Brand hadn’t so much as twitched, still in a deep sleep. Draining a gift from his veins and blooding him in the same instant might have had something to do with that. Or maybe it was the countless lacerations she’d discovered on his legs, his hands, some of them horrific—wounds Lunaraknewhe’d ignored entirely in favor of tending to her.
Unfortunately, cleaning the crusted filth of her own near-death from both of them, and putting his flesh back together had only distracted her for a few moments, the soft fabric of a new dress doing nothing to comfort her.
She’d ended up back on the ground, eyes locked on him. On one of his shoulders as it went up and down, up and down, her thoughts spinning and spinning and spinning.
There was no sorting through all the Voice had said. In fact, there were only four words that stuck out, mocking her.
Merge. Bonded. Love. Mated.
The only ones that were relevant to her right now, while she stared across a bleeding cave at her sleepingmate.
Fucking ridiculous. You should have blasted a hole in the wall and left, the rest of the world be damned.
Maybe. Then again, the only thing stopping her from rejoicing her unbelievable fortune was terror over something that may not be real. Brand might be able to protect her after all. Perhaps he could rage and level the entire Council with his greatsword.
Lunara snorted, enjoying the thought a littletoomuch.
What if that’s what the Voice had meant? Not to fear herselfforhim. Not to deny what the Sisters had gifted them in favor of anxious assumptions and wretched memories.
Merge. Bonded. Love. Mated.
Love.
Did she love him? No. Not yet, at least. Not… quite.
Oh, but she could. Blessed moons, how easily she could.
The beginnings were there. The heat, the ease, the laughter and understanding—perfection resting just out of reach, waiting for her to stretch out and grasp it within steadfast fingers.
But there was at least one secret between them. One that was potentially more than enough to burn the rest to the ground.
‘Do not fear his light, Lunara.’
She was going to have to face him when he woke. To look him in the eye after she’d hopped on his massive body like she owned it and taken her pleasure without so much as a thought.
Groaning, Lunara let her lids droop, listening and waiting for him to rouse, forcing her breaths to be long and slow.
Eventually—it could have been minutes or hours, there was no way to know—the sounds changed when bare feet met stone floor.
Funny. The swift patter of his steps matched the frenzied beating of her heart exactly.
Stone floor… Stone…
There was something niggling at the back of her mind, trying to surface through the mire of everything sloshing within, but the sleepy gravel of Brand’s voice broke her concentration and swept the thought away.
“Lunara?” he said softly, urgently, a warm hand cupping her face. “What are you doing over here? Are you alright?”
Her heart stopped.
“Speak to me, my little moon.”
Just as the Voice said it would be. And if it had been right about that one, simple thing…
A flood of words and proclamations swept through her, the Voice imploring her to listen, to accept him.
It was true. Weeping Sisters, it was all true.
The smug laughter that echoed through her mind was so faint, she may have imagined it.
