I let out a ragged sigh and stroke Larellin’s hair from her forehead. She’s wearing a dark robe that smells of the Usurper’s Aerie. In fact, she smells strange, whatever place they held her in coating her with an odd scent.
Lifting her, I carry her to the bath and run warm water. Too afraid to let her sit in the tub alone lest she drown, I strip both of us and slide in with her. Cradling her between my legs, her head resting on my chest, I wash her soft hair and gently scrub the odd scent and bits of grime from her. The bite mark is fully healed, no trace of it remaining. Her cheek is pink, the bruise and cut now gone. Just remembering that bit of injury has me spiralinginto anger. I force myself to stop and focus on my mate, on her warm and breathing and needing me.
Once I’ve toweled her off, I slide into bed with her, throwing our blankets over us as I tuck her tightly against me.
She snuggles closer, her soft breath on my chest. I sense no pain, no worry in her. The bond, if it’s still there, is quiet. Almost as if it’s resting, too.
“I won’t fail you, Larellin. Never again. I swear it to you.” I kiss her hair and settle in. I will stay with her for as long as she’ll have me. She sleeps soundly, no care wrinkling her brow.
I can’t rest, not really, not when I keep pondering what Lenka said. “You have some truths you must face and share with her before you can fully bond,” she’d said.
Her voice had the ring of prophecy, of fate. But Lenka is wrong. If Larellin were to truly know about my past, about what I’ve done, she’ll never trust me, much less fully bond with me. Those troubled thoughts stay with me for the rest of the night and through the morning until my beautiful mortal finally stirs, her body coming alive next to mine, her awakening a balm to my soul.
Chapter
Twenty-Three
LARELLIN
“I’m naked,” I say groggily and look up at Vander. “Andyou’renaked.” My head feels like it’s stuffed full of cotton. “Where—” My memory snaps back, and I try to sit up.
“Shh. I’ve got you.” Vander keeps me in his arms. “You’re safe. You’re unharmed.”
I touch my neck, wincing as I do, but my fingers only meet smooth skin. “What?” For the slightest moment I wonder if it all was a nightmare.
“Do you hurt?” he asks, his palm sweeping down my back.
“No,” I say with slight surprise. How am I not in pain? Sela’s bite—I shudder at the memory of it.
He holds me tighter. “You’re safe, my treasure.”
“You came for me.” I meet his eyes.
“I told you, I will always come for you.”
I close my eyes, trying to remember. “I heard you. But I thought I was imagining it. Could I really hear you?”
“Yes.” His fingers tickle along my spine.
“How?” Dumbfounded doesn’t begin to cover how I feel. “How is that possible?”
“You and I are mates,” he says simply, as if it’s just an everyday fact. Like ‘the washing needs to be hung to dry’ or ‘looks like rain.’
I shake my head. “What does that even mean?”
He cocks his head to the side in a particularly dragon-like way. “Mortals don’t have mates?”
“No. Well, I mean yes. We get married and have children, but we can’t hear each other talking in our heads. That’s … Impossible.” I chew my bottom lip. “Well, maybe not impossible, but I’m certain anyone who said they could hear someone else’s thoughts would be burned at the stake in Raingreen.”
He smirks. “You mortals have such an affinity for executions.”
“Idon’t.” I push at his chest, happy to find all my limbs working, despite how ineffectual they are against him. Wait, shouldn’t I be afraid? Why aren’t I scared of him? I blink. He used to terrify me. Is it because he saved me? It’s as if … I don’t know what it is. As if Iknowhim. As if I’ve known him for a long, long time. Since we were children or somehow … somehow even before that? It’s disconcerting, but I can’t deny it. It’s as if I’m seeing him fully for the first time, and now that I do, I realize he’s familiar. More than familiar, he’s well-worn. He’s endeared to me. An old song I used to love and when I catch its lilt, I sing every word by heart. That’s what this feels like.
“Our bond allows us to communicate with each other in the way of all DragonKin.”
“Even though I’m not a Drago—Wait. Go back to this bond thing? What does that mean, exactly?”
“Our mate bond,” he says patiently though his hand has meandered to my waist, tickling along my lower back.
