Chapter 17
I didn’t even have an idea of what happened at the Midsummer Masquerade Ball.
All I knew was that she was mine. I was so lost when I danced with her—her gorgeous face, her scent, her touch, all still itched in my head like a demon I couldn’t get rid of.
No wonder Xavier called her that. She was as beautiful as she was bewitching.
She didn’t even realize she could have this effect on someone.
Her in that dress made me think whatever I had suffered for my powers; it was all worth it in the end if it meant being bonded to her.
As soon as she came into the hall, I sensed her.
I knew she was mine already, but seeing her again made me realize how much I really yearned for her.
I had planned to speak with her today, to explain myself, to apologize for vanishing so suddenly after our dance.
I’d seen it in her eyes when I returned later…
the hurt. Wounds I’d inflicted by leaving without a word.
And the fact that some siren had offered her faerie wine only deepened the sting she already felt.
I could kill Sparrow for not paying enough attention to his kind.
The door to her room was slightly ajar, and despite my self-control, I let my gaze slip through the crack.
She was naked. The sunlight cast a glow across her perfect skin. Her body was so painfully beautiful and marked with bruises and love bites, some of them deeper, all unmistakably Xavier’s. Real bites. My chest tightened with dark and primal possession, obsession, and hunger.
I was aware that sharing a mate wouldn’t be easy. At least not for someone like me, who was cursed with twisted powers, only turning devotion into something consuming and maddening.
At the ball, the way Gwendolyn searched for him, not me. Even if it wasn’t her fault—she didn’t even know who I was. Not really. When we first met, I wasn’t even in my true form. And yet… a part of me still ached with the hunger of being unseen by the one who was fated to be mine.
She sat across from the dresser, brushing her long, silky copper hair and using a black silk ribbon to tie her hair up in a bow.
Then she stood up, her fingers sifting through the closet, searching for something to cover her nakedness.
Not that I was in any rush for her to find it.
If I were being honest, I never thought clothes were a particularly great invention to begin with.
I leaned silently against the doorframe, my gaze drinking in every inch of her exposed skin. I knew I should look away, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not when she looked like that… the embodiment of everything I had ever wanted and everything I knew I could ruin.
And then her eyes met mine. Through the reflection in the mirror, she saw me.
She didn’t scream as I had expected. Her body froze.
Slowly, she turned to face me, her doe eyes filled with something I couldn’t quite name.
My gaze traced the outline of her naked body, and I watched the flush rise on her cheeks.
But this wasn’t the feeling of embarrassment.
A heavy kind of shame clung to her like a second skin.
The kind that wasn’t just about being seen.
It was the kind that whispered lies about worth, about beauty. Disgust, not with me, but with herself.
And that shattered something inside me. This wasn’t something I intended to cause in her.
She didn’t cover herself. She didn’t move. So I did. I crossed the room in a few quiet steps, reached into the closet, and gently draped a light dress over her shoulders, my silent way of telling her she didn’t have to stay like this. That I didn’t want her to feel vulnerable. Not like this.
“I’m so sorry,” I finally managed, my voice a low whisper. “I’ll leave.”
I barely had time to step aside before I felt his presence.
Xavier was standing in the doorway, a silver tray in his hands. He said nothing at first. His gaze darted between me and her, lingering on the curve of her bare shoulder, the hastily draped dress, and on me again. Although he’d bonded with her, he still felt the urge to claim her. In front of me.
I didn’t need to explain why bonds behaved like that. He knew. I knew. It was the effects of being mated to someone you already wanted before. The constant need to be in their presence, the jealousy, the anger, the intensity.
“I didn’t touch her,” I said quietly, my jaw tight. “Not like that. I came to speak to her… and I saw…”
“I can see what you saw,” Xavier cut in, his tone still unreadable as he put the tray on the desk. He took a step toward Gwendolyn, his gaze softening as he brushed a lock of her hair behind her ear.
“It’s fine, baby, you don’t have to be ashamed.” He pressed soft kisses against her knuckles, as if she were something holy. And I couldn’t lie if I didn’t think I should have been the one claiming her first.
The silence stretched between us, unbearable.
She looked away, her lashes trembling. I could see the red marks scattered along her neck, her chest… Xavier’s marks. It wasn’t just the scent that told me they’d been together; it was written all over her skin like a brand. And something inside me cracked.
I let out a bitter breath, the fury in my chest flaring.
“You let him touch you,” I said, my voice quieter than I meant it to be, but sharp enough to cut glass. “You didn’t even know who I was. And yet…”
Her eyes snapped to mine. She was confused.
I took a step forward, another, closing the distance between us. The dress I had slipped over her body moments ago suddenly felt like a lie, like a thin Veil trying to cover something far too complicated.
