Chapter 44 Afterglow
AFTERGLOW
ELYRIA
She didn’t move.
Didn’t dare.
Oh, she was tempted to. She wanted to dance her fingers up his arms, across his chest, over her mark on his shoulder.
The cool pre-dawn light leaking into the tent cast the softest glow over Cedric’s handsome features, and Elyria was tempted to smooth his brow which, even now, relaxed in sleep, had just the slightest furrow to it.
She wanted to plant another kiss on his scarred lip, wanted to start the long process of replacing every negative memory or thought he’d ever had about it with the knowledge of how much she loved it.
But Elyria didn’t want to break the magic of this moment. Didn’t want to have to come back to reality just yet.
Cedric lay next to her, body pressed against her, one arm under his head, the other arm draped across her stomach. His breath ghosted across her collarbone, warm and slow and even.
The tent was hushed. The forest itself was quiet. Still. Peaceful.
Right.
Elyria stared at the gentle curve of the tent’s ceiling, her vision slightly unfocused, as if she were still waking up—even though she’d already been awake for hours.
In truth, she wasn’t sure she’d been able to sleep at all, not with the mark on her neck throbbing dully and the thrum of magic still swimming in her veins, alight and alive.
She lifted the arm that wasn’t trapped between her and Cedric’s naked bodies to her neck, brushing the pads of her fingers over the raised double crescents there.
Satisfaction pulsed quietly through her chest, her magic shimmering up and down the thread between them, thrumming contentedly under her skin.
And it wasn’t just her shadows. Not just her wild power. There was something entirely, wholly new there too. Like a kernel of Cedric’s warmth—his fire, his light—had danced its way down their bond and was now nestled between the threads of her other magic.
Elyria didn’t know how to describe it. How to explain the way her shadows felt somehow lighter, lessened, yet she felt more powerful than ever. Like they’d been tempered. Fortified.
It was a strange place to be in—this position of knowing and not-knowing.
The bond itself, what they’d done last night, the logistics of how they’d claimed each other?
Those were all things Elyria understood.
It was what had come after, the depths of this thing between them, whatever had been forged in those moments of claiming that she couldn’t quite comprehend.
She took some comfort in the fact that her poor knight didn’t understand much about either thing, though he was taking it all in stride with impressive fortitude, nonetheless.
“Soul-tied,” he’d repeated as they lay together in the afterglow, both curled up on their sides, facing each other, their legs overlapping.
“Or soul-bonded. You can take your pick.”
Cedric ran his hand languidly up Elyria’s spine, brushing the base of her wings, and she shivered in spite of the heat still radiating from him. “What does that mean exactly?”
“You’ve never heard the term?” she asked, genuine surprise flashing through her.
She knew it was something that rarely impacted humans, if ever.
Still, she’d have thought the notion would have made its way into some of the fairytales and romance novels she’d seen littering the shelves of the palace library, at the very least.
“No, no, I know the word. I understand the concept,” he said slowly. “I meant, what does it mean for us?”
“It means this,” she said, the words rippling down their bond. “And it means you’re stuck with me now, Sir Knight, whether you like it or not.”
Cedric’s brow creased and it took him several moments to respond.
She knew it was likely because he was simply getting used to hearing her in his head.
Still, she couldn’t hide the relief she felt when his voice echoed back and said, “You can rest assured that I like it. I just don’t fully comprehend what happens now. Does this change things?”
“Do you want things to change?”
He brought a finger to her chin, tilting it so that their eyes met. “No,” he said aloud, and Elyria smiled.
“So then, nothing changes. Our mission and our motive remains the same. You and I are just”—she leaned forward and pressed a quick kiss to his lips—“all the more aligned now.”
Cedric arched his brow. “Nothing changes?”
“Nothing and everything,” she said down the bond, laughing lightly.
Because these waters were just as uncharted for her as they were for him.
The concept of finding a true soul-bonded partner was so rare that it’d been nearly relegated to fairytales for the fae as well.
Most Arcanians went their long, long lives knowing one, maybe two soul-tied pairs—not counting the infamous example of Queen Daephinia and King Juno.
And even that was not quite the same. Juno was human, and Daephinia had indeed claimed him, bound their souls.
