Chapter 30
Elowyn
Iwas lying in bed staring at the ceiling.
The quiet pressed down around me like a heavy blanket.
Abram was gone, and I wasn’t sure where he was.
It had been three days since he came for me, and I had been so exhausted that I hadn’t left the bed.
My body still ached. Not from pain, but from everything that had happened, from everything that I’d done.
A faint creak of the floorboards made me glance toward the doorway. My heart jumped before settling when Abram appeared, smiling at me as he held up pastries and a cup of tea. His presence always seemed to fill a room, to make it smaller, safer.
“Where were you?” I asked, smiling despite the unease twisting in my chest.
“Checking on Ezra and Farris.”
My smile fell as guilt crawled up my throat, bitter and suffocating.
Abram set the stuff down on the nightstand, the sound of the teacup clinking grounding me for just a moment.
He sat down on the bed and brushed his fingers along my cheek, gentle and steady, as if he could erase the things I’d done.
“She’s doing better. She’s not awake yet, but her magic is increasing every day. Ezra is taking very good care of her.”
“Is he hungry? Should we take him some food?” I wanted to be useful, to make things right somehow.
“I took him some,” he reassured me softly. “Ezra is doing well, I promise. He isn't angry with you."
I nodded, but the guilt still swarmed in my chest like gnats. Abram watched me closely, studying every flicker of emotion across my face before grabbing my hand tightly, anchoring me.
“How are you feeling today?”
“Better.” I smiled weakly.
He smiled brightly in return, and my chest tightened at the sight. That smile could unravel me so easily. I looked at our chests, half hoping something had changed while I wasn’t looking, that the bond had miraculously appeared, but it wasn’t there.
“What if the heavens give you another mate?” I whispered, the thought making my stomach drop.
I had a nightmare about it, and it was filling me with dread. Abram nodded softly, his expression unreadable.
“They will.”
Tears burned my eyes instantly. The calm way he said it made it hurt more. He frowned, his fingers pulling my face up so I was forced to meet his gaze. His eyes softened, but I could see the weight behind them.
“I saw your fate,” he confessed. “For the first time, I saw your future in detail.”
My chest ached at his tone. Was he sad? Afraid? Or was this just another secret the heavens had cursed us with?
“What did you see?” I asked, not knowing if I really wanted to know.
He glanced away from me, and my chest seized. Something in me panicked. I sat up and straddled his lap, wrapping my arms around him tightly, clinging to him like the world might fall apart if I let go.
“If it did not include you then I do not want it,” I told him fiercely. “If I have a different mate too, then I will get rid of him as well.”
Abram laughed softly, and I pulled back just enough to see his face. There was warmth in his eyes, but it was threaded with something darker, something like obsession.
“I saw you with your children.” He brushed the hair from my face tenderly. “Four beautiful daughters.”
A sob escaped me when he smiled at me softly. The image of it, him, me, children, hit something deep in me I didn’t know was still intact.
“So it was me in the vision?” I whispered.
“You saw yourself?” he asked.
“I could only see you standing with a woman with black hair. I didn’t think it was me.”
He nodded slowly before glancing around the bedroom, the faintest smile curling his lips.
“We will need a bigger home.” He laughed, and for a heartbeat, the world didn’t feel broken.
“When will our bond come?” I asked.
He tensed. I felt it immediately, the shift in him, and I held my breath as I waited for the bad news.
“The heavens spoke to me.” He looked at me then, eyes deep and solemn. “They will let us be mates, if we can snap the bond into place.”
I jerked back, disbelief cutting through my chest. “How the hell do we do that?”
He swallowed hard, hesitating like he already knew how I’d react. “I want you to cast a spell on me. The same one your mother used on your father.”
I shoved away from him instantly, the air between us crackling with tension.
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?” he asked as he stood, his voice sharp but pleading.
“Because then you’ll only love me because of a stupid spell. That spell destroyed my life until now.”
“Little weaver, I think we’re past the point of being in love enough that we both know you aren’t forcing me into anything. The spell will just make the bond snap between us; the heavens want us together. But they can't make the bond appear."
It felt wrong to do it. Everything in me screamed that it was wrong, and yet a part of me wanted to believe him—to believe the heavens hadn’t made us this broken.
