“So, I’m like one of your breeding horses or something?”
I sighed, pulling away from his touch. “I need to get ready for the party.”
“Wait,” he begged, reaching for my hand. “I’m sorry, but maybe I’m just not crazy about the idea of arranged marriage.”
“I can’t do this with you,” I said. “You’re too… too closed off. I can’t get in.”
“I’m drawn to you, Isla, and I want to let you in, but I just can’t seem to override my head telling me to back off.”
“I’m picking up on that.”
“I feel like I’m literally being pulled in ten different directions. Since the moment I got here, people have either been trying to control me, or I’ve somehow been controlling them. First, I’m told I’m part of some sort of elite group of immortals and now you’re telling me I’m not even human. So, yeah, maybe you’re right. I’m not ready. But when the hell could you expect someone to be ready to hear all of this?”
“When they turn twenty-five.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll go through magic puberty. Trust me, it already started the moment you first touched me, but you’re gonna have to give me a second to wrap my brain around being cosmically ‘betrothed’ to a woman I barely know.”
My heart twisted in my chest and I bit back a sob. He was right. He didn’t know me, but I knew him. Knew him in my bones… in my very breath.
He must have seen the look of hurt on my face because his voice lowered and softened. “Look, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings or anything. In all honesty, if we’d just met out in the ‘real world,’ you would have knocked me out. And I definitely would have asked you out.”
“Don’t do that,” I said.
“Do what?”
“Use words to try and placate me.”
“Isla, you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life. Nothing could blind me from that, not the lightshow that goes off inside my head half the time you touch me. But I’m a straightforward guy and I’m gonna need some simple answers in plain English or else I really am gonna put as many miles as I can between this place and me. Even if it feels like it would kill me.”
I settled my hands on his chest and I could feel his fear even as he struggled to open up to me. I knew he’d never been this vulnerable with anyone and I did my best to honor that.
I knew my touch comforted him, so I kept my hand on him as I led him to the chair by the window, guiding him into it before kneeling in front of him and taking his hands.
“Itwouldkill you,” I said.
“What?”
“Not claiming me as your mate,” I said. “It would kill you. Eventually. Definitely earlier than you should die.”
“Seriously?”
“I’m not sure exactly how it would affect you, because you’re an oracle, but Cauld Ane without their mates begin to age, and die almost as quickly as humans.”
He frowned and I squeezed his hands.
“Abela,” I said.
“Who’s Abela?”
“She’s Brodie’s mother.”
“Wait, I thought Brodie was your uncle.”
“He is,” I confirmed. “My biological grandparents were not mates. They married for politics and had Kade and my father. Then, apparently, grandaddy met his true mate, Abela, and bound her. She was human, and back then, it was forbidden to bind a human because the ancient ones believed humans were not worthy of us. But, like I said, when you find your mate, you cannot be apart, so my grandfather bound her, and she gave birth to Brodie. My grandfather took him to the castle to be raised by my grandmother, Alice. Grandad told Alice he was an orphan.”
“No shit?”
I nodded. “My grandmother knew who he was, however, and got herself pregnant with a human man’s baby. That’s my auntie, Fiona.”
