27. Callum #2
“I’ll take care of it,” I assured her as I stood to my full height, Loxl jumping off the couch at my movement and coming to stand by my feet.
“I’ll just go—”
“No,” I stated, firmly, but with a gentleness I’d never used before. “You’ll stay here until the nausea fully subsides. I will take care of it. Trust me to help you, starlight.”
She reluctantly nodded, her body sinking back onto the couch. Reaching down with one hand, I tugged my shirt off in a fluid motion. The chilled night air brushed against my skin as I turned the shirt right side out.
“What are you doing?!” Raelyna’s cry burst out at my action, and I pinned her with a grin.
“Solving your current clothing crisis, while I get supplies to clean your sofa.”
Her eyes widened at my statement, and it took everything in me to curb the groan of delight that sprang forth as I watched her eyes track across the now bare expanse of skin I was displaying. With concentrated actions, I handed the shirt to her.
“Change into this . . . without moving too much. I don’t need you falling.”
I chuckled as her eyes rolled at my words, but she began moving to comply with the demands.
“Why lightning bolts?” she asked, her eyes narrowed on the left side of my body—the side I knew had an intricate series of golden lightning bolts cutting over my skin.
“To remind myself that even when I feel powerless, there’s a greater power out there. That even when I don’t feel in control, I can know that the Eternal is shaping the path before me.” I admitted as I held her gaze.
Her lip curved up slightly as she studied the golden ink across my skin. “I like it,” she replied softly before settling further into the couch. I took that as my cue to go off in search of any form of stain remover.
Leaving the living room, I began rummaging through the kitchen cabinets, searching for baking soda, a bowl, and a towel. It took far more searching than I’d anticipated. The number of items Raelyna managed to store in these cabinets could win an award, if one could even be awarded for such a feat.
Filling the bowl with cold water and then mixing the baking soda into a paste I knew would remove the stain fairly quickly. I headed back out into the living room, only to stop dead in my tracks.
My blood spiked, pulse increasing rapidly as I stared at the female before me in wonder and amazement. The desire to claim her as mine coursed through every fiber of my being.
Raelyna was curled up on the sofa, eyes closed as she hugged a pillow against her chest. She had discarded the blood-covered lounge set in a pile on the floor beside her and was now resting, nestled up, in only my T-shirt.
Softly padding through the living room, it took everything in me not to disrupt her as I began to cover the blood-speckled stains in the paste, scrubbing and then letting them sit for a few moments.
Her breathing had calmed to a steady pace, and the throbbing pain I’d previously felt through the starbound mark was no longer pulsing.
Throughout my years, I’d heard many comments about the starbound mark, about how you could feel your bonded’s pain and their emotions through the bond.
I’d also heard many drunken ramblings about the frustration of not being able to fully block out the bond.
But in this moment, I’d never been more grateful to feel her pain through the bond.
Because without it, I wouldn’t have been there to comfort her, to ensure she was okay.
Picking up her clothes, I made my way through her apartment until I found her laundry room. I set the clothes in the washing machine, ensuring they were covered with a stain remover, before making my way back toward the living room.
As I entered, I stopped in my tracks for the second time in five minutes, finding sea-glass hazel eyes fastened on me.
“You didn’t have to do that for me,” she said softly, her fingers picking at the fringed tassels on the pillow she still clutched close to her chest.
“I wanted to,” I replied as I advanced toward her in the low lighting of the space.
“Why?” she asked softly after a moment, and a heavy weight hit me, hating that I could tell she didn’t believe she deserved help.
“Because,” I answered as I caught her gaze. “I want you to know that you don’t have to do everything alone. It’s okay to ask for help.”
“When will it go away?” she asked as she gestured toward the markings on her arm. I sighed as I slipped onto the couch beside her, angling my body to face her as she played with the pillow between us.
“Only the Eternal knows that,” I replied softly.
“I still don’t understand,” she admitted as she looked up at me from between her lashes. “How is it even possible? It shouldn’t be, should it?”
I sighed. “It shouldn’t be, and yet, somehow, it is.”
“Just like it’s somehow possible for Luc and his father to manage to create an entire religion centered around false gods,” she muttered bitterly under her breath.
