“The skull isn’t really our main priority, though, is it?” Hawk said from the fireplace as he pushed off the wall. “Ivy and I completed our bond last night. She passed out again, but it was clear the completed bond didsomething.”
My fingers unintentionally went to the collar. The cool metal zapped my hand, the ancient magic that created it pushing against the power swelling within me. “Every bond Icomplete, I feel it,” I said, looking around the room. “I feel my magic getting closer.”
“But we don’t actually know if that’s helping,” Rowan said, worry flickering in his eyes. “We still might need the runes to get it off.”
From the window, Xerxes said, “I think it might work. From what I’ve learned about the Ivy’s power, it might be the only key.”
The last of my mates stared at me, the weight of their presences crushing. Neither of them should be put on the spot and expected to do this. It’d taken a lot longer for me to complete the bonds with mates I’d known since the start of this whole mess. Xerxes and Thor had only known me a few weeks, and even after what we’d been through, I couldn’t expect this of them.
“You know what completing the bond would mean, don’t you?” I asked, glancing between the Primal and bear shifter standing across from one another. “It isn’t…simple.”
Xerxes blinked, but he stepped away from the window, taking a seat at the table. Beside me, Thor pulled out a chair and slid into it.
“Completing the bond could save your life—and all our worlds,” Xerxes said, sounding far too certain about something that was only guesswork.
“But could you actually accept being bonded to me for the rest of our lives?” I asked quietly. “This isn’t just about screwing once, marking me, and then full power access. The bond is a commitment. It took me a while to really grasp that before I started completing the bonds with my team, for some longer than others.” My gaze flickered to Hawk, standing between Elias and Maeve, who watched us carefully.
“But for some of us, the choice was clear,” Adrian said, still standing behind me. “For some of us, we never had to think twice about it.”
My heart skipped a beat, racing as I looked back at him.
“I knew the second I saw you in the hotel, Ivy. And I never second guessed whether I would want to spend the rest of mylife with you.” Adrian looked at both Xerxes and Thor then, features hardening. “You two need to be sure about what you want.”
Maybe it was too much to ask of them now, but when I looked back at the map, there was one less light.
I was too desperate, needed to end this all finally.
I needed my bonds back.
84
Xerxes
The look on my mate’s face told me she wasn’t entirely sure what our answers would be. Darkness filled her eyes as she looked between the map and us, glancing between Thor and I like we could possibly have any other answer.
Her question aboutthe rest of our livesreplayed in my head. What I knew about the Queens was framed by old stories told by elders, so what I knew likely had been altered by generations of oral storytelling. I knew the old Queens of my world once lived long lives—longer than the average creature. Completing the bond would extend her mortal life to match the lifespan of her mates, but it would also extend our own.
But there was something in her expression that had me pausing. “What is it?” I asked, cocking my head.
Ivy ran a hand over her face, fingers trembling. “You won’t be able to go home,” she sighed, closing her eyes. “You came here to save your people. You want to protect them. But we won’t be able to be apart, Xerxes. Once the bond is completed, that’s it. The time we can be apart before my magic gets unstable is two weeks—barely that.”
My heart dropped into the pit of my stomach. Sitting back, the air left my lungs, pressure building in my chest as I consideredher words carefully. “I could never return?” I asked, staring into the sad eyes of my mate.
She shook her head slowly. “You could, yes,” she replied, “but not for long. A few days at a time, maybe. I’m…I honestly don’t know much about the time frames. But you couldn’t live there anymore. You’d have to stay here.”
There was a part of me that had known this. Knew that accepting a bond with her would lead to me giving something up. But could I live with never returning home?
It hadn’t been lost on me that I found this place…easy to live in. This manor, so entirely different to the home I grew up in, yet still reflective of the world my home once was. There were buildings much like this still scattered around the countryside, no longer stable or viable to live in, just bones of what they might’ve once looked like.
But it wasn’t the building.
Home meant my people—the clans who were relying on me to protect them. The other Primals who had no idea about the war coming to us who needed me.
I thought I would miss the people I grew up with more, and it hurt to realise I didn’t. The expectation placed upon me to act as their protector, as a warrior, weighed so heavily that it’d been the only thought in my mind when I sought Ivy and the others out. Maybe the realisation of the bond had clouded my judgement, swayed some part of me without me even realising it.
But here, amongst her other mates, I finally felt like I fit. I wasn’t just the warrior anymore, the one Primals turned to for answers, a body to sacrifice to thethrax.
Here, I felt like I could be an equal. They didn’t pass judgement on me. They didn’t expect more than I could offer.
