“He misses you, and it’s not an excuse, but Nyx does want more than just the old you.” I didn’t love the guy, but I knew that. I could see it in him. “He fought for you. Never gave up looking for you, even when everyone called him crazy.”
“I love him, but I don’t know how to be what he wants.”
“Maybe you need to tell him you can’t be.”
“How? He just believes it can all go back. He has so much faith in the healers to restore me and return me back to him good as new.” Kol exhaled harshly.“I don’t know if our bond can be healed somehow, but he is never going to stop babying me while he can’t connect with me in that way. What if it’s dead for good?
“Does he know you worry about that?”
Kol shrugged. “I can’t talk to him.”
“I get it.” I’d had some of the same with my own family.
“What’s your deal anyway? Why are you so fucking miserable?” Kol changed the subject and apparently wasn’t about to mince words.
“She’s my mate, Kol.”I sighed. Knowing that now I’d said it out loud, it was never going away. I had to make him know why this would never work. It was more than me just being her flyer.
Kol blinked. “What?”
“Calytrix.”
He laughed, and I didn’t even blame him. “You’re kidding.”
“I wish I was.”
“I haven’t sensed that,” Kol frowned, obviously doubting himself for not noticing.
“I have gone out of my way to not touch her. I figure as long as there is distance, it can’t develop. Maybe that’s why you haven’t scented it between us yet?”
“Yeah, maybe.” He looked at me skeptically. “How long do you think you’ll be able to keep that up? Eventually, the bonds—because yes, you have two of those now, you poor sod—are going to develop, no matter how hard you try and slow down that disastrous inevitability.”
“I’ll be long gone by then,” I said with as much false confidence as I could muster.
“Goddess, we really are a mess, aren't we?” Kol drew in a deep lungful of the cool, salty air. “Do you ever wonder if She is just toying with us?” he asked.
“Who?”
“Kalilah. You know, the Goddess, the Mother, the all-knowing, all-powerful… Zaria says she has a plan. That this sudden rise in dragons being called to their ryders is a message to us that change is coming or some shit. But I wonder if maybe she’s just grown bored, and she’s fucking with us. Do you think?”
“All the time.”
Silence stretched out between us, and we both watched the pitch-black horizon. I knew his eyes could see as well as mine that our ship was a dot in the distance, but I was in no hurry to catch it up. “You realize Nova was giving you dreamy eyes when you told her to keep that stone, don’t you?”
“Dreamy eyes?” Kol laughed.
“Yeah, all blinky.” I shot him a smirk. “Don’t you think we have enough problems without you getting tangled up with the other sister?”
Kol shook his head, still chuckling. “Don’t you worry about that, I am in no fit state to get tangled with anyone until I can get untangled from myself, and that isn’t happening any time soon. Trust me.”
“Lucky bastard.”
“I’m a lucky bastard because I’m too fucked up to get involved with anyone—romantically or otherwise?”
“Well, I’m mated to the future Queen of the Twelve Kingdoms, and I’m not the future King. Want to trade?”
Kol slapped my back lightly. “Nope, I’m good, thanks.”
I rolled my eyes. “Thought so.”
