Chapter 33 #2
“Oh.” Meera lets out a sob. “I don’t—I don’t want her to see me like this.”
“She doesn’t have to,” I say quietly. “You can recover with us, and we can bring her to you once you’re ready to see her.”
It’s a small concession that I don’t have to make, given how much pain her bloodline has caused mine. But this woman has been through hell, and I don’t want her to suffer any more than she already has.
“My female ancestors hated the Silvercrest line,” she admits. “Twenty years of captivity have changed me. Your kindness—I want to repay it. I can give you your life back.”
The witch’s free hand lifts. It shakes. She lets it stay in the air between her and Sienna. “Come here, child.”
Sienna leans closer, and the witch’s fingertips find the curse mark at Sienna’s collarbone. “Let me end the cycle.”
“No! You’re not supposed to use magic yet!” Sienna takes hold of her wrist.
Meera, a broken thing. “Child, I have enough to do this. This is blood magic.”
I feel the bond between Sienna and me change as the witch’s mouth moves in a whisper I cannot hear.
It is the strangest sensation I have ever felt in my body. The bond pulls. It hums. It runs. It opens or it closes. It does not draw inward like a knot tightening in the center of my chest. It does that now.
The witch continues to chant softly, and the pressure spikes.
Sienna gasps. Her shoulders jerk. The long, thin, black tendril under the witch’s hand becomes so hot that I can feel it from where I am crouched, the bond carrying it to me even before Sienna’s expression changes.
My wolf snarls inside my chest, and I lock every muscle in my body to keep from snatching the witch’s hand away.
The pressure climbs, white-hot, into a single point at my breastbone, and Sienna sucks in a sharp breath beside me. Her hand finds my arm, fingers digging in.
I cannot breathe. The bond is full. Flooded. There is so much of Sienna in my chest that I am not certain where she ends and I begin. Underneath that, the cold, dragging thing I have carried my entire life lifts off me in one clean motion.
The pressure breaks.
A small wash of warmth spreads through my chest from the breastbone outward. Sienna’s hand is still on my arm. Her grip has softened.
Meera lowers her hand. “There,” she breathes, and her eyes close.
For one terrible moment, I think she has died, and my hand flies her wrist. The pulse is there. Slow. Even. She has simply fallen back to sleep.
I sit back on my heels and look at my mate.
“Sienna.”
The black tendril is gone.
The skin where it climbed for almost two weeks is clean. Pale. Unmarked. The mating mark on the other side of her throat sits dark against her skin, but the curse mark has been lifted off her like a sheet pulled off a piece of furniture.
Her fingers come up. They touch the bare skin. They press there. She lifts her eyes to mine in a way I have not seen before.
“Lucas.”
“I know.” My voice is rough. “I felt it.”
The bond between us is full. Open. Singing in a register I have never had access to. There is no part of me reaching for her that does not get answered. My wolf is up on his haunches inside me.
I get to my feet, pulling Sienna up with me. My hands find her face, my thumbs at her cheekbones, and I look at her closely because I need to be certain my eyes have not lied to me.
Her collarbone is clean.
I drop my forehead to hers, unable to speak.
“Lucas.” Her hands come up to my wrists. She smiles at me. “I’m going to live. We’re going to have that future.”
Violet is saying something, but I can only hear Sienna. I cannot let go of her face.
The infirmary tent goes blurry at the edges. Nearby, Darius is murmuring low to Violet, his palm cradling the back of her head, the two of them turned toward us but not pressing in. Lillian is watching me with a steady expression I cannot read.
The witch is still asleep.
I run my lips down the bridge of Sienna’s nose and find her mouth.
I kiss her. There is dirt on her chin, salt on her cheeks, blood on her tongue from a cut she has not mentioned.
I do not care about any of it. She kisses me back with both hands fisted in the front of my shirt.
The bond surges again, hot and immense, and behind my ribs, my wolf is making a sound I have never heard him make before.
When we break apart, Sienna is laughing. A cracked, half crying, breathless sound.
I have spent every day of my life waiting for the sky to fall on me. Waiting for the hour to come when I would have to bury my fated mate. There is no version of the future I have allowed myself to picture in which I get to keep her.
“Sienna.”
“Hm.”
“We’re going to have a grand mating ceremony. I want everyone to know about the beautiful, brave, ambitious woman who will be by my side from now on.”
I guide her out of the makeshift infirmary with my hand at the small of her back. We step out into the sunlight. The air beyond the tent feels cooler and cleaner than the air under it. I put my arm around her shoulders, and we walk across the yard with the bond singing between us.
Smoke still rises from the compound behind us. But ahead of us, the future that seemed like an impossibility is now so clear that my heart fills with a wild joy.