I nodded my head curtly.
“Like I said,” Ilyas reiterated after a short pause. “He looked for you. After the dungeon.”
With just those words, I was instantly catapulted back in time, to a memory I’d buried and forgotten.
Of a man strapped to a table, my Mage’s magic coursing through my blood as he enveloped the tortured soul in inescapable pain.
Of the prickling sensation deep within my chest, a heat that rose within my veins as my soul recognized the man on the table and called out to him.
True Bond.
The hope that I’d felt in that moment—the foolish desire of a young woman to escape her captor, her rapist, and be united with someone who her soul was made for—kept me going for months, much longer than anything else I’d clung to in the past.
But, like all my other hopes and dreams, that was crushed the minute my Mage had found outwhoLex was and the connection we shared. He’d beat theconfession from me when he found me trying to escape one night. I was black and blue—my eyes swollen nearly shut, my lip split in three places, and my ears ringing from a concussion—for weeks after he pried that information from my lips. He’d raped me, repeatedly, night after night for nearly a month straight, simply to drive the hope from me; to prove that I washisand always would be, that noTrue Bondwas going to take me away from him.
The hair-raising feeling of unwanted phantom touches exploded across my skin, and I shivered despite the heat and waning afternoon sun. I desperately tried to get my body to obey, to shove the sudden psychosomatic symptoms of my repressed trauma back down in the deepest, darkest parts of my soul where they would never see the light of day again, where I would never again have to confront them.
But Ilyas was ever perceptive, those sharp sea-glass eyes cataloging each and every one of my twitches and tells. I was flayed open, laid bare before him without anything to cover my sins and dirtiest secrets.
Fire burned in my gaze, but I refused to feel any embarrassment for the horrors of my life that left me scarred and permanently altered. I lifted my chin in defiance and gritted my teeth in anticipation of his disgust. Ilyas simply met my protective snarl with a penetrating stare, his eyes never straying from my own.
Slowly, bizarrely, I watched as a smile spread across his face.
“You do remember,” was all he said, and I scrunched my brows at the odd response.
Before I could make sense of him, the thundering of hooves broke our stare. My gaze flew to the way I had come, back through the woods. Reflexively, my spear came forward, and I sank into a deep-crouched, defensive stance as I took a few slow steps to the left, placing myself firmly between Ilyas and Lex and the approaching threat.
Ilyas’ throaty chuckle was nearly silent, but it felt like a death knell for my freedom, my independence.
What was I doing? Protecting the institution that I abhorred with every fiber of my being?
My confusion and self-disgust only intensified when a milky-chestnut mare came bursting through the overgrowth, hooves pounding against the dirt path in a relentless rhythm, to reveal its rider.
My stomach nearly revolted as I watched Peytor swing down from atop the horse before it had even stopped moving. The worry was evident in every jerky movement as he slowly approached me, arms outstretched in a placating gesture. His broad chest heaved, sweat soaking through his cream tunic, rendering it nearly translucent as it clung to his skin.
“Fo. Fo, it’s me. Put down the spear, darling,” he cajoled in soft, soothing tones that I would use on a frightened animal.
Is that what I am? What this . . . revelation has reduced me to?
I slowly came back to myself, my mind finally catching up to my instincts. I blinked rapidly, noticing how I’d created a pinch-point in the trail, forcing Peytor to go through me in order to reach Lex and Ilyas.
A low noise of disgust left my throat as I scrunched my nose, nearly throwing my spear against the ground in my frustration.
This is why I hated Bonding. It’s already taken my freewill—made a slave again to the whims of another.
The scariest part of it all was that I acted like this with just the recognition of another who was supposed to be my soul’s other half.
What kind of power would he have over me if we were Bonded?
The blood left my face at that, leaving my hands feeling cold.
“Fo?” Peytor called softly, much closer now that I had relaxed from my defensive hold. His large hands reached out tentatively to grasp my shoulders, and it took everything in me not to flinch at the contact. The last thing I wanted was to offend Peytor—my Peytor. The one I chose, the one I loved, the one who loved me and chose both me and my daughter.
He didn’t deserve to internalize my self-disgust.
As hard as I tried to hide the physical reaction to someone touching me during a flashback, it was evident in the stiffening of his posture that he caught the minuscule reaction that bled through.
His face hardened, but not at me. No, never at me, even if I was the one who deserved his ire.
