CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The water was cool against my skin, luminous and impossibly clear.
We stood waist-deep in the shallows, the current carrying tiny motes of light like fallen stars.
The waterfall roared somewhere behind us, filling the comfortable silence, its mist clinging faintly to the back of my neck.
Talon stood a few feet away, his broad shoulders cutting through the glowing surface. Water clung to the ink on his skin in rivulets before disappearing beneath the tide.
He did not look out of place here. He looked… inevitable.
I dipped my hand into the current and flung a splash at him. The droplets caught in the sharp planes of his collarbones before dissolving into light.
“What else are you hiding from me, Master Veythar?”
His mouth curved, slow and dangerous. “Would you like to find out?”
“Maybe I would rather learn for myself,” I countered, refusing to look away. “Or are your secrets only impressive when you are the one unveiling them?”
He laughed, moving closer until the river bent subtly around his thighs as though it recognized him.
I tried not to notice that it did not move that way around me.
He raised a hand, palm up, and the river obeyed. The fish halted mid-current. With a subtle turn of his wrist, they began to move, gathering into a tightening circle of living illumination.
At first the circle was wide, almost lazy, but with every passing second it tightened, their pale light intensifying until the riverbank around me shimmered with soft, living illumination.
One brushed past my arm, its scales cool as moonlit glass against my skin.
Another glided past my shoulder, its luminous body leaving a faint trail of silver in the air.
Soon they were everywhere—drifting past my throat, skimming along the curve of my jaw, weaving through my hair in gentle, weightless passes that sent shivers racing down my spine.
Talon lifted his hand higher, and the fish spiraled upward, a galaxy of silver bodies circling me until the darkness itself seemed to retreat. Then, with a flicker of his fingers, he released them. They scattered like spilled starlight, dissolving back into the water.
I looked to him, eyes wide.
“Darkness is not the absence of light,” he said quietly. “It is the mastery of it. The void is nothing until you shape it, Kaelia.”
Hours ago, I had trusted this man with my body, yet I knew nothing of the void he called home.
“I have a hundred questions,” I blurted, the words tumbling out.
He reached for my hand. His thumb traced a slow, steady circle across my knuckles. “Ask. There is nothing I will withhold from you.”
“What was your life like before?” I asked. “Before… this?”
A muscle ticked in his jaw.
“Long,” he said. “I have lived lifetimes that would turn your hair white, Kaelia. Most were solitary.”
I studied him more carefully now.
“Solitary how?” I pressed. “As in… alone?”
His gaze shifted, just briefly, past me. “Yes.”
“You do not have any family?”
Talon shook his head. “I was the only child and my parents surrendered to the elements many years ago.”
I frowned, something pulling tight in my chest. “I am sorry, Talon.”
“You do not need to be,” he replied, stepping closer. He stood so close now that the steam from his skin rose between us. “I have had a lifetime to become accustomed to the fact.”
“You speak as if you have seen the stars die,” I whispered, leaning into the hand that was tucking a wet strand of hair behind my ear. “How old are you, Talon?”
His mouth curved faintly at the question. “I stopped counting after my second century.”
My eyes flew open before I could school my expression. “You are over two hundred years old?”
He nodded, his dark lashes casting long shadows against his cheekbones. “I am closer to three.”
Three centuries.
I had not yet lived two decades.
I looked at the glowing moss on the stone, feeling the sudden, staggering weight of the gap between us.
“Do you ever wish you were fated to a Veythar?” I asked softly. “Someone who understands that kind of time? Someone… safer?”
Talon’s hand stilled on my cheek. He pulled away slightly, his brows drawn together as his pale eyes searched mine. “No.”
I searched his eyes, the silence stretching between us until a scowl deepened the lines of his face.
“I do not want anyone else, Kaelia.”
“That is the bond speaking.”
“I do not need a bond to tell me how to feel,” he growled. “A bond is a guide, but I am drawn to the woman, Kaelia, not the mate.”
My lips parted, a sudden, blooming warmth spreading through my chest.
I reached up, my fingers tracing the stark black tattoos on his arm, before sliding to the side of his neck.
“Do you promise?”
“In this lifetime, and every other.”
I closed my eyes to trap the sudden sting of tears before they could fall.
“Are you scared of what is to come?”
His eyes locked on mine. “Only that I may lose you.”
Not death. Not the High Court. Me.
I used the leverage of my hand at his neck to pull him down. Our mouths met in a kiss that was tentative, almost reverent—a question asked in the dark. I gave the answer freely, my lips parting to invite him in.
The kiss deepened, slow at first, a careful claim that stole all coherent thought from my mind.
My fingers threaded into his damp hair, anchoring myself as the world seemed to dissolve into stardust and salt. His tongue slid against mine in a rhythm that was unhurried but claiming, sending tremors down my spine until I was nothing but heat and light.
He groaned against my lips and wrapped his arms around my waist, crushing me against him until every hard line of his body was etched into mine.
The light around us flared in response to the bond. The fish returned, weaving through the water in a shimmering dance, their glow reflecting off his skin.
His hands moved, sliding from my waist up the sides of my body, each pass of his palms setting fire to my skin. When his thumbs brushed beneath the soft swell of my breasts, the contact drew a sharp shiver from me.
When he finally broke away, my breath came in ragged gasps. Our foreheads leaned together, the only sound the thunder of the waterfall and the frantic beating of two hearts becoming one.
“Tomorrow, we must move,” he said.
My brows drew together, breath uneven. “We are not safe here?”
“The High Court has eyes in every shadow of Haelen,” he murmured, his hand rising to brush a wet strand of hair from my cheek. “This cave is no fortress, Kaelia. We are heading to Umbral. My kin will be overjoyed to meet you.”
Cold dread rolled through me, sharp enough to make me pull back.
“No,” I snapped, the anxiety rising in my throat. “I am human. I cannot live amongst the shadows.”
He did not let me retreat far. He stepped closer, his hands settling on my shoulders.
“You belong wherever I am,” he countered, his voice dropping to a low, vibratory growl. “You are the Veythar Master’s Solea. They will treat you with the reverence you deserve. Trust me, Kaelia. My lineage will not break what we have. They will protect it with their lives.”
He leaned down and dropped a feather-light kiss on my brow, a gesture so tender it felt at odds with the darkness of the world he was asking me to enter.
The Umbral was a place of ancient blood and secrets I was not sure I wanted to know. I had no place among the Veythar, yet as I looked into his relentless eyes, the bond surged—a terrifying, beautiful current that told me I was already too far gone to turn back.