Gods, his scar makes him look so fucking savage. It makes my heartbeat pick up and makes me remember again all thedeliciously wicked things he and the rest of my matches have spent the last day and a half doing to me in bed.
I want more of that already.
My ravens croak happily, fluttering about as the reporters scatter, fleeing to hide in their tents or getting lost in the rest of the makeshift living spaces surrounding the castle. Lillian is quick to move to my side as soon as the way is clear. Today, she’s dressed in a bright pink jacket and hand-painted, colorful floral jeans, along with colorful shoes.
Gods, she wasn’t kidding about missing color. My eyes hurt a little.
She sees me squinting at her and laughs, completely ignoring all of our fascinated onlookers as she reaches out to adjust some of my messy hair. “I’m not surprised you didn’t fall in love with colors as soon as you entered the mortal realm. You always did prefer plain black clothing.”
“Must be hereditary.”
Lillian laughs, but then turns more serious as she examines my quintet and me. They don’t know her as well as I do, but I can see she’s putting together how much better three of my matches are doing—and if their curses are broken, it can only mean one thing.
“You have your heart again,” she murmurs, beaming at me. “Good. These rascals left me completely in the dark after they returned, you know—they just kept saying you were resting as they spiraled out of control.”
“They’re hopeless like that,” I tease, earning a gentle poke in the side from Baelfire. “I’m fine, though. Better than fine—I just feel…right.”
“Being newly bonded probably helps with that,” Lillian notes before looking pointedly at my neck as if to remind me of something.
Oh, right. I forgot about the love bites I’m covered in from hours in bed with my matches.
An obsessive part of me loves that I’m wearing proof of my quintet’s attraction to me. I don’t care that it’s immortalized on camera. I don’t want everyone in the world in our business, but since they butted in, they get to know just how much I adore my quintet.
There’s no judgment in Lillian’s expression as she smiles at my entire quintet. “Now I can get to know all of you without those pesky curses. Oh—Baelfire, are you too warm in that jacket?” she adds with a frown.
I realize she’s right. My always-toasty dragon shifter is dressed in a brown jacket despite the spring-like weather finally thawing the outside world. Frowning, I start to ask why he put the jacket on, but then it hits me.
It hides his collar.
The one I put on him. The one shifters find so fucking humiliating.
Gods, am I the worst keeper ever? I should have noticed sooner.
Glancing at the refugees still watching us from their tents, I step closer to him. “Lean down. I’ll take it off.”
“Nah.”
“Baelfire, I should have taken it off sooner. Just?—”
Raincloud, Ilikewearing a collar you put on me,he says just to me through our bond, his golden gaze burning me.I like the leash, too. They make me feel more like I’m yours, as long as no one else sees them. Besides, with the newlybound urges so fucking bad this time around, I think it’s helping to calm me down since I can’t have you naked in bed for a little bit longer.
His newlybound urges are worse, too?
I wonder if the others have been experiencing the same thing. Before I can ask, Crypt disappears into Limbo without another word.
39
CRYPT
Syntyche’s scythe,everythinghurts.
I loathe that my muse has been left concerned in the distorted mortal realm as I retreat here for the worst of it. But as little as I care for the opinions of others, collapsing in pain in full view of the refugees gathered here would have caused a commotion that Maven shouldn’t have to deal with.
Not to mention, those pretty tears she held back the last time she saw me like this hurt almost as much as my curse. I’ll do anything to spare her more tears than I know she’ll one day shed for me.
Curling in on myself, I grimace as the pain repeatedly wracks through me. My limbs burn. My lungs can’t pull in oxygen as a sensation like millions of needles burrows inside my veins. When I can finally breathe again, it quickly turns into coughing—and up comes more blood.
It’s less severe than it was before my heart was rebound to Maven’s, but in the end, there is no help for it.
