5. Chapter 5 #4
There it was. The promise. The cage hidden inside comfort, or comfort hidden inside the cage. I could not yet tell.
“I understand my closet has been stocked,” I said, because Millie had mentioned clothing and because I needed to move from blood to cotton.
“Yes.”
“With what?”
“Clothing in several sizes. Comfortable things first. Sleepwear. Robes. Undergarments. Shoes. Toiletries in the bathroom. Anything unsuitable will be replaced.”
“You had someone guess my underwear size.”
A flush of something almost human crossed his cheekbones. It was faint. It was absurd. It was there.
I stared.
“Taras and I had the staff handle things,” he said.
“Coward.”
The word escaped before I could catch it.
Then he laughed under his breath, not the full, bright sound from before, but enough to loosen something in the room.
I looked away because I did not want to be caught participating in it.
Everything about this man was different. He claimed I was his mate.
And beneath everything, beneath the shock and anger and the clinical construction I tried to build from information, there was the pull.
I had been pretending not to name it.
It had begun the moment I woke under his mouth, or before that, on the sidewalk, when his hand closed around mine and some dying part of me recognized him without my permission.
It was there when he moved too far away.
There when he sat still across the table.
There in the way my attention found him no matter how strictly I ordered it not to.
I lifted the glass. Did not drink.
“Why do I feel it?” I asked.
Maksym did not pretend he didn’t understand. His expression changed before he could stop it. Conflict passed over his face. Want. Guilt. Resolve. Maybe none of those.
“Two reasons,” he said.
“The first is the sire bond. I turned you. My blood remade yours. That creates a tie between us.”
“Can it be undone?”
“No.”
The answer landed like a door locking somewhere behind me.
“It does not make you my puppet,” he said, and for once the words came quickly.
“It does not erase your will. It may make you aware of me. It may make my presence easier for your new instincts to understand. You may feel steadier near me, particularly at the beginning. That is biology and blood magic, not consent, and not love.”
Not consent. He said it before I could. I looked at him over the glass.
“And the second?”
“The mate bond.”
The words were quieter than before. Not weaker. If anything, more careful because they carried more weight. He leaned back slightly, as if giving the concept room to stand without crowding me.
“It is older than our laws. Older than my father’s crown. Some say the Goddess chooses. Some call it celestial design. Some reject the theology and call it blood recognizing its counterpart. I have never cared much for the arguments because they change nothing once the bond appears.”
“Not very convenient,” I whispered.
“Yes,” he said. “And not convenient at all.”
That answer unsettled me.
He continued, “We were made for each other in a way neither of us chose. That is the truth as our kind understands it. But it does not mean you owe me affection. It does not mean love appears because fate stamped a seal on our blood. Love is not the bond. Love must be earned.”
The glass trembled once in my hand. I steadied it.
“Then what does the bond do?”
“It recognizes,” he said. “It pulls. It makes distance feel wrong once proximity has been known. It will make us restless apart. Your instincts may seek me even when your mind wants nothing to do with me.”
“My mind is filing a very strong objection.”
“I assumed.”
“You should.”
“I do.”
“Would you have rather I let you die?”
That question hit me squarely in the chest. I told him honestly that I did not want to die. And that is the truth of it. I wanted to live. And if this was the only way, which I believed him; it was, then I must accept it and stop blaming him.
“No. I wanted to live. I didn’t understand what that meant at the moment, and please forgive me for seeming ungrateful for you doing the only thing you could have done.
I’m angry and confused at the circumstances of my ridiculous life.
But not so much at you. You didn’t create the situation.
Well, you weren’t the beginning of the situation, anyway. ”
“You need not decide anything about me tonight,” he said. “Or tomorrow. Or at any time frame convenient to anyone but you. You only need to heal and learn what you have become. I will be there for every step if you allow me. If you do not, I will make sure someone you trust is there instead.”
“Millie.”
“Yes.”
“And Taras?”
“If you wish.”
I almost snorted. “He looks like he alphabetizes knives.”
This time, Maksym’s mouth definitely curved.
“He does. Swords also.”
The brief humor flickered and died. His eyes held mine again, and the room went very still.
“You are no longer alone, Grace.”
The sentence entered a place in me that had been empty so long I had no concept of what it could mean.
No longer alone.