“Elowyn,” he grabbed my hands, grounding me again. “The spell you cast to get a husband…”
“Yes?”
“I have a confession.” He looked at me, and something almost boyish flickered in his eyes. “I saw your binding circle.”
I stilled, my stomach twisting.
“What?” I asked quietly.
He smiled sheepishly, almost nervously.
“I saw it, and I stepped into it willingly.”
“But you told me to break the spell.”
“I panicked a little because I gave into you. I had been fighting the pull to you for years, but the more I thought about it, the more all I could think of was you and me. It felt right. I could’ve broken the spell if I wanted, but I didn’t.”
“Abram…”
“There’s more.” He let go of my hands and began pacing around the room, his movements restless, unhinged with emotion.
“You told me that men didn’t pursue you, but that’s not true.
I scared them away, threatened to break their hands if they came near you.
When I was in hiding and Della suppressed my memories, I used my magic to protect the memory of you.
“You were the only thing I remembered, and I’d sneak out and visit you. I know your favorite flower is a lily, and that is why I carve them. You mentioned it the first time I ever laid eyes on you, and I didn’t forget. In fact, I pretty much remember everything you said to me.
“I’ve prayed to the heavens, tried to bargain with them to make you mine, and they finally listened to me. And I truly believe it’s because they saw how in love with you I am.”
He pointed to his chest with tears in his eyes, his voice trembling but resolute.
“It is consuming. It has always been you. I was going to find a way. We did. We found a way, and I am not going to let a mating bond take you from me. We need that bond. Without it, you will age, and one day you will die. Then I will die, and I will take the realm with me in my grief. You don’t get to leave me, ever. You die, I die.”
The words hung in the air like a vow and a curse all at once. My breath hitched. I couldn’t tell if it was love or madness—or if it mattered anymore.
“You’re not stealing me from anyone, Elowyn.
You could never steal what has always been yours.
I’m surrendering myself to you, to have, to keep.
My soul, my body, my heart knows only you, and they will only ever know you.
You’re not taking what belongs to another.
I was yours before I ever drew breath. When the realm was made, the heavens carved your image into my mind, your voice into my ears, and split my soul in two, giving half to you. ”
I stared at him trying to wrap my head around the fact that he wanted me out of everyone. He had chosen me long ago. He stared at me with nothing but love and longing in his eyes.
“Touch the threads of my soul, and you will see how in love I am with you. You’ll see our future, but you’ll feel my love for you, like I felt the weight of your love for me when I saw your fate. You will see I am not lying, and I will never change my mind.”
I could feel his emotions. The consuming ache that he felt about me. But I wanted to see his fate too.
My eyes squeezed tighter as the images began flashing before me.
I stepped toward him, breath trembling in my throat, and lifted my hand.
My magic pulsed outward, responding to his invitation.
From his chest, a thread of luminous green seeped into the air, alive and humming.
It shimmered as it reached for me—like it recognized me, like it had been waiting.
I caught it between my fingers, and its warmth spread up my arm and through my ribs until it felt like my heart was glowing.
I closed my eyes as it wound tighter around my hand. The hum deepened, the world dropped away, and then I felt it—him.
The ache. The devotion. The unbearable tenderness of every lifetime he had spent waiting to find me.
And then the visions came.
Flashes of another time, another place. The two of us standing in a garden of white lilies under a sunset. His laughter, soft and unguarded, echoing through eternity.
I saw a home wrapped in ivy, children with dark hair and green eyes running barefoot through the halls. Him pulling me to him to kiss me any chance he got.
Every image pulsed with his emotion—the fierce protectiveness, the reverence, the love that had burned for centuries without faltering. It consumed me, wrapped around my ribs until I couldn’t breathe for the sheer force of it.
The thread trembled, glowing brighter as if it could sense my tears. When I opened my eyes again, I could still see fragments of it in the air, tiny sparks drifting between us like remnants of a shared eternity.
Abram watched me closely.
“Alright, clearly you’re obsessed with me.” I laughed softly as tears slipped from my eyes.
He smiled brightly and pulled me into him, kissing me softly.
“Thank the heavens. I really thought I’d have to find a way to force you to do it.” He grinned. “This belongs to you.”
