Page 68 of Leviathan's Song
I studied the potion as I heard him dress and pad into the room, little round vials wrapped in a thin but protective metal cage, with locking metal lids. The bottles themselves said these weren’t some corner-market wares. The liquid was a deep, dark red, viscous, and vaguely luminous in places. It was a little unsettling to watch it roiling slowly behind the glass as I tilted my hand.
One bottle represented freedom for his father. The other, my potential heartbreak. Would he still love me without the bond? How much of his own need for me was this genetic curse?I’ve seen for myself how much magic amplified that need, I thought ruefully as I ran my gaze across the ward now locked securely around my wrist. Levi had replaced it on me himself before we’d even caught our breath.
Now he joined me on the bed again, sprawling loosely on his side with his head propped up on one elbow. “This isn’t a bed; it’s a nest,” he said, referencing my multiple cream, beige, and grey blankets and the piles of pillows.Maybe that’s why Sidney likes it so much…
I flashed a quick look at him, finding his hair mussed and still slightly damp. He hadn’t donned a shirt yet, and I decided Levi wearing loose shorts and no top, still damp from the shower, was my favorite look on him. I gave him a quick smile, but it felt forced.
His eyes narrowed at me. “You’re doing some heavy thinking again.” Hot sun beating onto scorching sand and frothy, rolling water filtered into my subconscious as his magic washed over me. He’d ramped it up.
“I bought you something.” My voice sounded hoarse to my own ears.
He was quiet, waiting for my explanation, but my focus was on the bottles as I clutched them a little tighter. “My next-door neighbor is an apothecary. She’s an Overseeing member of the Apothecaries Committee and teaches her craft occasionally at the university level when they can convince her to make time for them. She’s very good.” I swallowed to stop myself from babbling.
“When you told me about your father’s difficulties, I asked her if she knew of any potions that had the ability to break a long-standing enchantment bond.” A quick glance told me I had his full attention. He was riveted. I forced myself to continue. “She didn’t think one existed, but she thought she could potentially create one. She just stopped by to tell me they were finished.” Not knowing what would come of this, it was easier to stare at the bottles, to watch the potion as it rolled about inside them. When I finally raised my eyes, Levi looked astonished.
He blinked several times, his mouth open slightly, before he reached out gingerly to take a vial. “You did this for us?”
I nodded.
“Elara,” he breathed, his enchantment a living thing in that single utterance. He studied the bottle in silence for a long moment before reaching out for the second bottle, which I handed him. He seemed at a loss for words.
Eventually, his confusion won out. “Is it in two doses?”
“Yes, but… both doses are in the same bottle. The second one… that one’s actually for you.”
His silence stretched for a beat before, “What?” It was completely flat, spoken like a whip. He instantly held the second bottle a little farther away from him, as if it might bite him.
The movement made me realize I’d been staring at the bottles again instead of his face, and when I looked at him, I found him confused, alarmed, and maybe a little hurt.
“I didn’t like… I don’t want you to be trapped. I need for you to have a choice, tochooseto want me instead of being compelled to want me,” I explained, picking at my blanket to have something to do.
His eyes found mine and held, and everything in them was vulnerable and confused. Blue tide-pools of swirling questions. “You want me to take this?”
I thought for a moment before answering him honestly with a minute shake of my head. “No, I don’t. I like you just the way you are. But I want you to have theoptionto take it—even if you never do—because it’s important to me that you have a choice.”
“I’ve made my choice.” I couldn’t help the conflict I knew shone through as he searched my face. “The bond I feel for you isn’t the painful addiction that can never be sated that my father feels. The love we have makes it unique and powerful, and Ilikewhat we have together.” The solemnity on his face faded as humor sparked deep within. “Besides, does it keep a bond from reforming?”
I shook my head. Bette said there were ways to slow them down, but her potion would only break a bond, not prevent it.
“Then what shall I do?” Levi asked. “Break our bond and run away?” He chuckled, as if the thought was laughable. “I love you, and my bond with you will remain, because I could never will myself to stay away.”
I released my held breath, relief rushing through me even as it warred with my desire to do the right thing. “Then I want you to keep it, even if you never use it. Consider it a wedding present.” I made myself hold his gaze, even as he studied mine.
* * *
“Y’all arewild.”
“I know.” I’d decided I wanted to explain to Sidney in person, so we were sitting in the shop on Sunday morning while I worked on more back orders. Levi had peeled himself away from me for long enough to talk with his dad about the potion I’d procured and make him an appointment at a healer’s clinic. He’d been agitated about leaving me, to say the least, but the fact that hecouldmeant the bond was mellowing somewhat.
We were going to file for our marriage in the courts tomorrow morning, since they were closed for the weekend. Sidney was equal parts horrified and thrilled at this new development and still trying to process everything I’d told her.
“I mean, I know I said I wanted you to get married, but I didn’t think you’d actually do it. So then, are you guys going to take his birth name?”
I shook my head, closed the clamp on a piece of obsidian embedded in an axe shaft, and pushed my magic into it. This one was destined for an orc who wanted increased strength. “No, he said he won’t carry the name of someone who abandoned him, and I wouldn’t ask him to. The whole topic is kind of painful for him anyway, and her suggestion about the names was just salt in the wound.” I grimaced at the memory.
She nodded in understanding and took the axe from me when I was done with it. “Speaking of parents, have you told yours yet?” She flopped back into her chair and handed me my next project.
“No.” I frowned because I was being a chicken and I knew it.
