Chapter 19
Chapter
Nineteen
Loren woke with a gasp, her name on his lips.
Heat pulsed through him, his body aching with the memory of what she’d felt like pressed against him.
The way her bare skin had tasted. The noise she’d made when his teeth had scraped over that skin—he groaned, his body throbbing with a need he hadn’t felt in twenty-five years of starvation and isolation.
And all around him the shadows keened, blanketing the walls and writhing over the bed.
“Fuck,” he hissed, throwing back the covers.
The sheets tangled around his legs, tripping him. He slammed his shin into the bedframe, swearing viciously as he staggered toward the basin. He didn’t bother to warm the water, dousing his face and chest until his skin was numb and his heart had stopped pounding like it would escape his chest.
“Enough,” he growled, shaking off the shadows as they twined around him, her name a whispered chant in his ears. “She’s not here. Pull yourselves together.”
But she had been. Goddess help him—she’d been in his bed. Loren was sure of it.
She called. The shadows crowded close again, their hissing voices rising to a frenzy. For you. For us. She wants—
“She didn’t,” Loren corrected, his voice hoarse. “It wasn’t her. It was the bond. You know that.”
The shadows snarled their displeasure, cold tendrils lashing his skin like icy whips. No difference.
Loren slammed his fists against the stone, barely feeling the pain. “That’s not how she’ll see it. And I won’t—” he broke off, his breath tearing out of him in a ragged growl. “I won’t take something she doesn’t offer freely. Not after everything that’s already been taken from her.”
The shadows stilled, the cacophony of their voices falling silent for a single instant before they drew together, their words landing like a lash.
And why would she offer if you don’t ask?
Loren threw himself down on his bed, slamming his eyes closed. But he couldn’t banish the lingering echo of their question, gnawing at the edges of his resolve with sharp teeth through the long hours.
His head was pounding by the time the dawn finally lightened the sky outside his window, the city stirring to life far below. He dragged a hand over his face, hauling himself out of bed and tugging on his clothes with stiff, graceless hands.
He’d go to breakfast and make his excuses. Whatever Eloria wanted of him today would just have to wait. He didn’t have the strength to play prince—not when all he could think about was the hollow ache in his chest where she should have been.
But the sight that greeted him when he stepped into the solar where Eloria and Galen always took their breakfast together drove the haze from his mind like a blade to the gut.
“What are you doing here?” he snarled. The shadows rose at his back, answering his fear with their fury, every bit of it trained on his oldest friend—who was sitting here next to Galen instead of guarding her.
“Good morning to you too, Loren,” Eloria said dryly, not looking up from buttering her bread. “Thorne arrived yesterday after you’d already retired—he brought you those candied blossoms you always loved.”
“Candied blossoms?” Loren echoed. The shadows mantled at his back, frost creeping across the windows.
“Veria wanted you to have them for your first Bloomtide home.” Thorne studied him with too-knowing eyes, barely sparing a glance for the seething darkness steadily growing thicker around them.
“She’s safe, Loren. More than that—she’s finally getting comfortable simply existing with the full breadth of her power.
She and Veria are going to have their own Bloomtide celebration. ”
“She could lose control.” Loren’s voice cracked, the room darkening around them. Frost crept across the walls, his breath fogging the air in front of his face. “She could hurt herself or someone else—”
A piece of bread smacked him in the shoulder.
The shadows reared back, affronted. But Eloria just ripped another piece of toast in half, balling it up between her fingers like she had when they were children.
“It’s far too early for you to be this dramatic,” she snapped, her green eyes flashing.
“There’s only one person in this room losing control of his magic right now and that’s you.
Your mate is in a warded castle behind a curtain of shadows that eats anything that ventures too close to it. I’d hardly call that unprotected.”
Her words rang in the sudden silence. Loren clenched his jaw so hard his teeth ached, his heart pounding against his ribs.
Just last night she’d been in his bed at Ithralis—safe.
But he’d had other dreams. Nightmares where Jaxon’s hands dragged her back into the dark.
Chains on her wrists. A collar tight around her throat.
