Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 123190 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 616(@200wpm)___ 493(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123190 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 616(@200wpm)___ 493(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
“They are more than lovers,” he says. “They are a bonded pair.”
“Elorans can’t bond.”
“Can’t they?”
“Well, they can bond to fae, but not to each other.”
He lifts his hand to my face and sweeps his knuckles across my cheek. Everything in my chest feels like it turns inside out. “Keep an open mind. You’ve been made to think so little is possible because it keeps you weak. You’ll be amazed when you see just how much magic rumbles beneath the streets of Elora.”
“Magic strong enough to make my ring,” I say softly.
He scans my face. “You’re tired. There’s a handmaid coming around soon. She’ll draw you a bath and get you anything else you need, but I want you to relax tonight and tomorrow. You’re still recovering.”
“And where will you be?” I won’t be so pathetic as to ask him to stay with me.
“Right next door if you need me.”
I study his face—those ice-blue eyes, and his strong jaw, his full lips. I want to curl up against his chest, want to trail my thumb along his jaw and over his rough stubble. “You haven’t kissed me again.”
His gaze dips down to my mouth then my breasts, before sweeping back up. Straightening, he meets my eyes. “Jas, after I return to Elora, our lives will be complicated. You’re the shadow princess, and I—”
I press my fingers to his lips and shake my head. “Don’t. I don’t want to be her. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Let’s not do that.”
He gently pulls my hand away. “It matters. You deserve to know what I can and can’t offer before anything else happens between us.”
“I’m not asking for anything.” Panic climbs up my throat. Before Kendrick was back in my life, the future was something I wanted to dodge because the days and hours stretched ahead of me like a prison of their own. Now I don’t want to talk about it because I’ve already ruined it.
I don’t want to talk about it because the regret might destroy me. I can’t let myself waste the days I have left.
“You should,” he says. “You should ask for everything because that’s what you deserve. I’m being selfish by even being here now. By standing this close. By looking at you. By wanting you. I’ve been selfish this whole time.”
“Your future is in Elora. I know that.” I lift onto my toes and sweep my lips against his, too eager to touch him again, too desperate to feel the bloom of heat in my chest.
I want to wash away the chill I used to relish, want to banish the ring’s numbness from my heart.
His big hands rest on my hips, and I lean into every point where the soft curves of my body connect with the hard planes of his. He closes his eyes. “You’ll be the death of me.”
My stomach shimmies, and I smile. “Time your kisses right, and I think you’ll be okay.” I shift against him, and he curses. I might not have any experience with men or this kind of physical connection, but I know enough to know he wants me—or at least his body does.
He cups my jaw and skims his thumb over my bottom lip. “I’m trying so hard to behave myself, but it turns out my will is not as strong as I once believed.” He leans forward, mouth ghosting across mine. “Why can’t our fates align? Why did the Mother put you in my path if I’m going to have to let you go?”
How do you know you have to let me go? But I don’t ask. He’s human, and he thinks I will be fae in a few short months. And what I will be instead . . . Well, perhaps that’s even worse.
I don’t want to think about any of that, so I slide my hand into his hair and pull his mouth down to meet mine. When our lips touch, he sighs against me.
In nine months’ time, he will be back in Elora, and I will be gone. I can pull my hair and gnash my teeth over the foolishness of my mistakes, or I can enjoy the final days we have together. I would have willed myself dead in Mordeus’s cell if Kendrick’s voice and stories and calming words hadn’t found me in the darkness.
I only have this moment because of him, so I will revel in it with him.
He trails his hand down my hip and along the outside of my thigh before grabbing my leg behind the knee, pulling it up to hook over his hip. At the first press of his body, I nearly melt, but he’s there, holding me up, his mouth exploring mine.
His hand tangles in my hair, tugging my head to the side as he trails kisses down my neck. Shivers explode along my spine.