“I would if you did not shout your every whim at me. It nearly seems intentional, mind you. As though I need reminding that you are angry with me.”
She scoffed. “Do you not understand why I’m angry?”
Cassiel’s jaw worked, his mouth tightening in a thin line. “Oh, no, I understand your contempt quite clearly, but I will not have you accuse me.”
“Accuse you?” she repeated in disbelief. “I have not once accused you.”
He barked a dry laugh, shaking his head. “I feel it, and I see it in your eyes. Do not deny it. The bond was an accident, Dynalya.” Cassiel stepped closer, holding her in place with that cold silver gaze. “Done while saving your life, once again, I might add. Since Hilos, all I have done has been for your sake. Breaking every law. Spilling my blood. Shedding my feathers.For you.Yet you despise me for it.”
Tears rushed to her eyes. He was wrong. That wasn’t it. She was angry that he lied. Angry that he touched her heart when she thought he’d opened his for her. Angry to find the only thing between them was this bond. That he may not have found her remotely interesting without it.
Cassiel’s irritation ensnared her, but there was something else there. A deep well of sadness. The hardness faded from his expression, and he exhaled heavily. “Am I so repulsive that you cannot stand the thought of being tied to me?”
The question was so startling, all words left her. He thought she found him repulsive? He did. It was there on his face. The lies his people fed him fortified his belief that he was a worthless half-breed. But how could she answer his question without exposing more of herself? She couldn’t.
“This isn’t about that,” she said instead, avoiding the question. “You lied to me.”
Cassiel straightened as his mask slipped back in place. His wall slammed between them so violently she stumbled a step back. “The world is full of liars. You will do well to accept that.”
There was an accusation in there that made her sick to her stomach. He thought her acceptance of him had been a lie, that her friendship had been false. She shook her head. “Cass—”
“How quickly you forget we are both trapped in this net.”
Trapped.
The back of her eyes burned at the sting of his words. He considered himself imprisoned by the bond. What else would he feel about being married to a common human? He was a prince that should have married a princess she couldn’t ever compare to.
“I never asked for this.” Dyna hated that her voice broke. Hated that every emotion was clear for him to see. She constructed a wall around her mind and her heart. Layered it with steel and fire. Built in an instant before she could admit—
His wings twitched, betraying his cool demeanor. Her wall had blocked him.
Cassiel gave his back to her. “I expect nothing of you, Dynalya. I free you of any obligations you may have feared of a union with me. Rest on that. Should I find a way to break the Blood Bond, you have my sworn word. I will break it.”
Her lips parted in a sharp intake of air. That’s why he readily agreed to meet the Druid. He wanted to seek the one who may know how to free him of his new prison.
Cassiel headed for camp. Her vision blurred with every step he took as he walked away. Her heart ached. It cried out, demanding she stop him and explain, but she let him go. The bond fell silent between them as the doors closed on both ends. She imagined it would feel like this when he severed their link forever. It was for the best, Dyna told herself.
So why did it hurt so much?
Chapter 13
Cassiel
Cassiel stood knee-deep in the icy stream, wearing only trousers rolled to his knees as he washed his clothes. After yesterday’s storm, not a cloud appeared in the crisp blue sky, and the sun offered some warmth. Leaves covered the ground in a carpet of red, orange, and yellow. The stream carried them along, some sticking to his legs.
He kept his focus on what he was doing and not on Dyna. She stood further along the bank of the creek, directing the wooden ball in the air and making it spiral around her, per Lucenna’s instruction.
Where there was once a constant bombardment of emotions flooding through the bond, now there was nothing. Cassiel thought he would have welcomed it, but somehow it left a vacancy behind. Like an empty cavern that only echoed back silence. It shouldn’t bother him, but it did. They hadn’t been bonded long enough to feel her absence so keenly. It didn’t matter. As soon as they found the Druid, she would be free of him.
He met Zev’s stare where he idled in the creek beside him.
“What?” Cassiel dunked the clothing he’d been washing back in the water.
“I was about to ask you the same,” Zev said, wringing out a white tunic and draping it on his shoulder. Water sluiced down his bare chest, following the paths of the many scars that marked him. “You both keep stealing glances at each other. Is there something I should know?”
Only that he’d accidentally married his cousin and now she loathed him.
“Her new ability merely impressed me. She learns quickly.”