He’d heard her scream, her desperate pleas echoing against the stone walls of the same cell that had held him for twenty-five years.
“I can’t—” his voice shook so badly he couldn’t continue, the darkness around him shuddering.
Her imagined terror pierced his chest, his body bracing for a threat he couldn’t fight.
He needed to see her. To confirm with his own eyes that she was safe.
Then when she rejected him like she had in her dream he could walk away with at least that comfort.
“He needs to see her, El,” Galen said softly, laying his hand over hers. “I’d feel the same.”
Eloria sighed, her expression softening as she looked at her own mate.
“I can only spare you for two days,” Eloria said. “People will expect to see you at Bloomtide, so I’d appreciate it if you were back for that.”
Relief crashed over Loren so suddenly he nearly sagged against the table. But underneath it, shame twisted its sharp claws into him. He was supposed to be a prince, the savior they all looked to—but instead he was falling apart because he couldn’t bear being apart from one female.
Not trusting his voice, Loren inclined his head stiffly. Shoving back his chair, he stood and strode from the room, the shadows snapping at his heels.
“You’re not the first one to make a mess of your mate bond, you know.”
“I don’t recall asking for your advice.” Loren scowled as Galen fell into step beside him, their footfalls echoing through the deserted corridor.
“You didn’t.” The golden-haired male shrugged, the pleasant, affable expression he always wore serious for once. “But Eloria cares deeply for you. I’d be a poor mate if I saw a way to help and held my tongue. Did you know she was only twenty-three when our bond drew us together?”
Loren faltered mid-step, his head whipping toward Galen. “Twenty-three?” His shadows hissed, spreading out around his feet as his chest tightened. “She was a child.”
“That’s what I told her.” Galen shrugged. “She was still grieving your father and struggling to run a kingdom she never expected to rule. I told her she needed more time to figure out who she was before throwing a mate bond into the mix—I’m sure you can imagine how that went over.”
“You weren’t wrong,” Loren snapped. Fae didn’t even come of age until twenty-five—it was unheard of a mate bond to manifest before then. Most fae waited until long into their forties and fifties.
“Maybe not, but my reasons were.” Galen snorted, shaking his head. “The whole truth is, I was terrified of the responsibility of keeping her safe when our people were on the verge of being wiped out. So I pushed her away.”
Loren’s lip curled. “You obviously got over it.”
“We did.” A thin smile tugged at Galen’s lips, gone as quickly as it came. “But not before she tried to claim the shadows.”
“She what?” The words punched the air from Loren’s lungs. Even the shadows stilled, cringing against his legs.
“After your father died, she thought she had to be everything you would have been—that the shadows would answer to her if she just… proved herself worthy.” Galen sighed, his golden gaze distant. “I ran when I felt her terror—but they nearly tore her apart before I managed to drag her out.”
Loren stared at Galen, his throat working as he searched for the words to respond.
Even the shadows were strangely silent, hovering around his legs like they were afraid to get too close but loathe to melt away.
They had lashed out at Eloria once under his control—when they thought she was a threat to Araya.
But to learn they had attacked her unprovoked, nearly killed her…
it was a wonder she could stand in the same room with him at all.
“She never told me,” he said finally.
“She wouldn’t,” Galen said. “She doesn’t talk about it Loren. She’s never even told me what they said to her. All I’m saying is that when I tried to put space between us—even though I told myself and everyone around me that I was doing it for her—it nearly got her killed.”
Not us, the shadows protested, their myriad of voices overlapping in soft echoes as they pressed tightly against his legs, curling up his calves in restless patterns. Not us. Not that time—
“All I’m trying to say is make sure whatever choice you make is actually for her and not just a product of your fear.” Galen clapped a hand on Loren’s shoulder, flashing a weary smile. “There’s no prize for suffering, Loren.”
Loren could only watch as Galen strode back down the hall. Returning to the warmth of the mate who waited for him—loved him. The shadows murmured, their restless mumblings as chaotic and unsettled as their shifting coils. But for once, Loren didn’t try to silence them.