And yet, I still hesitated over the idea of not going home.
But the elders always said: our home had nothing to do with our location. It had everything to do with our clan. The Primals were not sedentary creatures. We had to move often because of thethraxattacks, and only over the last two centuries had wesurvived in one place longer than a few years. It was why I had my own land in our city.
“It’s a lot to think about,” Ivy said suddenly. “Trust me when I say I understand the feeling.”
My stomach churned. “You cannot return to your home, either.”
She shook her head, a small smile playing at her lips. “The human world isn’t really mine to call home anymore,” she replied, gaze flickering around the room. “I miss it. A lot. I think I always will. But I could never give this up.”
I nodded, gaze dropping to the table. To the rush of emotions warring within me, making it hard to think straight. “And do you want the bond?” I asked carefully, staring down at the dark skin of my hands. “Would you accept it with me?”
A shaky breath fell from her lips, and a sudden fear hit me: what if she didn’t? She had so many mates, and she barely knew me. It took her months to accept Hawk, but she didn’t have that time with me—with Thor.
“I would accept the bond with all of you again if I could,” she said quietly. “I know I make it sound like an obligation, like it’s something wehaveto do. And in a way, it has become that. We can’t win without being united. I won’t survive without it…and neither will our realms.” She stopped, so I looked up to find her still watching me—still sad. “It’s a sacrifice.”
“Not at all,” I replied honestly, heart pounding. My Primal felt that way, too. He clawed at me, begging to be released after days of being trapped. He wanted to have his mate. It was more than just the instinctive, Primal feeling that came with being connected to my beast. It was something more, born of watching her in the Old World and again in Dante’s cage—surviving it all.
Ivy pressed her lips together, surprise flickering in her dark eyes. “So, you want to accept the bond? Or do you want a little more time?”
“Time is something we don’t have,” I replied, sitting back. “And I don’t need more of it.”
“You’re sure?” There it was again; the surprise in her voice,in her stare. “It means five hundred years if we win this, Xerxes. You have to understand what you’re signing up for. Both of you.” She glanced at Thor, the male eerily still sitting beside her.
I hadn’t even thought about him, how he felt about it. But he’d been drawn to her since the very beginning, her silent protector in the cages. I hadn’t forgotten how he answered her cries in the Old World, the race we’d been in to reach her.
The bear shifter rested his hand atop hers, meeting her stare evenly. I could almost hear his thoughts as if he were saying them aloud, because they were the same words playing in my own mind.
Yes. I want the bond.
Ivy visibly shuddered, her eyes fluttering shut for a moment before opening and swinging around the room. “How many days do we have before the lunar eclipse?” she asked, glancing down the table at the demon king.
The male shook his head. “Five for the one that will come over Avalon.”
“Then there are only five days remaining to complete your final two bonds,” I said. “Can you do that?”
Ivy’s cheeks flushed red, the sight making my heart race. “You mean, five days and sex? Sure. Definitely doable.”
Beside me, the vampire cleared her throat. “You must consider the fact that you have passed out twice now from attempting to bond. You need at least a day’s rest between them.”
Ivy scrubbed a hand down her face and groaned. “It sounds so loveless,” she muttered, staring at me between her fingers. “I’m sorry.”
I crossed my arms and watched her, heart skipping a beat. “Why are you sorry?”
“Because it’s not really romantic.” She dropped her hand, glancing at Thor. “It’s being treated like a chore.”
“It won’t be much of a chore when you have to go into the forest and I have to hunt you down,” I replied, cocking my head. I’d never taken a mate—not as a fated mate, and not interms of breeding, either—so I’d never partaken in the ritual of mating like those my age and older. Sometimes the males were the hunters, sometimes it was the female.
But this was my ritual, and I’d always wanted to be the one to hunt my mate and take her in the way of Primals.
The colour of her cheeks deepened into a fiery red. “Oh.”
I nodded once. “I need to mark you as a mate, right?” She responded with a nod. “Then my Primal will need to be unleashed. Unless that…upsets you.”
For a moment, she chewed her lip. But by the scent of her desire perfuming the air, she was thinking about it.
Her scent alone had my Primal battling me for control. I felt the ripple of a shift coming, and it took all my strength to not allow him free. But my cock stiffened as she dropped my stare.
“The whole knot thing…that has to happen, too, doesn’t it?” she asked carefully. “With the whole…breeding aspect?”
