Chapter 15 #2
Mother? That was his mother? The woman who was the head of the witch faction and member of the tribunal that’s haunted me my entire life?
I gulped and attempted to sidestep my way into the bathroom but her bird’s-eye gaze shifted and ensnared me.
She took in everything; my head of knotted curls, Kaiden’s T-shirt, and my bare legs.
I knew the rumpled sheets on the bed were visible behind me, but that small detail satisfied her it seemed.
“I called to ask about your progress, but I see congratulations are in order. Good.”
Congratulations? Did she think we…?
“Mother—”
“Now that the bond is complete, I will prepare your rooms straight away. There is much for you to catch up on, and I’m positive your bond is in need of learning.”
Oh gods, she was ordering him home. Us. She wanted us to leave and return to the tribunal.
I wasn’t going to finish school. I wouldn’t become a veterinarian.
I would be forced to assume my place in their society and…
and I was going to be sick. Kaiden looked at me, seeing the terror in my gaze, and whipped back around to face the mirror with a glare.
His shadows escaped, fueled by the rage I felt pulsing down the bond.
“We haven’t completed the bond, Mother, so you can cease your plotting.”
Any other time, I would have taken great pleasure in seeing that level of shock on the face of a member of the tribunal. Right now, I was too focused on not falling apart in front of her.
“Not bonded?” she demanded. “I clearly heard otherwise!”
“Eryn is staying here temporarily and out of necessity. There are no immediate plans to complete the bond, and we surely won’t be returning to the tribunal as soon as it happens.”
With small steps, I worked my way closer to the door. Kaiden was going to bat for me. He wasn’t going to force me, but she could force him. His mother’s gaze, nearly bleached of blue, landed on me once more, and I froze.
“This is not a game, little girl. Your weakness threatens my son and—”
Kaiden stepped in front of me, breaking her stare and hiding me within his shadows. I took in a breath and then another. I had to get out of here. My fear was slowly evaporating over the growing fury her accusations set aflame, but I couldn’t shake it completely.
“I told you it was her choice, Mother. I won’t allow you to bully her into making it.”
There was a squawk of outrage, but I didn’t wait around long enough to hear what followed.
I scrambled for the door, ignoring Kaiden’s calls behind me.
The kitchen and living room were empty. Ezra must have already left for patrol.
The front door beckoned, promising open skies and room to be free, but I turned down the enticing offer—finally learning that I couldn't escape this. Kaiden’s footsteps thundered down the stairs.
“Will you stop running?” he called out.
I spun to face him, tears of frustration clouding my vision. “I’m not! Where in the world would I go where you couldn’t find me anyway?”
He nodded, determination hardening his face as his long stride ate up the distance to me. “It’s true,” he admitted. “I will always come for you. Always.”
I closed my eyes against his intense stare. My hand blindly reached behind me, searching until it felt the glass door that led to the large balcony. The coolness of it grounded me.
“Why?” I whispered, anxious to know the truth. “It’s just the bond making you want me.”
“Why?” he asked and stepped forward, gradually corralling me against the sliding door.
My eyes popped open when the glass met my back.
“Because you’re absolutely everything I’ve ever wanted and didn’t know I needed.
” He leaned over me, resting his weight on a forearm.
His other hand delved into my hair to lightly pull on a coil.
“These curls,” he breathed like they entranced him.
His thumb grazed my cheek on its way down.
I frowned, but he tugged at my bottom lip.
“This mouth. Gods, this mouth. It doesn’t know when to shut up. ”
My brows flew into my hairline. That wasn’t where I thought he was going to take it. Something about kissing me or tasting me maybe. But not that.
He continued, blind to my confusion, “It argues and pushes me. It questions everything, driving me crazy until all I want to do is press my lips against it and coax other sounds from its depths.”
Oh.
His eyes trailed up my face, lingered on the freckles over the bridge of my nose, to eventually meet my gaze. There was no hiding from the truth he bared in that look, and I didn’t know if I could take much more of his honesty.
“You are spirited and fierce—my equal in every way. I don’t need the bond to see your loyalty and kind heart, or to know that I would cease to exist if anything ever happened to you.”
I slowly shook my head. He couldn’t mean all that. “You c-can’t possibly…It’s the bond’s influence.”
He smirked, like he knew he had me right where he wanted. “Our bond is in its fledgling stages. Emotions and a heightened sense of one another are the only consequences. I know my own mind, and I’ve had these thoughts long before I saved your life and we opened this door.”
I grappled to find something to hold on to—for some reason that could explain away the pressure in my chest at his words.
He couldn’t feel that way about me. Gods, he shouldn’t admit it so openly either.
It forced me to look at him in a different light, to see what possibly drew me to him as well. I wasn’t ready to go there.
“It won’t work,” I pleaded. “I’m not your equal, Kaiden. I wasn’t raised in your world; a world that’s tried to kill me my entire life.”
His hands cupped my face, keeping me from turning away or closing my eyes. “I’ll step down as heir in a heartbeat if you need me to, but I think we can do more good for our people—our people—together.”
“I-I don’t understand.”
He pressed a gentle kiss to my forehead, melting a hardened corner of my heart. “We could change everything, Eryn. And not just for nightmares.”
I thought I was working with a completed puzzle, but Kaiden just revealed a whole piece that I never knew existed. Power, not the kind from magick. He was offering me the power to decide my future. All I had to do was give myself to him, to the bond, and everything would change.