Page 182 of The Stolen Throne
Then both the priestesses suddenly hiss, and this doesn’t sound good.
“Impossible,” the one whose hands are still over our hearts murmurs.
Vaguely, I’m aware that she leans in close, like she’s studying us.
“Finish the rite.” Reven says the words, but somehow the same words tumble out of my lips at the same time.
The priestess jerks to standing. “Without breaking the lines, kiss your soulbound mate,” she says in a voice gone shocked or hard or maybe both.
Reven and I are too wrapped up in each other, in the throbbing of our bodies, our souls, to care, and we share a simple smile as we carefully lean closer until our lips brush, lift, then press again.
The heat inside me bursts outward, fizzing through my insides to come out of my skin where that light thread touches, and the burn is almost unbearable. I manage to swallow my whimpers, until, with no warning, the pain subsides, leaving only a sense of completeness. Wholeness.
“It is finished,” the priestess says, her voice sounding weary, like she’s completed some great feat. Which, I supposed, she has.
On a shared breath, Reven and I both look down, and I gasp at the sight of sparkling golden lines marking our skin where the thread touched. Letting go of one of Reven’s hands, I feather a touch over a spot to find it not raised or different. Just there. The glimmer of it slowly fading.
Then I see it.
With a frown, I peer closer. Near the glittering golden line newly etched into my skin is another, similar line. I jerk my gaze to Reven to find him studying a similar mark, except his is much brighter. We both look at the priestess, who has gone as pale as a ghost worm’s cocoon.
“What does this mean?” Reven demands.
She shares a glance with the other priestess. “It means…” A pause to swallow. “I’ve never seen this before.”
“What. Does. It. Mean?” He’s snarling now.
The priestess bows her head. “It means you were already soulbound…in a previous life.”
What?
His hand squeezes mine so tightly it hurts. But the priestess isn’t done.
“In your previous life,” she says to me. “But in this life for him.”
77
Make It Real
“Wait.” How is that possible? Has this thing between us been because he’s been my soulbound mate all this time? “We’ve been bound before?”
“Not now,” Reven says. “Later.”
He hustles us out of there fast. So fast I’m sure the two women are still staring at the place where we stood, baffled. He’s right. Not now. We have plenty of time to deal with questions. Now is for us.
As soon as he gets us to a small private alcove, he shadows us back inside the now empty palace, into the smaller room that he’s been using to rest and bolster his powers.
A private room.
The drums outside match the tempo of need, the connection, pulsing through me. Recently soulbound mates tend to be all over each other. That much I am aware of. From what little I’ve been told, no one really knows why this happens. Theories abound. Some speculate that the mates have to make up for past lives where they didn’t find each other. Others say it’s part of the bonding process, that the magic of the ritual is tying them together physically the same way their hearts and souls are now intertwined.
All I know is that this ache for him that was already in me, never quite gone even when we both tried not to feel anything, is so much…more. Like if I don’t touch him, I’ll die. Turn to ash from the fire. I know he feels it, too. He hasn’t let go of me once.
We’ve pretended to be bonded mates once before, when we were caged by Tyndran soldiers. Even then, it didn’t take much imagination to slip into the role. But now that it’s real, it’s like a veil has been lifted. Like I didn’t know my vision was blurry until everything came into focus with sharp edges and colors.
Now I’m in his arms, his fingers in my hair. Reven stares down at me, the heat and urgency filling me reflected in his gaze.
“You’re mine,” he whispers.
