Eros placed a palm on the empty spot behind him and with a parched throat, I approached and sat down. At the sight of his indecipherable expression, my fingers lightly brushed against his knee as my hand crept over.
His brows furrowed. “Are you still certain about this?”
I nodded, biting my lip.
“There is no problem if you have reconsidered.”
“Eros,” I pressed. “I haven’t changed my mind.”
“I understand, but perhaps you need more time before making such important decisions.”
My head tilted to the side. “I won’t change my mind. Now, what do we have to do?”
His eyes found me before his head shook with a soft smile. “May I?” He gestured to my neck, and when I nodded, his fingers gently swept my hair away, revealing my skin. “This will not harm you—quite the opposite. When your magic joins with mine, it will feel as though it has found its place. This may be an unfamiliar sensation, as you have not yet awakened your powers, but it should resemble a wave of warmth spreading through your veins.”
A knife appeared in his hand, but before it could reach my nape, Eros paused. His fingers caressed the bruises with a tenderness I couldn’t process, and my eyes, gaining a mind of their own, closed under his touch. I took a deep breath, my tense muscles finally relaxing. The air around us seemed to still. Each fingertip traced the purple blooms across my skin, erasing any evidence of Draven’s grasp. The violence that had caused the damage and the delicate care he bestowed were in complete contradiction. Every movement was slow, deliberate. An apology or a promise; I couldn’t tell.
Too soon, his hand disappeared from my neck and left nothing but icy coldness behind. I fluttered my eyes open, gulping. His own eyes, dark and collected, didn’t leave the bruises as he drew the tip of the blade on my skin until it drew blood. I bit back a hiss, my fingers curling on the bedsheets. He winced as if the sight was repulsive, unfitting.
“I apologize.” Eros tilted his head, gaze softening.
“It’s just a scratch.”
He nodded slowly, then the glint of the blade flashed as he sliced his vein open, leaving behind a thin line. It was strange—the way his palm found the back of my head and mine his; the way we inched closer, our breaths falling short over each other’s skin.
A single drop of blood, warm and sticky, made its way down his neck. At the same instant, as if choreographed, our lips met each other’s veins in perfect unison. Eros’s tongue darted out, a silken serpent dancing across the trailing blood, before his mouth closed around the small wound, sucking in the liquid.
I shivered in his arms, a tremor that ran from the tips of my toes to the roots of my hair—a spark of electricity that forced my fingers to dig deeper into his scalp. My body curled into his, seeking the heat and magic that radiated from him like a blinding light. Swept away by a force I couldn’t understand, I followed his lead. Hesitant at first, I parted my lips, allowing his blood to paint them in its sinful shade before flowing down my throat.
The metallic taste hit me full force, unfamiliar enough to jolt my senses. My brain, caught in a whirlwind, sent alarms screaming through my system, warning me about how wrong it was, how unnatural. Every instinct within me protested. But then, as his essence swept inside me, a fiery sensation pulsed in my veins. The spark chased away any fear and replaced it with a yearning, an insatiable hunger for more. My body, now alignedwith my heart, craved the proximity. I clung to him, lost in his intoxicating embrace.
I didn’t recognize the moan merging with the sounds of suction as my own nor Eros’s grunt when his fingers grabbed a fistful of my hair, tilting my head so he could get a better angle. A gasp tore out of me, a desperate plea, and it was then that Eros pulled back. I didn’t miss the look in his eyes. Blatant and unapologetic arousal. He wiped the blood from his mouth with his thumb, his gaze never leaving mine as he pushed his finger inside, closing his lips around it.
My breath, ragged and uneven, paused as I took in the movement. I clenched my thighs, straining and failing to ignore the throbbing sensation.
With the last remains of my blood on his tongue, Eros closed his eyelids. When they opened again, any signs of lust were gone. Like a plunge into icy water, I blinked, swimming to the surface—no doubt, we both were experiencing the aftereffects of the bond.
Before I could stop myself, words tumbled out, as if my mouth had a mind of its own. “I’m tired.” My shoulders, bearing the weight of my looming confession, slumped in defeat. Eros watched me in silence, offering me a few moments to collect myself before continuing. Tears swelled in my eyes, a blurry blanket lifting over them. “I’m tired of living for my mother.”
The words hung in the air, heavy and accusing. What I uttered was blasphemy, a betrayal from my deeply hidden thoughts—thoughts I myself was oblivious to. My chest stung, as if someone had drilled a hole through it, punishing me for the awful nature of my mind.
Eros frowned, and immediately I was reminded that I was in the company of another person—that I spoke that horrible, cursed phrase in his presence. My gaze flew to the wooden floor, as if burned, seeking solace where his judgmental expressionwouldn’t haunt me. Scorching blood rushed to my cheeks as I lifted a trembling hand and brushed a finger over my bottom lip to confirm that it was indeed my mouth that released such words into the air.
Among the deepest secrets a person might possess, why was mine a source of so much shame? How could I have been so selfish? The realization clawed at me. IfIwas tired, how was she, my mother, fighting the terrors living inside her head without pause?
Bile rose in my throat, and my palm pushed against my stomach, as if that would stop the vomit from gushing out of my mouth.
The confession didn’t stop there, the effects of the bond drawing out. “I’m tired of livingonlyfor her. I love my mother more than anything in the world, and I don’t regret the way I spent my life if it meant she wasn’t alone, not after everything she gave up having me. Yet sometimes I look back and realize every day is the same—I wake up, feed her, count her words, go for my run, feed her again, then go to sleep, and hope my father will quit tormenting me for just one night.”
Tears, raw and unforgiving, rolled down to my chin. I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. “As much as I’m ashamed to admit, the first time I’ve ever felt alive,trulyalive, has been here in Elythra.”
His hand, large enough to envelop my whole shoulder, gripped my skin in comfort. Sniffling, I stole a glance at him and barely managed to keep my composure when I looked at his face.
The small furrow between Eros’s eyebrows deepened, eyes warming with a quiet ache. He didn’t attempt to comfort me, to assure me I wasn’t wicked for thinking that way, but he didn’t need to. His expression said it all.
“I would die for my mother, but am I ever going to actuallylivemy life for her?” My lips quivered, and my self-control fell apart, a collapsing brick wall that fractured into a million pieces.
I wept and surrendered when Eros pulled me into his arms, my head finding solace on his chest. My fingers curled on the shirt, grasping it until my fingertips turned red as Eros’s palm caressed my hair in slow, comforting movements. He took the strands that stuck to my wet face and tucked them behind my ear, exposing the river of tears that flowed and wet his clothes.