“You don’t know, do you?” I murmured, almost laughing at the absurdity of it all. “You don’t feel it the same way I do yet. But it’s there. You’re mine too, Gwendolyn.”
She flinched. Not out of fear, but because she felt it. The truth. The pull.
“I’m Damien,” I said finally. “And I’m bonded to you.
Just as Xavier is. Just as…” I hesitated, my jaw tightening.
I didn’t want to mention Malakai when she barely knew me.
“I’ve known it since the first moment. And watching you with him…
feeling you with him…” I ran a hand through my hair, trying to swallow down the storm inside me. It felt like I was being torn in two.
She opened her mouth, but no words came. I didn’t want her to be afraid of me.
I stepped closer and took her face gently in my hands, and she let me.
I should have told her sooner. I should’ve been the first to touch her like that.
Not because I wanted to possess her… but because my soul had already been burning for her.
When I rescued her in my dragon form, I wanted to reach out and tell her about us.
“You danced with me at the ball, right?” she stated, her gaze following mine.
“I did,” I replied with a small nod. I knew that the dance lingered as much in her head as it did in mine.
“Then you left me, why?” She was hurt. I deserved it.
“Unfortunately, our dance caused unwanted attention, and I couldn’t risk putting you in any more danger,” I explained.
I didn’t want to worry her, but while we danced, I sensed a lot of hate and jealousy from the sirens, and if I would have kept on talking with her after the dance, I would have endangered her if I kept showing my attraction towards her.
“What unwanted attention?”
“The woman who gave you the faerie wine…”
“Yes?”
“They were sirens… and they gave it to you because of me.”
“What do you have to do with them?”
I wasn’t sure whether to tell her about my connection to the sirens—how they relied on my power, especially in my water dragon form, and how they heightened my abilities.
Some of them had developed romantic feelings for me, despite knowing I would never love them.
Seeing me with Gwendolyn now made them realize I would never want them the way I longed for her, and so they saw my mate as their greatest rival.
“It’s complicated...”
“Tell her,” Xavier demanded.
“Because of the powers I possess, they kind of pray to me,” I explained vaguely. I didn’t want to bother her with too much information.
“Pray to you? Are you some kind of water god?” she asked, a teasing tone in her voice.
I couldn’t respond at first, too focused on choosing my words carefully so she wouldn’t fear me.
I took a long breath before I confessed, “I saved you in this form. Do you remember?”
Memories of her almost drowning in the lake snuck into my head, and then her rescue in my water dragon form came to the forefront again.
“You… were the dragon?”
I nodded hesitantly, trying to analyze her feelings and emotions, to sense if she was afraid or relieved knowing it was me.
I could sense a deep sorrow, an overwhelming feeling of despair, and also joy that she found her guardian… the dragon who saved her. The tears began to flow uncontrollably down her beautiful face. I wanted to calm her, to embrace her in my arms and hold her, but I knew it wasn’t my place. Not yet.
“Baby, it’s…” Xavier touched her arm. He was just as hesitant as me right now.
The cruel irony of being mated to someone was that even the deepest bond couldn’t shield you from doubt and sadness. Sometimes, the connection made everything feel even more intense. One wrong word, one misunderstanding, could leave you both bleeding.
“Don’t touch me. Please,” she said quietly.
Xavier’s hand froze mid-reaching her. His face didn’t change much, but his eyes betrayed everything. The hurt in them was unmistakable. Still, he respected her boundary, withdrawing without protest. I’ve never seen my friend so vulnerable. I’ve never seen a vampire so vulnerable before…
She turned away slightly, as if the situation had become too much to bear. I could feel it radiating off her… the panic, the confusion, the weight of everything that had just come to light. She wasn’t angry. She was too overwhelmed.
“I just… I need to leave,” she murmured, voice trembling, like she was trying to outrun her own heart.
“No,” Xavier said, the word firm, too sharp, too fast.
She blinked, startled. “Excuse me?”
It hit her like a slap. Not the word itself, but the way he said it as if her pain wasn’t enough of a reason. As if needing space was something she wasn’t allowed to want.
“We are not going to do that. You belong to me. If you don’t feel well, I’m the one that’s there for you. I won’t leave you alone,” Xavier clarified and gripped her by the waist to bring her body closer to his.
My inner dragon trembled, driven by jealousy and the need to claim her for myself.
I watched her expression shift… but it wasn’t anger… it felt more like loneliness and the fear of being rejected by the ones she loved.
Gwendolyn had seemed too desperate to find solid ground in a world that kept shifting under her feet, a world that found her strange.
And despite being surrounded by the men fate had bound her to, she still felt so unsure of herself.
And I needed to understand what had happened in the world she came from…
which made her believe she wasn’t good enough.
Just like I had for so many years. When my mother had to keep me hidden from my father’s wrath.
She wasn’t just my mate.
She was my mirror.