Chapter 83 Valen
VALEN
We don’t fly far—just long enough to get free of the castle and put some distance the guards won’t find it easy to cross between us. Then my Drake spies a large, placid lake, all silver in the moonlight. There’s no one near—not a single cottage nearby—and its miles from the castle.
Good enough.
He sets us down carefully and I’ve Shifted back almost before either of us can blink. There, by the banks of the vast silver lake, I cradle Irena to my chest.
“Princess? Sweetheart?” I ask, patting her cheek. “Baby, please be all right! Please don’t…don’t be dead.”
My voice seems to stick in my throat and my heart is pounding. I pat her cheek again and then put my hand over her heart. Is it still beating? I can’t tell. Is she still breathing? Why is she so still? What am I going to do if she’s really gone?
I crush her to me as burning tears like liquid flame rise in my eyes.
“Irena, please baby—come back to me!”
“Master Drake?”
The soft voice is so unexpected that it actually makes me jerk in surprise. I look all around me and see a familiar face reflected in the water. It is the Sorceress—the Lady of Thornmere—staring back at me from the lake.
“What…how…”
“She is dying,” she interrupts my muddled questions. “But you may still save her. You must give her your blood as she gave you hers. The power of your Drake’s blood should be enough to neutralize the poison in her body.”
I don’t question the magic. Before she’s finished talking, I’m already using my fangs to slice my wrist. I cradle her head and tilt her mouth open to let the rich hot blood pour in.
At first, nothing happens and despair fills me, squeezing my heart like a mailed fist.
“It’s not working!” I say in a strangled voice.
“It is…give it time,” the Sorceress counsels.
A moment later Irena’s eyelashes quiver and her eyes flicker open. She swallows convulsively and pushes at my wrist.
“Valen?” she whispers. “What…what are you doing?”
“He is saving you, my dear,” the Lady of Thornmere answers for me.
“Who…?” she begins.
“The Sorceress.” I lift her and point at the lake where the Sorceress’s face is still reflected in the water.
“Listen to me, both of you,” she says, her voice filled with urgency. “You must bind yourselves together. The poison is only neutralized for a moment—it will come back unless Irena’s life is bound to a stronger one—much stronger.”
I understand what she means…but I don’t know how Irena will feel about it.
“We must Bond,” I say in a low, harsh voice. I look down at Irena. “It’s the only way.”
“Bond?” She shakes her head. “I don’t…don’t know what that means.”
“It means we’d be tying ourselves together—for life,” I explain to her. “We must form a connection that never dies until one of us does. We’ll be together all the rest of our lives.”
I’m afraid she won’t want that—that she’ll turn me away and refuse me. But to my surprise, her face breaks into a smile.
“But…that’s what I want,” she whispers, looking up at me. “I never should have sent you away, Valen.”
“No, you shouldn’t,” I growl and then I crush her to me. “Oh, baby—I was so scared for you!” I whisper into her hair.
Her arms creep around me and I feel her small hands on my bare back.
“I was scared too—so scared I’d never see you again,” she says. “Oh, Valen!”
“My Princess.” I hold her close, breathing her in, so relieved she’s going to live.
“Well, I think the two of you have things well in hand now,” I hear the Sorceress say. When I glance at the lake, I see her face is fading from the water. “When you have formed your Bond, come back to see me,” she says. “Irena has much to learn. Her power is too strong to leave untrained.”
“We will,” Irena says to her. “We’ll come back to you.”
“Good.” The Lady of Thornmere’s face is almost completely gone—dissolved in the silvery waters of the lake, but then I hear her say, “Oh…but there’s one more thing I can give to you…a comfortable, safe place to spend the night.”
As she speaks, I see a shimmering in the air all around us. It’s almost like a bubble of magic is forming—not, not a bubble—a dome.
As the shimmering solidifies into soft violet light, I see that we are now inside a semi-transparent structure. And something is happening to the plants that are inside it with us.
“Oh, what is that tree doing?” Irena breathes, looking to my left. “And the bush?”
The tree in question is spreading and growing its branches. At the same time, the bush in question has burst into bloom. Together, the two of them join and become a kind of platform. No, it’s a bed, I see—a bed made of living trees and covered in leaves and flowers.
It reminds me of the bed we shared in the Sorceress’s stronghold.
I lift Irena at once and carry her over to it.
I test it with one knee before laying her down on the springy new mattress.
It’s both firm and soft and, surprisingly, there are no twigs or sticks poking out of it.
And all around it, the other tree branches have also burst into bloom so that the flowers surround and enclose us.
Irena gives a weak little laugh.
“The Lady of Thornmere certainly knows how to decorate,” she murmurs.
“Yes, she does.” But I don’t care about the fucking flowers—I’m anxiously scanning her face. “How do you feel? Are you all right, sweetheart?”
“I feel better than I did—more awake. But I’m still weak,” she admits. “What did the Lady mean when she said we have to ‘Bond?’ What is Bonding?”
Fuck. She might not like this.
“It’s a deeper form of making love—a way to tie yourself to me and my Drake forever,” I explain. “But in order to do it…”
I pause, trying to think how to put it.
“Just say it,” Irena urges me. “Just tell me, Valen. Whatever it is, we’ll work through it together.”
“In order to Bond you to me I have to make love to you,” I tell her. “But my Drake has to be involved too.”
Her face goes a bit pale, but she doesn’t flinch away from me.
“You mean…like the way you used his tongue to…to taste me?” she asks.
“Close.” I take a deep breath—no point in delaying, she needs to know. “But instead of his tongue, I have to use his cock.”