Page 185 of The Stolen Throne
“I can’t lose her.”
Reven’s voice isn’t only in my head—it’s everywhere, inside me, around me. Like I’m hearing my own thoughts. Only his mouth didn’t move.
My eyes widen as I stare at him and listen.
“Forever. In this life and every life hereafter. I won’t lose her, now. Even if I have to—”
I bite my lip and think, “I can hear you. Can you hear me?”
His thoughts cut off as a wary surprise lights his eyes, and I know he did.
Bonding is a mysterious thing. The kind of connection we have now is every part of us—our minds, hearts, bodies, souls, and shadows. Not just the scars. Not just the wounds. The priestesses said nothing of it, but maybe they were being delicate. Or maybe everyone knows that’s how it works. I don’t really care, as long as it worked.
I reach up to twine a lock of his hair around my finger.
“Mate.” The word whispers from Reven. Like a prayer.
I drop my hand and look him in the eyes. And it’s like I can see right into the pureness of his soul. His soul. No Shadows. A spark of fascination wraps around the contentment.
The same sense comes from him through our connection, warming the glittering lines of our binding. I trace those lines on his arm. “I’m glad you kidnapped me that night.”
That surprises a laugh from him. Then he presses a kiss just under my ear. “Me too.”
I smile, but he shakes his head.
“No,” he insists. Then, with a finger under my chin, he draws my gaze to his. “I mean it. From the first moment, you’ve fought me, talked back to me, eventually kissed me, but you’ve never been afraid of me.” He narrows his eyes. “Even when you should have been.”
“Given that we just bonded, I think we should put that down to me having excellent instincts.”
I expect him to laugh with me, but he doesn’t. He brushes his thumb over the indent in my chin, then trails it to my lips. “I want to be the version of me that you see. Even when I’m at my worst.”
Oh.
“You see a person I can’t always see through my past, my origin. But in your eyes, I’m a better man.”
I hate that he can’t see it through his own eyes. He’s already the better man. He chose to run from Eidolon and break a cycle of secrets and death centuries old. He saved hundreds from lives that would have broken and eventually killed them and created a community for those people in the Shadowood. All while fighting the evil inside himself.
I put a hand to his cheek. “I fell in love with you, and that’s all I need.”
“I don’t deserve her.”
I pinch his arm, and he yelps. “What was that for?”
“For thinking stupid stuff.”
His mouth pulls up on the crooked side a bit. “The hearing-thoughts thing will take some getting used to.”
“No kidding.” It’s like he’s part of me. Separate but the same. And it’s weird even while it’s natural. “What am I feeling right now?”
After a pause, he closes his eyes, his grip on me softening as he forces himself to relax. “Fear. Determination.” He sucks in slowly, then opens eyes now a blazing blue. “Love. Goddess, Meren.”
I smile. “What did you think it was? Only a girl in love would stick around the way I have, with you being so difficult and grouchy all the time.”
I’m teasing, but I can feel his love, too, and it’s beyond anything I could have imagined. Almost impossible to grasp. If I sift through all the layers of reaction to our situation, it’s there, at his very core. Like the sun that disappears at night but is always in existence. Always. And if I get too close, I might burn up in it.
But what a glorious way to go.
A new kind of pulsing warmth hits at my core. After a second, I squirm, and I know he feels it, too…a new need coming over us swiftly. That fast. That soon.
