Every word is a precious gem, and a drake doesn’t distinguish between gold or jewel. It all glitters.
Her eyes finally flick to my face, and the contact gives me a window into her heart.
It is a beautiful, vulnerable, lonely place. My heart recognizes her from the deepest part of me.
“You are enough,” I say slowly.
Those lonely, broken eyes watch me carefully.
“Sometimes, when I’m with you, I almost believe it.”
My being fractures into a million pieces.
“Tell me a story every night we are together. I wish to know you in a way different from the bond. Gift me every moment with you and your brother, every memory of your mother,everything that has ever made you laugh. The beautiful and the terrible, I want it all.”
A tear slips down her cheek. “I am not that interesting or noble. Not like you.”
My lips brush over hers.
“Perhaps I should share more of my mind. We are more than lust and attraction; we are eternal. We are bonded through something greater than grief—you will be mine until we grow old and our bodies leave these mortal forms. Entrust yourself to me. I will cherish you and keep you safe.”
“You can’t promise that,” she says after a minute.
I shake my head. “I am doing it, the gods as my witnesses.”
Her weariness mars her features. “But I?—”
“I love you, Estela.”
She looks up at me with wide eyes. There wasn’t time to say the words before, but there is now.
“I—I love you, too.”
Something more intimate than everything we have shared passes between us. My heart breaks, but this time, not to shatter on the ground. It breaks and molds itself into something new.
It rises from the rubble and soars far away from this plane.
“Sleep, my love. I look forward to more tales of your life tomorrow,” I say, brushing my hand over her eyes.
Several minutes pass, and I wait for her to say something else.
“My star?” I whisper at last.
Her mouth curves up into a sleepy smile, but I can tell that the dreams claim her before she can respond.
I place a hand on her hip drawing her near, inhaling her clean scent, and let that drag me into dreamland.
Chapter 25
Tourmaline
ESTELA
Before I was taken from Enduvida, my favorite part of the day was the clock tower’s songs. I can tell we’ve slept late when I hear the bright tune of early afternoon.
I push myself up, and the world tilts sideways as I drag my head from the pillow.
The hand grasping my hip tightens at the movement.