A low noise rumbled from my chest, frustration rising at the entire situation. “It shouldn’t have been possible,” I admitted. “Even now, it shouldn’t be possible.”
“And yet, it is,” she retorted, a note of weariness lacing her voice as she toyed nervously with the pillow she kept barricading us with. “Somehow, with Luc . . . it’s always possible. He will always get his way.”
I watched as she picked thread after thread from the pillow before I finally reached out, grabbing the pillow from her grip and moving it to the floor beside us, before tugging her closer to me, demanding her attention.
“Luc doesn’t hold as much power as you think he does,” I said, feeling frustration rise at the pedestal she seemed to elevate the pitiful excuse of a male to.
She scoffed at my words. “Maybe not to you, but you’re from Aurum Quarter. You’re a part of the stars-damned elite Shade in the Aurelian Guild. You worship a different God altogether.”
“What’s the connection? With him, I mean,” I asked, finally prompting the question that had been on replay in my mind for so long.
“You mean besides the fact he’s the literal king of Solis Quarter? And I happen to be a resident of the same Quarter?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said with a frown. “Besides the obvious, Raelyna.”
Raelyna hesitated, playing with the hem of my shirt before her lashes finally fluttered up, and sea-glass hazel eyes collided with mine in conflict.
“I made a bargain,” she finally admitted as she gestured to the black mark—a discredited mark—above the palm on her left hand.
“I made it after Orela’s Marking Day. She marked as an aetherial affinity for a seer, and after Luc executed our father for treason, I didn’t want her anywhere near Luc or the temples.
” Her nose crinkled in disgust at the thought, the smattering of freckles across her cheeks bunching at the movement.
“So I made a deal with him—me for my sister. I have to stay with him, obey him, and come anytime he calls for me. For her—so she didn’t have to serve in the temples. ”
“Why would he make that bargain with you?” I inquired, my fingers pressing against the mark on her skin. “Especially when it’s clear that the bargain has been broken.”
“Well, that’s a recent development,” she admitted.
“But I, well . . .” She hesitated. “I don’t know.
Luc and I . . . we have a complicated history.
We were childhood friends, and at one point, I don’t know .
. . it could have been more, possibly. But Luc’s father—” She trailed off.
“Luc had to prove his loyalty to the throne. When he caught my father sneaking in places he shouldn’t have, he executed him for treason. ”
“That’s not right. You know that.”
She let out a soft, harsh chuckle, her fingers tracing the golden ink running up my left side.
“I know that,” she said softly. “But it didn’t matter. He’s the king, and I’m just a lower.”
I let out a harsh laugh, anger flaring through me at her words. At how little she thought of herself. “You are so much more than your affinity, Raelyna.” My hand moved on its own accord, tilting her chin up to look at me. “Don’t let him take that from you.”
“But he has my sister. Orela’s entire life is in his hands right now, and I can’t afford to make a mistake that would put her in more danger. I just can’t . . . So if I have to play by his rules, for her sake, I will.”
“You can get her back,” I stated, tracing fingers in a delicate pattern along her thigh as she spoke. “Lucanus doesn’t hold that much power.”
She smiled sadly. “You say that, but life’s not always fair.
Sometimes you just have to play the hand you’re dealt.
And I did what I had to do to ensure my sister would be safe.
I still will, even though he discredited me and broke our bargain because he believes I’m affiliated with you.
I can’t afford for anything to happen to her. ”
“This won’t last,” I vowed to the female who I now found to be sitting on my lap, her legs straddling me as I looked up at her. “He can’t control you forever, so don’t let him control the narrative.”
She smiled sadly, looking at me with an unreadable expression. “That’s good in theory, but it’s a lot harder in reality.”
“Well,” I replied, a soft smile—I found I only reserved for her—tugging on my lips. “I believe in you.”
She leaned into me then, and every muscle in my body tensed, forcing myself not to claim her here and now. I called on every ounce of strength and determination as her intoxicating scent of jasmine flooded across my senses.
“I’m just so tired of feeling like a pawn in someone else’s game,” she admitted.
“These past few years have been shrouded in darkness from my father’s death to Orela’s marking, and now this.
Luc was never there for me . . . he’s been the one causing my light to fade out.
And now, I’m starting to realize just how much corruption he’s spread through the Quarter. ”