He pulled out the black velvet box with his star in it. My chest ached at the sight of it. He opened the box and slid the star into his hand, then slowly clasped it around my neck and smiled.
“Do you, Elowyn, accept my star knowing that it binds you to me for an eternity?” he asked.
“I do.” I smiled when the star glowed.
I grabbed the key off of my neck and put it around his neck.
“This is the closest thing to a star I have.” I blushed. “Do you take me for eternity?”
“Yes.” He didn’t waste a second.
“I need your blood.”
He jerked back as I smiled softly.
“For the spell.” I grabbed his tunic and slid it up and off of him, before doing the same to me.
His eyes flashed red as he looked over me. He lifted his hand to me and grabbed his dagger.
“How much?” He held the blade to his wrist.
I grabbed it and held his hand in mine, pricking the tip so a drop of blood formed then I did the same to myself. I looked at him as I pressed my finger to his, mixing our blood.
“Are you sure?” I asked one last time.
“With everything I am, Elowyn.”
I pulled our fingers apart, pressing his into the flesh above my heart and did the same to him with my finger.
"By the weave of heart and soul, by the thread that binds, I claim you whole. No star, no fate, no heaven above shall break the bond of my chosen love. As yours is mine, and mine is true, I snap the cord that binds us two. From this moment, soul to soul, you are mine, unbroken, whole."
Our bloodmarks burned bright gold before it cut through our skin in a thick golden bond that left Abram’s chest and slammed into mine. I moaned at the euphoric feeling that pulsed through me. Abram must have felt it too as his soft growl raced through my veins.
I felt burning on my chest and looked down to see our marriage bonds shifting to something different.
A skull, etched in shimmering silver and pulsing faintly with life.
Infinity symbols burned where its eyes should be, glowing like twin stars, and from its crown bloomed lilies of light, their petals curling and fading into my veins.
The mark hummed in sync with my heartbeat, alive and ancient, binding us together.
“Well that’s beautiful.” I looked at Abram’s and saw that his matched mine.
“Mating bonds.” He moved closer, something possessive lingering in his gaze. “Now we get to feel each other’s emotions through it.”
A rush of overwhelming emotions slammed into my bond, making me stumble back. But he caught me, and instantly, his mouth was on mine. His tongue swept past my lips. He pulled back and looked down and smiled at the golden bond.
“This is how it should’ve always been.”
“I love you.” I smiled.
“I love you. In fact, let me show you how much.”
He sank to his knees in front of me pulling my legs apart so he could run his tongue through my pussy. My bond ached with need.
“Abram…”
“You feel that?” His voice dropped to a rough whisper, the kind that scraped down my spine like a promise.
“That’s what you do to me, how you unravel everything I am until there’s nothing left but you.
Every time I touch you, I lose a piece of what I am.
Do you understand that, Elowyn? You’re undoing a god and keeping all the pieces of me. ”
He pressed me back against the wall, his breath hot, his words trembling with hunger and reverence.
“Now you’ll understand what it means to be worshiped, Elowyn.
Not by gods, not by fate—by me.” His gaze burned into mine, untamed devotion in every flicker of his eyes.
“When I’m through, it won’t be the heavens you thank.
It’ll be my name that leaves your lips. You thank me.
You beg me. It’s my name that will echo in your lungs when you come apart.
And you’ll scream it loud enough that it shakes the heavens and reminds them that you are always where you were meant to be—trembling beneath me. ”
A helpless sound escaped me. “Fuck,” I breathed.
“That’s it. Remember how it feels. This isn’t just devotion anymore, little weaver. It’s damnation. I would shatter every star in the heavens if they tried to claim you. I would burn eternity itself until it remembered you belonged to me.” He kissed the insides of my thighs.
He drew back just enough to look at me, eyes darker than I’d ever seen them.
“We have a lifetime of this,” he promised, voice low and reverent.
“And every day of it, I’ll remind you that you were made for me.
That no god, no fate, no universe could ever take you from me.
I’ll worship you until you forget there was ever a world without my hands on you. ”
His vow wrapped around my soul like a chain I’d begged for. And as I met his gaze, I knew I’d stopped belonging to the heavens long ago. I belonged here, in the ruin and the worship of him. I had always belonged to Abram.