Violet eyes go wide. “Us?”
“Yes, you will need to learn to teach the other fae.” I move onto my knees under the glittering canopy above.
“But you will teach the other fae.” Something in the prince’s eyes looks panicked, a feeling I have not felt from the fae male yet.
“Come here.” I hold out my hands for his. The cord connecting us pulls us tightly together, worry coursing through its strings from Rivern.
I grasp onto his smooth, great hands before me. Those same glittering lines that trail his neck and frame his face also wrap around his fingers and wrists, leaving me unable to look away. “I just think it would be a good idea for you to know the song as well.”
My statement does not seem to pacify the towering fae in front of me, and he goes into full-on brooding mode, lips pouting, eyes glassy.
He’s already too attached.The echo floats around me.Surely, he doesn’t know. He cannot read my thoughts.
“I will keep you safe so you can teach our people.” When he says “our people”, my heart skips a beat.
“Rivern, you can’t protect me from everything. We should both know the song, just in case. The Goddess would want all her children to remember it,” I respond, trying to provide him some reassurance.
His hands grip strongly onto mine, firm but not punishing. “I will learn it in Terra with everyone else.”
“But Rivern—” He rips his hands free of mine.
“Enough.” The word is a finality as it leaves him.
Silence surrounds us.
Rivern breathes shallowly and heavily, striding towards Mage.
I stay still in my spot under the shimmering hives.Now, the bond aches, as do my muscles. It cries for me to go to him, to comfort him, but I do not. The most logical course of action is to teach him the song now in case one of us doesn’t make it back to Terra—likely me. But he does not want to hear it.
Fine. I tried.
Pushing down on the digging shards within my chest, I raise my head and let the lyrics tumble through my lips, wondering if the intention of the song is more important than anything else.
I sing the Goddess’s song three times just so I can be sure Rivern hears it enough to go on without me.
Wisps are dancing and buzzing around my body. Some even land on my skin, tickling me, loosening the ache I feel. “Hello, little friends,” I laugh as some tease my hair. “That’s enough, you lot.” I try to sound firm, but it comes out jovially.
Rivern storms over and pushes his way through the barricade of small, iridescent wings. They easily part for him. Smoothing down my hair, he leans down and pushes his nose against mine, and my body feels things I refuse to name. “Youwillteach the fae in Terra, and youwilldo it as myprincess.”
With his body so close to mine, giving me heart palpitations, I almost don’t believe what I’m hearing. “But—”
“I don’t want to hear it, Dove. You feel it. I feel it. Fuck, it hurts too much without you,” he declares all at once.
His eyes broach no room for argument.This fae prince. My bonded. He wants me to be his, and maybe… Maybe I want to be his.
In full-blown, brutish fae protector-style, Rivern lifts me up in his arms, holding me close to his chest. The bond sings so brightly that I set to explode.Surely, it’s too much. There’s no way another being can make me feel this way after a couple of turns of the suns.
The thoughts drift away as he takes me to Mage and settles me carefully on his back, tucking his cloak around me for warmth against the wind stirring up in the open field.
The wisps circle us until I ask them to kindly trail behind Mage until we need their assistance.
And not another word is shared, but the ringing of “my princess” as they run circles around us.
twenty-eight
Gideon
“Bring me back thegirl, Gideon!”That’s all he said. No more and no less.
