Ruger shook his head. “Choose me over him. Bind yourself tome.”
“We are already bound.”
The guy really wasn’t going to make it easy on him. “Fine. Then I’ll go tell Castor I want to trade places with you.”
“No!” Luka growled, his voice ricochetting through the room like a gunshot.
“And if I do?”
“I will kill him.”
Intense, but okay. “What if he told you to killme?”
This time Luka hesitated, only for a moment, but enough to make him worry that might not ever get there.
“No.”
“No? But you’re bound to him.”
“No,” he repeated. “I would never harm you,taavi. You are the most important thing to me, more important than my own life.”
The cuffs on his wrists flickered, faded, then flared back to life, but they looked a little dimmer than before.
“What if he wanted you to go with him?”
“I would not leave you,” he answered, his tone stronger and filled with more conviction this time.
The bonds shuddered and flickered again.
“If he ordered it?”
“No.” Luka shook his head firmly. “I cannot be apart from you. I will not.”
The web of lines and intricate knots began to unravel and dissolve, fading one by one. Almost there. They were so close Ruger could practically taste it. Just one more little push.
“What if he wanted to sleep with me?”
Luka’s eyes flashed red, and a dark, ominous growl ripped from his throat. “If he touched you, I would eviscerate him and hang his entrails from the castle turrets as a warning to others.”
That was way hotter than it should have been, and Ruger had to struggle to maintain focus. “Because?”
“You belong to me. As I belong to you.” Gripping the front of Ruger’s sweater, he jerked him close and sealed their mouths together in a kiss full of fire and possession. “No one else. You aremine. Only mine.”
“And you are mine. Not Castor’s. Not anyone else’s.Mine.”
He saw the moment the idea finally sank in and took root. The crimson light faded from his mate’s eyes, and the tension in his body melted away, making him sway on his feet.
“Luka,” he whispered, his voice thick as his heart lodged in his throat. “Look.”
The golden bands that had been his constant companions for centuries were gone, leaving only smooth, bare skin around his wrists.
“I am free?” Luka asked, his entire being radiating with awe.
He knew the traumas of Luka’s past hadn’t vanished with the shackles. It would take time and love for him to heal. Luckily, he had an abundance of both.
“I still hate that he’s going to get away with this.” Castor needed to pay for what he’d done, and the rest of the world deserved to know what kind of person he was.
“Do not trouble yourself with him,” Luka answered sagely. “No one can outrun their karma forever.”
