“You come to my rooms in Pera,” he said, that low timbre turning her blood to honey. Another step closer and his mouth was inches from hers. “And you leave me wanting you more than ever.”
“It wasn’t real,” she whispered, heart thundering so loud she could not hear herself.
“Is that what you’ve been telling yourself?”
He shifted his stance and she took a step back, wincing at the hurt she saw on his face before he hid it behind the shadows once more.
“Daris—”
“Something’s changed.”
“Aye.”
“What.”
She sighed, bringing her hands up. Those ineffectual appendages flapped as if that was all the answer he needed and she knew he deserved more.
Ducking her head, she shook it once before meeting his gaze. Severing the bond would destroy her. Destroy them. And yet, if there was a chance she could save him by doing so, she would do it.
“It’s not real, Daris,” she said softly, her voice cracking on his name.
He shifted again, lifting the brow of his ruined eye as he waited for her to continue.
“You and I,” she laughed or sobbed; she did not know. Tears stung her eyes and once more she thanked the night for shrouding her pain. “You and I are not real, Daris.”
“The fuck we’re not,” he all but snarled at her, his vehemence so sharp she felt a stab of fear.
“You—” she shook her head again and placed a trembling hand to his chest, finding the thick corded muscles beneath his tunic rather than the boiled leather and bronze breastplate he’d worn earlier. Her body reacted immediately, a bolt of desire so sharp and loaded it arced down her chest to settle low in her belly.
Terena pulled back her hand and shook her head again. He must think her a moron with all the head shaking. “You and I were… for whatever reason, you and I are… bound. We are soulmates. Bound together by the Fates.”
To his credit, Daris only narrowed his good eye at the revelation. Then a look of awe filled his face, his expression lightening with wonder as he gazed back at her. His shoulders slumped a bit and he straightened. She caught the slow exhale escaping his trembling lips.
“In truth?” Daris whispered. The way he said it made her heart cramp.
“Aye,” she replied in a voice strengthened by the conviction she was doing the right thing. The only thing she could do to save him. To save herself.
“So you see, none of this is real.”
Daris canted his head and stared at her, waiting. When she did not reply, he grunted, “How so?”
Looking at him as if he’d asked her which way the sun sets, Terena scoffed and lifted her head to the star-studded sky. She angrily swiped at a tear audacious enough to defy her will.
“You don’t know? You have to ask?” She huffed a laugh. “You don’t love me, Daris. You don’t.” When he opened his mouth to object, she cut him off with a swipe of her hand. “You think you do, and it feels like it to you; it feels real. But it’s not.Theymade you feel this. They bound us together, and the feelings you have are only there because the Fates made it so.”
Daris stared at her for so long she started to shiver. Whether from the cold seeping beneath her cloak or the way he regarded her so steadily, she could not say.
“You think what you feel is love, but it’s really just a… a manifestation of the bond they placed on you, on us.”
“You think I don’t love you,” he said, his voice unnaturally pleasant.
“I think youthinkyou love me,” she demurred, ducking her head. She could not hold his stare.
“IknowI love you,” he countered.
She laughed and even to her ears it was false and forced and she started to panic. Why was she fucking this up so much?
“I’m telling you, you don’t. You do, because you have no choice. You never did. That’s what this is; you don’t love me because you chose me, Daris,” she said and hated the way she sounded so desperate, but she needed him to believe it. For both their sakes. “Don’t you want to find someone who?—”
