“The connection between my kind and the Alidian is a secret held by only those who possess such magic. The Alidian feed on my blood and the blood of others like myself. And while it doesn’t cure them of their affliction, it tempers it, in a way. For some time, they can control themselves with less effort. Still, it takes discipline to learn restraint. When one of Astraea’s messengers slips up, begins to lose control, shecorrectsthem.”
“Corrects them?”
“Yes.” Neirin released a long breath. “The scars are a mark of her magic, of the static pain she strikes upon us to render us useless, unable to do anything but fall to our knees. She is strong, and she knows how to harness and control the output of the power she generates. Knows how to give just enough to make us submit, to remind us of the necessity of control and obedience without killing us. And though I do not need to feed on blood likethe Alidian do to control my magic, learning that restraint took the same lessons, the same reminders.”
Sucking in my bottom lip, I shook my head and raised my eyes to his. “Neirin, how many times did she do this to you?”
The heat that radiated from him—that coursed through our bond—intensified, and when he spoke, his voice broke. “Many. The pain,”—he swallowed—“it is indescribable. Yet when that power courses through my body, my fox submits without fault. Just as the Alidian’s magic submits to Astraea’s. She has incredible power, and though I cannot explain how it works, we sense it. We learn control through suffering.”
“That’s horrid …” Blinking, I cleared the blur of tears from my eyes. My heart pounded in my chest.
“It is necessary,” Neirin said, wiping the wetness from my cheek with his thumb. “It has taught me to restrain my monster, or at least it has aided me in doing so. Sometimes, when my turmoil is too much, he is impossible to push down.” He lowered his eyes. “It is why, I think, that I crave violence at times. Yearn for a fight. When facing death, he quiets. All thoughts quiet. Nothing else exists.”
Words eluded me, so I took his hand in mine.
A tremble shuddered through him, and the fire built. He touched absentmindedly a spot on his neck, one I’d noticed the night of the festival but thought little of at the time. “Even Astraea, with her age and power, cannot control the chaos the magic gives her. Only the blood of the gods can do that.”
Following his touch, I evaluated his neck and found dozens of small slits that had healed over, although time had not fully concealed them. Cuts from a blade. “Your arm.” My memory flashed to the stable, to Neirin’s wound when he’d returned from the fire with Calix. Turning my attention to the spot, I found countless others, some overlapping.
“The children feed there. They do not have the restraint Astraea has not to drain my blood.”
It was madness. Impossible. How could such a world exist outside of what was known?
The children feed there.
“And Astraea, she—”
Neirin took my fingers delicately, keeping them at his arm. “First, here, when I was young.” He swallowed and put my fingers to the marks on his neck. “When I became a man, she took to me. Did not—” He swallowed hard. “Could not force me to bed her. But she took power, pleasure, from the places she drained my blood. Perhaps she wanted me, perhaps there was an attraction, or perhaps it was only in her mind, another way to control me, belittle me. Maybe it was a way to look past my father’s betrayal.”
My heart sank, and I sucked in a breath to regain myself. “Your father?”
Neirin nodded and closed his eyes, brows scrunching. He shuddered as he inhaled sharply. With unbearable force, the fire within him branched through the bond. The burning, searing, inescapable suffering was tangible. It could not only be felt, but tasted, heard.
I choked on a sob. A pounding filled my head and shook my body. Through the searing heat, Neirin’s hand clutched the back of my neck. A connection, a tether. Without thought, I let him pull me into his embrace.
He buried his head in my neck and breathed in my scent, his breath ragged. In that instant, I became starkly aware of the smells of tilled earth, of pine trees, and of the brisk air before rainfall.His scent. My mate’s scent. Through the shudders, I held on to that, let it fill me, and as it did, the heat began to subside.
He held me like that until the pain fell away, until the sounds of the crashing waves and the calls of the petrels returned. Until I felt the breeze on my skin and the world returned around us. And even then, he continued to hold me, needing this as much as I did.
With his vulnerability bare before me as he sought comfort in my scent and touch, I accepted our bond. There would be no forgetting him, no way to move on in my life without aching for this connection. This was raw, honest, and unbreakable.
One of his hands wrapped my waist, and the other wove through my hair. His lips brushed my neck, and his exhale heated my skin. His chest thrummed, and our hearts matched pace.
The intimacy of this moment was so much more than we shared in the tower. So much more than anything I’d ever shared with someone else. My soul called to him. Spoke that he was mine, and I was his, and this … this was everything.
29
NEIRIN
Evera’s embrace was sheltering,like a cloak from the cold; the scent of her soothing, like the burn of whiskey. And more than these things was the harmony of our heartbeats. The way she settled my body and my soul.
When she drew back, I held her gaze. How could I tell her she was everything to me when I was sure she still had questions? At dawn, I’d sought to earn her trust, yet as I studied the flecks of many colors in her eyes, I knew this went beyond that. Whether or not she trusted me, I could not say. But in this moment, there was a connection between us. Would she repute that if I voiced my feelings? Or did she sense it too?
“Are you alright?” Evera cupped my cheek, her touch light, caressing, and so incredibly intimate.
“I—” The words held in my throat. A fear gripped me. If I pushed myself on her before she was ready, it could very well overwhelm her. Yet time was something I did not have. Not when my brother’s life hung in the midst of it all. When the huntsman returned, I would have to leave Elrune. Whether Harlan accepted my word as truth or not, my duty to him, my love for him, would compel me.
Before Evera, I had accepted this freely. For what value did I put on my own life? I existed to protect Harlan, to ensure Nyana had all she needed, to give every moment of my existence in pursuit of repenting for Thatch’s death. And while those things still drove me, Evera had shattered the numbness. There was a selfishness to it, one that brought a bitterness to my mouth, but I could not deny the longing. The aching desire to exist beyond all I was, to hold on to moments like this one—the salt on the breeze and the way it tightened Evera’s curls, the warmth of her body, the resonance of her heartbeat—for the remainder of my days.
