Those idiots are useless. Thank me instead.
My heart stutters.
That was Maven.
Murky memories and realizations slowly piece together as I pull myself out of a dark depth unlike anything I have ever experienced. My debilitating paranoia is absent, I've been hearing my keeper amid the murky hell I just passed through, and…I feel different.
Not bad. Only different.
Perhaps even stronger.
I open my eyes and stare at an unfamiliar ceiling. The bed I'm lying in is also unknown to me. I'm still puzzling out where I could possibly be when Baelfire's face appears above me, breaking the quiet when he slurps loudly on the straw of a milkshake.
"Welcome back, Si. Thought you wouldn't make it for a hot second, but it's nice to see I didn't have to carry your fevered, deadweight ass around for no reason."
Prick.
But he's nudged aside, Maven’s face appears in my field of vision, and everything else in the world promptly disappears except us. There's something different about her, too. It's something I can't put into words, as if her presence has a rich darkness that draws me in.
Her enchantingly dark gaze holds me hostage. When her fingers trail gently over my face, I stop breathing momentarily as it sinks in.
We're bound. Maven is mine.
Mine.
My keeper's lips twitch when she hears that. To my absolute delight, the following words she sends me are in the fae tongue, inside my head.
How do you feel, my handsome lunatic?
I should have a million questions. Perhaps I should also be mourning the fact that I just woke up as a necromancer, one of the most hated creatures of all time who are outlawed from existence in the mortal realm.
But none of that matters becausegods above, I'm bound to Maven. I can feel it between us—an intimacy of a different kind. A preternatural, irreversible link that settles into my very being.
I feel…elated. So godsdamned euphoric, it's nigh surreal.
I also feel extremely thirsty.
For her.
The need to have her as close to me as possible is so sudden and intense that I don't hesitate before I pull Maven onto me. I know my blood blossom feels the same urge as I do—this craving. I groan into the side of her neck, wrapping her tightly in my arms.
I'm never letting go of you again.
She shivers when I gently nip at her earlobe. Just that tiny reaction has me nearly frothing at the mouth. I've always been attracted to Maven, but it's verging on painful at the moment. I want her in so many ways that I'm simultaneously lost and found.
"Damned newlybounds," Everett grumbles somewhere nearby. "Get a room."
"They'reina room, dickwad," Bael points out.
I trail kisses up and down Maven's jaw and neck, relishing how she's wrapped me up in an equally tight hug. I am drowning in relief, exhilaration, and a deepening desire that makes my mouth water.
Or…is it her neck that's making my mouth water?
No, that can't be. I'm no longer a blood fae, so I must stop salivating like this.
I'm so keyed in to Maven that it hits me like an anvil to the head when she tenses ever so slightly. It's only then that I realize how wrapped up she is in me and how any lingering remnants of her haphephobia might be resurfacing.
Immediately, I release her from my arms, but I can't resist keeping her in my lap as I sit up.