But the tie had come from her, been her choice, an action she had taken.
And the origins around it all have gotten muddy over the centuries, but many say she had really only done so in order to tie his human life to hers.
Their marriage was an alliance between the realms, and for peace to reign, it needed to last longer than his paltry human lifespan would allow.
Not to mention there was no predicting how long it would have taken for the two of them to produce an heir.
This, though? This bond between Cedric and her?
It was different. It didn’t just come from her.
Wasn’t only some possessive fae instinct rearing its head.
Or maybe it was partially that, too, but there was something else to it.
Something that came from him just as much.
Something that had long been tugging the two of them toward each other, since before they even liked one another, let alone . . .
Elyria blinked, drawing her focus back to the present, to Cedric’s still-sleeping form, the rise and fall of his broad chest, the downward slant of his mouth, like he was having a concerning dream.
She released a slow breath, and Cedric’s arm tightened around her. She tried to focus on the feel of it, relishing the way just his grip on her body had her magic stirring, had warmth spreading through her bones.
She’d been so stupid. So stubborn. Deep down, beyond where she’d tried to hide and bury every feeling, every thought about it, she’d known.
Known that there was something between them that went beyond claiming a partner or tying a life together.
Not just a soul-bond. Not just any tie.
Something celestial-forged.
Celestial-blessed.
Meant to be.
It was why some small, tiny part of her had felt like she knew him, that she could see him. It was the way their magic whispered to each other, that flare of familiarity. Her shadows recognizing his light.
What she hadn’t known was that finally giving into it, finally acknowledging it, claiming it, would feel like this.
Like peace.
Like coming home.
His voice brushed against her consciousness, calm and content. “Your thoughts are very loud.”
Elyria grinned as she peered at Cedric, who had cracked one sleepy eye open, his gold-ringed iris sparkling. “Apologies for interrupting your beauty rest.”
He groaned, rolling onto his back. “Not this again.”
She chuckled aloud. Then, not aloud, she said, “Good morning.”
Cedric blinked at the tent ceiling. “This is definitely going to take some getting used to.”
Elyria propped herself up on one elbow, gazing down at him. “For me as well.”
He looked at her, brows drawn together. “So, you never . . . ? With Evander?”
A swell of sadness bubbled up in her chest. “It wasn’t the same. Neither of us ever felt the urge to truly claim one another like this.” A divot formed between her eyebrows. “Not to say that we didn’t love each other deeply. Not that we weren’t committed.”
“Of course,” Cedric started. “I would never—”
“We were together for nearly a century. We’d made plans for a long life with each other before .
. .” She swallowed, the back of her throat feeling suddenly tight.
“It’s just that in all that time together, even when we were at our best, it was never like this.
” Elyria bit the inside of her lip to try and stave off the surprising tears she could feel building behind her eyes.
She shouldn’t have bothered. Cedric knew instantly. He could feel it too, now. Maybe he always could.
“We don’t have to talk about it.” He sat up and scooted behind her, pulling her back against his chest.
“It’s fine. I’m . . .” She leaned into him.
“It’s hard not to feel guilty. Not only because of how it ended, and then how he ended.
But now this. It’s hard not to feel like this is somehow a betrayal of what he and I shared, and it’s equally hard not to feel like what he and I shared is not also somehow a betrayal of this.
” She shook her head, her shadows tangling inside her chest. “I know that probably doesn’t make any sense. ”
“It makes perfect sense.” He swept her hair over one of her shoulders and began playing with the ends, planting a quick kiss on the side of her neck before saying, “And you’re allowed to feel however you do—about that, about this.
But if it helps in any way, shape, or form, I could not feel further from betrayed.
I could never begrudge any part of your life, anything you’ve been through.
Even the things that make me rage at the thought of how you’ve been hurt. ”
She could feel the moment Cedric’s eyes darted to her legs, could hear the grind of his teeth as his jaw clenched. Elyria resisted the immediate instinct to splay her hands over the scars there, to make a joke, to distract or redirect.
Instead, she turned in his lap, forcing herself to meet his heated gaze.
“I cherish every moment that’s made you the person you are,” he said.