.
The perfection of our bond sings right through my soul. I’ve been missing it for so long.
Salvatore delves his fingers into my damp hair and brings his mouth to mine. His touch wipes every other thought from my mind. As our lips meld together, my body melts into his.
His kiss is every bit as bold and commanding as I expect. He coaxes my lips apart with a flick of his tongue and captures my mouth more thoroughly. His fingers splay against my scalp and then tug with just the right pressure to make me gasp.
His other hand traces circles on my hip, trailing giddy heat in its wake. I press my legs together against the deepening need.
“Mia amata,” he murmurs again between kisses. “A chroí. My match. Mine.”
The insistence of his claiming sets off a thrill through my veins. In his arms, with his mouth and his hands branding me as his, I can’t remember why I ever resisted this.
Where else could I possibly belong?
Salvatore tips us over so I’m lying on the grass with him braced partly over me. He slides his mouth down the side of my neck. I tangle my fingers in his thick hair, careening on the deluge of desire…
And the sound of a pointedly cleared throat shatters our bubble of bliss.
I flinch in surprise, my eyes popping open. Salvatore lifts his head.
We both stare at the three figures who’ve halted several paces away, summoned by the same call that’s brought the two of us so closely entwined.
Cole stands in the middle of the trio, his brother at his right and Byron poised several feet to the left. The flickering firelight reflects off their eyes as they take us in.
Cole’s mouth flattens. “Someone had better start explaining what the hell is going on.”
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