Sylaira must have sensed my internal turmoil, for a knowing grin lifted her lips. “Not with the help of my skilled healer. He’s allowed me to lean on him so I can put as much weight as is comfortable on my injured leg.”
The male started at my proximity, a small squeak escaping him. “Herr Räviel, I didn’t see you there.”
And yet, he didn’t remove himself.
“If he doesn’t stop touching you this instant,”I growled into Sylaira’s mind, the jagged threat wrapped in velvet,“I’ll cut off his fucking hands.”
She leaned further into him like she belonged with someone other than me.
Like she wanted to watch me drown because of it.
My world tilted, and all I could see was her reaching for another, smiling for him,dancingfor him.
I blinked, hard, to dispel the images developing like a grotesque play behind my eyes. My nostrils flared as I tried to steady myself, to find an anchor. This healer seeing me unmoored amid the storm of Sylaira would not serve my goals.
“I can take it from here. I think there’s a soldier who needs tending inside,” I told him without taking my focus off my mate.
“Is he the same one who gave you the black eye?” the idiot asked. I slapped my ire on him. “Yes. You can heal this before I escort the Seer back to her feather.”
I reached for Sylaira, but she shrank back.
“I am too tired for more laps. The healer can bring me inside where my crutches are,” Sylaira spat.
The male flicked a confused gaze between us.
“Pain is just another dance, isn’t it?” was my only reply as I stepped into her space. “You should push yourself.”
Wisely, the healer let her go.
Energy surged where our skin met. Sylaira’s breath hitched as her face drifted up. The knife between my ribs slid out when she didn’t pull away.
But the proximity wasn’t enough. The chain linking our fates wasn’t satisfied.
Iwasn’t satisfied. Not when I felt her slipping through my fingers like she was nothing more than smoke. I barely heard the healer return to the palace interior.
“Let me go,” Sylaira hissed.
There she was, making that demand all over again.
“Never,” I bit out. She was mine—irrevocably. And not just because of our Goddess damn bond. But because she’d forced me to feel, and now that the ice around my emotions had cracked, I didn’t know how to freeze them again.
She was undeterred by the thin restraint preventingviolence from snapping out. “Don’t you need to spend time with yourbetrothedbefore your vows?”
The hurt in her eyes was a volley of arrows piercing my heart. I loathed myself for putting it there. Hated her more for rejecting me before and doing so again without even listening to my explanation.
“You don’t understand,” I began, but she silenced me with a sharp laugh.
“I don’t care, Issaraeth.” She jerked out of my grip, her white wings sprouting from her back to keep pressure off her bad knee.
“Sylaira.” Her name came out like a harsh order.
Her nose wrinkled, then lifted like she could look down on me from her much shorter height.
“If you want me to listen to anything you have to say, Command me,” she snapped, her wings stirring a wind as she half-walked, half-flew around me.
I caught her wrist, rage smoldering inside me.
Why does she have to be like this?
