Page 77 of Slayer

“You can’t just walk around in here and touch my things.” He doesn’t stop. Of course he doesn’t. I mean, he did live here for four weeks, healing my broken body, bringing me back from death.

He’s smiling, slow, knowing, devastating. “Little ember…” he murmurs as he steps close enough that I have to tilt my head back to keep my eyes on him. “Have you ever heard of emberbound mates?”

The world drops out from beneath me. My heart falls straight to the bottom of my chest. His eyes blaze brighter than I have ever seen them, molten gold threaded with fire.

Emberbound mates. A mythical bond from another age between two souls whose power does not awaken until they meet each other, a power that only the two can see. Two flames that burn hotter together than they ever could alone. Embers that, once lit… can never be extinguished.

He lifts the mirror in front of my face. For a second, I don’t understand what I’m looking at. Then I do. My reflection stares back at me.

My eyes are burning amber. Alive with molten light, glowing like a fire that has been waiting its entire existence to burn.

I look up at him, then back to the mirror. Disbelief crashes through me in slow, devastating waves. All those times I saw myself reflected in his gaze, I thought it was his magic. His glow. His power, bleeding into me.

But it was never his. It was mine.

The embers. The way he looks at me. The nickname.

He knew from the very beginning.

“Your eyes…” My gaze drifts over his face, searching, memorizing. “They’re amber. Like a healer’s. But what I’m seeing—”

“What you’re seeing are the embers,” he murmurs, cutting in gently.

“Yes.” My voice drops to something softer, more vulnerable than I mean it to be. “So, your true eye color?”

“They are amber,” he says, shifting closer. “But they turn molten when I look at you.”

“You—” I can barely even speak. My entire world just tilted on its axis.

“You’re my mate,” he says. “So your fate is my fate.”

He stands there impossibly tall and impossibly steady, as if this moment has existed for centuries and we are only just now stepping into it. It feels like the world has aligned around us. Like every choice, every death, every mile of ocean and blood and war has led to this single point.

I stand slowly. My hand rises on its own, fingers finding the edge of the mirror and pushing it down. His arm moves with me, allowing it, never breaking the line of his body with mine. I step closer and tilt my head back to look up into his eyes. “How long have you known?” My voice is fragile.

“Since the moment I saw you.”

My breath catches.

“So you knew,” I start, the realization cutting deeper with every word. “You knew I was dying that night—”

“Because I felt it,” he says, lowering his voice. “It was like a flame going out. You were fading and so was my future.” His gaze never leaves mine. “I knew you were about to do the impossible when you left the castle. You were nothing but rage and certainty. The kind that keeps moving even when it’s killing you.” A breath.

“I couldn’t let you die… I needed to know you.”

He needed to know me. The words take root, and I suddenly understand everything about my attraction to him. I wouldn’t believe it otherwise, but I felt it myself from the very beginning.

“How did I not see this?” I ask, still trying to catch up to a truth that has existed far beyond my awareness of it. Part of me wonders if I did know, and if I’d shut it out for a reason. With everything that’s happened with Maddoc, Silas, and Mira…

“Because, little ember,” he says tenderly, and the name wraps around me like warmth, “you were grieving. And you were allowed to. I understand loss, especially one that heavy. He was a good man, always has been.” There’s not even a shadow of jealousy in his voice, but I feel my stomach turn. How he can stand here, knowing I loved someone else, and still look at me like I’m the only person in the world? I will never understand this, but I know it to be true.

“Your soul is bound to someone who is destined to die, and soon,” I say, forcing steel back into my voice. “I would run if I were you.” I’m not worth the heartbreak that will take over him when I die. I turn, moving toward the couch where my leathers are draped. His hand closes around my wrist, his grip gentle.

“My soul is bound to the most remarkable woman I have ever met,” he says with certainty. “I will find a way to save you.” His thumb shifts slightly against my pulse. “I will never leave. And I will never run from you.”

The tears break free before I can stop them. His hand is still holding my wrist. I look down at it, at the way our skin fits together like this has always been the shape of us, and when I lift my gaze back to his, my body moves on its own.

He follows. Of course he does. We’re inches apart. Our eyes are burning, his gold, mine ember-bright.