“Stay away from me, please, Gray.” It was a plea that came out from between gritted teeth.
Archer leaned against the wall, watching the scene unfold. If anyone was curious to why he was here with us, they didn’t voice their concerns.
Gray didn’t heed my warning and instead strode over to me until his frame towered over me. “We need to talk.”
“You’ve said enough.”
“You’re mad at me. I understand that, but you need to listen to?—”
“I listened,” I hissed, uncomfortable with having this conversation with an audience.
“You heard what you wanted to hear. If you believed it, then it would have been broken by now.”
Even if he made a valid point, it didn’t take away the sting from the words. It didn’t change the fact that I laid in bed as the pain ripped through me while our bond suffered at his hands. This was not a conversation that I could have with him in two minutes and glaze over.
“If you don’t stop, I will ask Erik to break the bond.”
It was an empty threat, but I hoped it would get him to back off long enough for us to work on stopping the war that was going on outside.
“What?” Erik asked, moving closer to us. There was a spark of hope in his eyes. “It’s not broken?”
“No,” we both said together, although Gray sounded more relieved than I did.
“But I will ask you to break it if he doesn’t leave me alone.”
“I can’t do that,” Erik told me. “Only you two can break the bond.”
The frustration and hurt were bubbling at the surface and no amount of control I’d been taught over the years was enough to put a lid on it. “Then I want it broken.”
Grayson scoffed. “Apparently not badly enough.”
His aura was slick and fast as it grabbed me around the waist and pulled me into him. I wished I had more control over mine, but the prayers were making it more unpredictable than usual.
“I said what I did to keep you alive,” he told me. “I would bet my divinity that you would have done whatever was needed to keep me alive as well.” He took my silence as a sign for him to continue. “I apologise for what I said, but I will not apologise for saying it if it’s kept you breathing until now. Until I could be with you again.”
“You really are a piece of?—”
“I will leave this conversation until later, as you’ve requested,” he said, cutting me off. A tendril of his aura snaked close to my face, and I saw what it held. My engagement ring shone in the light. The black stone settling the unease that Hunter’s replacement ring had sparked in my chest. “Once we have resolved this mess, and we have this conversation, you will wear this ring again and you will become my wife.”
I grit my teeth together, unable to find the words I wanted to say to him. If I opened my mouth, there was a good chance thatI would just scream. It was better for everyone in the room if I kept quiet. At least Grayson seemed to have agreed to my wish of having the conversation later now that he’d said his piece.
“Are we done?” Ig asked, looking vaguely amused.
“Yes,” Gray answered.
The ring was back in his pocket and I expected him to remove the tendril of his aura from around my waist, but it remained there. The pressure of it was heavy and dominant. It was as if he didn’t trust me not to run from him. But I wasn’t going anywhere. Not when I’d put so much on the line. Made promises I intended to keep.
“I assume there’s a good reason Archer is with us.”
On hearing his name, Archer made his way forward and joined the group. “As ever, I am the most useful asset in Elysia.”
“Stop winding people up,” I snapped. “Archer found the oleander that Hunter was hiding up here. It was at Mabel’s.”
Larkin wrinkled her nose in disgust at the mention of Mabel. “Of course she would keep it for him.”
Archer produced the small, sickly flowers from his pocket.
“That’s it?” Erik asked, looking crestfallen.
