Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Folami
My heart thundered in my chest, a rapid rhythm that felt like it shook my whole body and reverberated deep within my skull.
My fingers and toes tingled as a haze clouded my mind.
The ringing in my ears was so loud I could no longer hear the sounds of the forest or the rain as it pattered against the dense canopy of trees.
My skin and clothes were damp, but I didn’t feel the droplets, too occupied with the words that whispered on an endless loop.
True Bond, True Bond, True Bond.
The truth of the ache I’d felt in my chest since Vespera banged in time with my elevated heart rate, like my soul was trying to beat the truth into my dense skull. As much as my spirit recognized —maybe even desired—the man in front of me, my head rebelled.
There was no way I’d ever let myself be Bonded again, be beholden to someone else and their whims, treated like cattle or worse.
A full-body shudder worked its way through my system at the mere thought of putting my well-being in the hands of another.
Trusting Peytor was difficult enough; letting him past my defenses to see all the ugly, broken parts of me was both cathartic and the most difficult thing I’d ever done.
But that connection was different, organic even, and while Peytor held my heart in his hands, there was no other physical risk.
He couldn’t force me to hold his magic; couldn’t draw so deeply from me and so quickly that I felt like my soul was being rendered into pieces; couldn’t attempt to expand my magic storage in some of the most painful experiments possible.
My body was beholden to Peytor, but only because I gave him that right, that privilege. Even the abstract prospect of losing all bodily autonomy again had saliva pooling in my mouth as my gut roiled with nausea.
My eyes flitted to everything and nothing as I desperately tried to fight the rising panic.
Trees, grass, fallen leaves. A felled log. Moss.
I even more desperately tried to avoid the two men who were sprawled against the downed tree, but my eyes were inexplicably drawn to them. My gaze jumped to a still unconscious Lex d’Talionis.
True Bond, my mind unhelpfully supplied.
Instead, I forced myself to catalog the other man.
A second Bonded?
Sometime in the last half hour, Lex had curled toward the second man, using his thick thigh as a pillow while one of his unusually large hands gently pushed Lex’s hair from his sweaty forehead.
Gods, they looked a frightful mess. Blood and mud marred their tunics and pants, dark unidentifiable stains stood out even against the black of their uniforms. It was painfully obvious that they’d left Vespera and followed us here, though while we had provisions and a Water Mage with half-full crystals, they’d had nothing.
A pang shot through my heart at the thought.
No, no sympathy. You don’t know them or their intentions.
I was mesmerized by the way the large man stroked Lex’s forehead and hair with such care, such intimacy, that my eyes burned and a lump formed in my throat.
If a Vessel has that much care for his Mage, then maybe he’s different . . .
I physically shook my head to dispel the festering, dangerous thoughts.
“You’re thinking rather hard over there,” the man called, his voice low and gruff with exhaustion. My eyes snapped to his, only to be swallowed by the ocean. This man’s gaze was intense and unwavering, even though dark circles marred the light-brown skin beneath his eyes.
“I—I don’t know what to think,” I admitted quietly, softer than I ever had before. There were too many thoughts, too many possibilities for me to make any sort of sense out of this situation.
The man hummed.
“He looked for you, you know,” he said, and I frowned.
“Who?”
“Lex, my Mage.” The man nodded at the sleeping man in his lap. “He felt you when he was in the dungeon, and, after he Bonded me, knew he wanted to find you. But you slipped through our grasp.”
I blanched, the golden trinkets in my braids tinkling together softly as I reared my head back in shock.
“What did you say?” I asked incredulously, not daring to believe.
“Which part?”
“You’re his . . . Vessel?” I focused on the more digestible information first, choosing to blatantly ignore the second half of his declaration.
If I did, if I let myself trail down that path, I would surely be lost to the insidious memories that would break through my well-constructed and steadfastly maintained barriers.
The man shot me a small smile, his hand continuing to pet Lex’s hair. “Ilyas. True Pleasure Bond to Mage Lex d’Talionis.”
“Pleasure Bond? I’m a Pain Vessel,” I stated, my voice flat.
