Chapter 41 #2
At last, he looks up, meeting my gaze and holding it. His chin lifts. When he speaks, he echoes my words from before: “I did what I had to do.”
I stare at him for a long time. Emotions swim through my body in a chaotic, confusing mixture: gratitude, anger, sadness, fear, concern.
And something else, too. Something warm and heavy and glowing, as if I can finally feel the sunlight that lives in my body.
Each emotion does battle with the other, trying to fight its way to the surface.
In the end, naturally, anger wins.
Pain be damned, I bend forward and hit Daerios’s shoulder as hard as I can.
“You idiot,” I shout. “You complete.” I hit him again.
“Bleeding.” A third time. “Idiot.” I sit up as straight as my injury will allow, ignoring the ache begging me to lie back down.
“You were in the middle of a war, and you purposefully weakened yourself? Were you raised under a rock? Is your brain made of vaaska? How can someone so brilliant be so fucking stupid?” I close it out with one last punch to the shoulder, then slump backward, chest heaving.
For a beat, we say nothing. I glare at him with as much poison as I can muster. I wish I could cross my arms. For his part, Daerios peers innocently at me through his eyelashes.
“So…” he says at last. “You aren’t mad, then?”
For a beat, I just stare at him. Take in the hard lines of his jaw, his nose, his neck—softened only by the humor always hiding just beneath.
Sometimes as a defense, sometimes as a weapon, sometimes purely to make me smile.
To make me feel the tingling warmth that starts in my stomach and travels all the way to the tip of my tongue. I want to hit him again.
Instead, I start to laugh.
The laughter shakes my chest, my pelvis, sending shocks of pain through my body that somehow both hurt and heal at once.
Daerios’s eyebrows leap up in pleasant surprise.
He lifts one hand, as if to reach for me, then drops it back to his side.
Still laughing—and ignoring the tremendous lurch of pain that shocks through me as I do it—I shoot forward and throw my arms around him.
I pull him tight to my body, nestling my head into the crook at his shoulder.
He freezes. He clearly wasn’t expecting this response. Then, like a cube of ice left under the sun, he melts onto me. His arms snake around my back. His head burrows into my hair, inhaling deeply.
“Thank you,” I whisper into his chest.
I feel him smile against my hair. “Any time, Quinn Kallister.”
I want to stay there forever, cradled in his arms, but something else occurs to me. “Wait.” I pull back. Daerios pouts, which almost makes me laugh again. “But if you were able to channel your life-force into me, then that means…” My heart picks up speed.
The side of his mouth quirks up. “Something you want to tell me, sweetheart?”
“No,” I say too quickly. My heart is racing, now, thumping so hard against my chest I wonder if it’s going to injure itself all over.
“Are you sure?” He leans closer. “Because, in order for a life bond to form between one mate and another, their feelings must be mutual. It is not a one-directional process.”
“Right.” I grab at the blanket again, balling it up in my fist. “So, does that make us, like, married or something?”
Daerios snickers. “No, Quinn. Technically, a life bond isn’t formalized until after an official elvish wedding, but it usually forms beforehand. The only requirement for its creation is the depth of feeling between the two mates.”
“Stop saying the word mate,” I mumble.
“Why?” Daerios is grinning, now. A full, toothy, devastatingly crooked grin. “Because of the… process it implies?”
“No.” My cheeks heat, and I drop my head so that my hair will fall to cover the redness crawling up my face.
Why am I so embarrassed? It’s not like Daerios and I haven’t…
Maybe it’s the way my thighs are tightening beneath my hospital gown.
The heat pooling between them. The deepening of my breath as I take in the hungry, mischievous flash in Daerios’s eyes.
One of his hands drifts upward and slips under the hospital blanket.
His palm sneaks beneath the hem of my gown, coming to rest atop my thigh.
“What is it, then, Quinn?” he whispers.
“I…” His hand glides higher, sending shivers all the way up to my belly. “I, um…” If he continues what he’s doing, I’m no longer going to be capable of saying anything at all.
As if sensing my impending state of overwhelming arousal, Daerios stops his hand before it crawls all the way up my thigh. His thumb traces little circles along the inside of my leg. I exhale unsteadily.
“It’s okay to say it, Quinn.” His voice is so soft I barely hear it. And his eyes, they’re no longer laughing. They’re both tender and serious, a safe silver pool into which I could easily crawl, because I know he would keep me warm. “I already know.”
My chest rises and falls in quick, shallow waves.
I’m no longer nervous. I’ve surpassed that emotion, ascended to some higher plane, one where my entire body buzzes with a kind of heady euphoria.
It doesn’t feel like I’m about to speak three words; it feels like I’m about to jump out of an airplane.
“I love you.”
The words come out as less than a mumble, less than a whisper. They’re air between my lips.
Daerios leans closer. “Sorry, what was that? I didn’t quite catch it.”
This time, I yell. “I love you, okay!” He doesn’t even flinch.
He stays as close to me as possible. “I fucking love you, Daerios Ariar. I love you with every terrified, broken piece of my heart, and if you don’t kiss me right this very moment, I’m going to hit you right in that beautiful face of yours. ”
His lips split into an enormous grin. He pauses a moment, just taking me in.
Then he reaches up and cups my face gently between his hands.
His eyes search mine. “I love you, too, Quinn Kallister. You are the piece of my soul that I never knew was missing. And now that I have you, I’m never letting you go. ”
Finally, he leans down, and our lips come together in a rough, possessive kiss. I lean into him, relishing the way that being this close to him makes me feel. Like the hole that grows wider every time we’re apart has finally shrunk to nothing. Like I’m finally complete.
“Wait.” I pull back. “Am I the first human to form a life bond with an elf?”
He hesitates, as if he’s nervous to say respond. “You are. At least that we know of.”
“What does that mean? What will happen to me?”
“Since you’re the first, we can’t know for certain.” He pauses again. “But there’s a good chance that, now that your life is tied to mine, your aging will slow. You’ll become like me.”
“Like you,” I repeat, sitting back against my pillow. “Immortal.”
“Or close to it.”
His expression has become shy, and I realize that he is nervous. He’s telling me that my life may have changed forever. That we’re mates. We’re bound together in ways I cannot yet understand, and he’s scared that I don’t want it.
I reach for his hand, winding my fingers through his. “An eternity to bother you?” I nudge his side, eyes sparking with mischief. “I can think of nothing I’d like more.”
Slowly, a grin spread across his face, changing his expression from nervous to one of pure, unbridled joy. And this time, when he takes my face in his hands and kisses me, it’s so sweet it could make the stars sing.