“I’m—”
“What will it take?” he said, cutting off my apology. He ran both hands through his hair like he needed something to hold on to before he paused his focus on my abandoned book, something like recognition flashing in his features before he scooped it up and held it out between us. “A bargain? Is that what it’ll take for you to know that I’ll never hurt you? That I’m not him?” The adjuration in his voice, in his eyes, had me working double-time to remember the passage I’d committed to memory from the book he held, as if I’d known it would hold importance.
Fae bargains—I recited silently to myself—are a sacred contract bound by magic that still remains elusive to scholars. Although extremely rare, enough data has been collected over the turns to confirm that regardless of the bargain or those involved, four constants prevail:
All those that enter must do so on their own volition and mental faculties intact.
Each will be marked until the bargain is fulfilled.
Death is the most common toll exacted for dishonor.
Disillusionment is impossible.
I mulled it over before the true implication of what he said hit. “You’d risk death just to prove I can trust you?”
“No, Nyleeria, I’d risk everything.”
My powers stirred as if reaching out for him again, and I couldn’t separate my emotions from it. Gods, every part of me bucked at the very thought of fully trusting him, while another side bucked from the thought of him putting himself at risk—and damn did it not make me feel as if I were being cleaved in two by how they warred.
Get control of yourself,I silently admonished myself.
I took in deep breaths, forcing my magic to settle; formeto settle.
Endymion took me in with rapt attention, uncertainty, and what I could’ve sworn was hope staring back at me as he waited for my response.
“No,” I said, finally pulling myself together. “If a bargain is needed, I could never truly trust you because I’d always question if you were worthy of my trust or simply just bound to it?”
A weight seemed to settle on his shoulders. “That wasn’t my intention.”
“I know, but you have to understand that this is déjà vu for me.” He seemed to coil but didn’t interject. “You hate when I say it, but whether you like or not—at the core of it—Iama commodity. And here I am, being promised the world by strangers who have their own agendas—again. It’s that simple. I don’t know why the spark reacts to you the way it does, why it calls to you, pulls you into my dreams, allowed you to touch me last night. I’m so grateful that you were there for me with the na’li and then when you took an arrow for me. I am. And what you did for me last night…” I paused, remembering the peace in it, the raw magnitude of it, quickly shaking the memory away before I spoke again. “You need to understand that if it weren’t for those things, I would’ve already stolen supplies and disappeared with Luca. The problem is that I think that it’s a choice for me to trust or not trust, Endymion, but it’s not. I’m broken to the point that I nearly killed us both with the arrow because my body nearly got the better of me in refusing to touch you. That proximity to you cost me more than you’ll ever know, and my desperation to seek safety, to protect myself, is something I had to actively rail against so that arrow didn’t snap. So please, for the love of the gods, stop asking me for something I cannot give you.”
Something like sorrow that I didn’t understand filled his eyes before he said, “Is there nothing I can offer you?”
I held out my hand for the book. Without the slightest hesitation, he placed it on my palm, holding onto the binding for a moment longer than necessary before releasing it to my grip. Clutching the tome to my chest like it could somehow shield me from the raw emotions he stared down at me with. “Time. You can give me time.” I sighed. “But honestly, Endymion, I’m not entirely sure it heals all.”
Mischief kicked up the side of his lips. “Well, then it’s a good thing we’re both immortal, isn’t it.”
I rolled my eyes, secretly grateful for the levity.
“Would you like to join me for breakfast with Caius?”
I raised a brow. “Only Caius?”