“Mhmm. Surely, considering you were in the army the same time as us, you would have heard of the Mage with two affinities?” His deep gaze was just as probing as his question.
The contrast of his bright, inviting eyes to his darker complexion was disarming, and I had to bite my tongue to stave off the growing urge to tell him everything.
Instead, I shook my head lightly, my fist involuntarily tightening around my spear shaft once more.
“No,” I stated, a hard bite to my tone. “The Mage I Force Bonded was often . . . elsewhere.” Don’t think about where.
“On other missions,” I clarified. “We were only called back to Vespera twice before I . . . left.”
Ilyas was quiet, his knowing eyes delving deep into my soul, past my rough-shod defenses and into each disgusting piece of my past.
“Once for the attack on the Valley and once to help with some experiments in the dungeons.” It was a statement, not a question.
I nodded my head curtly.
“Like I said,” Ilyas reiterated after a short pause. “He looked for you. After the dungeon.”
With just those words, I was instantly catapulted back in time, to a memory I’d buried and forgotten.
Of a man strapped to a table, my Mage’s magic coursing through my blood as he enveloped the tortured soul in inescapable pain.
Of the prickling sensation deep within my chest, a heat that rose within my veins as my soul recognized the man on the table and called out to him.
True Bond.
The hope that I’d felt in that moment—the foolish desire of a young woman to escape her captor, her rapist, and be united with someone who her soul was made for—kept me going for months, much longer than anything else I’d clung to in the past.
But, like all my other hopes and dreams, that was crushed the minute my Mage had found out who Lex was and the connection we shared.
He’d beat the confession from me when he found me trying to escape one night.
I was black and blue—my eyes swollen nearly shut, my lip split in three places, and my ears ringing from a concussion—for weeks after he pried that information from my lips.
He’d raped me, repeatedly, night after night for nearly a month straight, simply to drive the hope from me; to prove that I was his and always would be, that no True Bond was going to take me away from him.
The hair-raising feeling of unwanted phantom touches exploded across my skin, and I shivered despite the heat and waning afternoon sun.
I desperately tried to get my body to obey, to shove the sudden psychosomatic symptoms of my repressed trauma back down in the deepest, darkest parts of my soul where they would never see the light of day again, where I would never again have to confront them.
But Ilyas was ever perceptive, those sharp sea-glass eyes cataloging each and every one of my twitches and tells. I was flayed open, laid bare before him without anything to cover my sins and dirtiest secrets.
Fire burned in my gaze, but I refused to feel any embarrassment for the horrors of my life that left me scarred and permanently altered.
I lifted my chin in defiance and gritted my teeth in anticipation of his disgust. Ilyas simply met my protective snarl with a penetrating stare, his eyes never straying from my own.
Slowly, bizarrely, I watched as a smile spread across his face.
“You do remember,” was all he said, and I scrunched my brows at the odd response.
Before I could make sense of him, the thundering of hooves broke our stare.
My gaze flew to the way I had come, back through the woods.
Reflexively, my spear came forward, and I sank into a deep-crouched, defensive stance as I took a few slow steps to the left, placing myself firmly between Ilyas and Lex and the approaching threat.
Ilyas’ throaty chuckle was nearly silent, but it felt like a death knell for my freedom, my independence.
What was I doing? Protecting the institution that I abhorred with every fiber of my being?
My confusion and self-disgust only intensified when a milky-chestnut mare came bursting through the overgrowth, hooves pounding against the dirt path in a relentless rhythm, to reveal its rider.
My stomach nearly revolted as I watched Peytor swing down from atop the horse before it had even stopped moving.
The worry was evident in every jerky movement as he slowly approached me, arms outstretched in a placating gesture.
His broad chest heaved, sweat soaking through his cream tunic, rendering it nearly translucent as it clung to his skin.
“Fo. Fo, it’s me. Put down the spear, darling,” he cajoled in soft, soothing tones that I would use on a frightened animal.
Is that what I am? What this . . . revelation has reduced me to?
I slowly came back to myself, my mind finally catching up to my instincts. I blinked rapidly, noticing how I’d created a pinch-point in the trail, forcing Peytor to go through me in order to reach Lex and Ilyas.
A low noise of disgust left my throat as I scrunched my nose, nearly throwing my spear against the ground in my frustration.
This is why I hated Bonding. It’s already taken my freewill—made a slave again to the whims of another.
The scariest part of it all was that I acted like this with just the recognition of another who was supposed to be my soul’s other half.
What kind of power would he have over me if we were Bonded?
The blood left my face at that, leaving my hands feeling cold.
“Fo?” Peytor called softly, much closer now that I had relaxed from my defensive hold.
His large hands reached out tentatively to grasp my shoulders, and it took everything in me not to flinch at the contact.
The last thing I wanted was to offend Peytor—my Peytor.
The one I chose, the one I loved, the one who loved me and chose both me and my daughter.
He didn’t deserve to internalize my self-disgust.
As hard as I tried to hide the physical reaction to someone touching me during a flashback, it was evident in the stiffening of his posture that he caught the minuscule reaction that bled through.
His face hardened, but not at me. No, never at me, even if I was the one who deserved his ire.
Instead, he withdrew his hands from my shoulders, curling his fists at his sides before shooting a glare full of ice over my head at the men on the forest floor.
“Hello,” Ilyas rasped behind me. “You must be hers?”
I closed my eyes, praying that Peytor would show some restraint.
“Yes,” he spat. “You must be the one that upset her.”
Somehow, even without seeing him, I knew Ilyas shrugged his shoulders. Peytor practically vibrated in anger at my front, but I was too lost in my own feelings and thoughts to comfort him properly.
“Leave it, Peytor. Let’s get back to Imena,” I clipped, burying my emotions while leaning into the one comfort—my role as a warrior, a general. Orders were easy to give, and there was no place for . . . feelings.
People died when leaders leaned too far into their emotions, and as much as I wanted to eliminate the problem of a True Bond that just fell into my lap, I wouldn’t live with their deaths on my hands, not yet, at least.
Peytor sighed heavily, aggressively pushing his sweaty hair back from his forehead.
“Really, Folami?”
I curtly nodded, securing my spear to its straps on my back. Peytor blew out another breath with a muttered curse before his hands flapped back to his sides.
“Fine. But don’t think you’re getting out of this discussion.
We will be talking when we get back to Imena.
” His tone was kind, understanding even, but still brokered no arguments.
“And you’ll be riding the horse with me”—he shot a look of unbridled hate at Ilyas and Lex—“they can walk the rest of the way if they’re so eager to accompany us. ”
I shook my head, already taking a step away from Peytor toward Ilyas and Lex. I didn’t miss the stricken look of pure panic on Peytor’s face when I moved away from him, nor the confusion as I helped a shaky Ilyas support Lex’s unconscious form.
“They ride,” I said.
I didn’t want to dissect my reasoning or sudden allegiance to the very thing that imprisoned me for years, but my soul rebelled at the thought of either the Mage or his Vessel walking any further.
“You and I will walk,” I called as Ilyas and I tossed Lex onto the horse before the Pleasure Vessel mounted behind his Mage’s prone form.
Ilyas’ hand shot out at the last minute, gripping my bicep.
Peytor shouted something at him, but he didn’t relinquish his hold.
Despite my muscles, his large fingers wrapped over halfway around my arm.
I was stuck between gazing at the contrast of his light-brown skin against my own ebony and losing myself in his eyes again.
“Thank you,” he rasped quietly. “Please, give him—us—a chance, Folami.”
Then, before Peytor could forcibly pry his fingers from my skin, he squeezed once and let me go, speaking softly to the animal beneath him.
“Folami?” Peytor questioned, his hand shaking above the spot Ilyas just released, clearly debating whether to touch me.
“I’m fine, Peytor. Truly. We can talk later,” I said with much more confidence than I felt. Peytor’s grey eyes bored into mine, searching for the lie that we both knew was buried there.
“You have a lot to think about, Fo,” he said with a sigh and a nod, gesturing for me to follow the horse down the path that led out of the woods.
No truer words had ever been spoken.