He squeezed my hand. “We wanted you to have something that’s yours. A place you can come back to whenever you need to feel safe. To be… just you.”
“How did you know?” I asked in disbelief. I had no idea how they would even know that I’ve loved carousels since I was a little girl.
Xavier chuckled and pressed a kiss against my shoulder before he pointed over to Damien. “When he was in your memories… he saw a small carousel which was displayed on your dresser. He was thinking that was what you wanted.”
I smiled, going a step closer to Damien. As I gazed at him, I felt tears forming in the corner of my eyes. I tried to blink them away, but it was no use. No one had ever done something soselfless, sopurefor me before.
“Don’t cry, my love,” Damien murmured, his thumb brushing away the tears slipping down my cheeks with such reverence it nearly unraveled me.
My love.
The words fell from his lips so naturally, yet I could feel the slight tension in his hand as he realized what he just called me.
For a moment, neither of us moved. His perfect eyes stared into mine as if he was trying to memorize every inch of my soul.
I stumbled forward, still in disbelief, my hands brushing the smooth painted sides of the carousel horses. Each horse was lovely, but my breath caught when I spotted one particular horse between two with pink attire. It had a sleek, silver steed with a wild mane and different colored eyes: one a gleaming silver-blue, the other a deep piercing blue.
It was Damien.A hidden piece of him, carved into this personal dreamland of mine. Without hesitation, I swung myself onto it, my dress billowing like a soft cloud around my legs.
You chose the one that sees you.
I looked over to Damien and Xavier, but neither of them seemed to have spoken.
And then it hit me. It was the voice of my angel. He seemed to be a part of this now as well, making me smile.
“I’ll spend my whole life making you smile like this, Gwendolyn,” Xavier whispered against my ear, brushing his fingers through my hair before he took his place on the horse beside me. Damien sat himself on the other side, looking at me with so much devotion, it made me ache to touch him, to feel him.
Did he also want to feel me? Did he know I was listening to his brother speak to me and he had been blessing our bond at this very moment?
The carousel came alive suddenly, making me wonder how it started until I noticed Xavier’s shadows moving the platform. Music drifted softly around us, a lullaby of violins and flutes.
As the carousel spun around us all under the evening sky of Carnivalland, I realized I never really got that feeling of having lost something. Despite my compass necklace being gone, maybe it had been the price for coming here.
Maybe I needed to fall through the rose hedges to feel safe, to not be afraid of falling anymore.
Maybe home wasn’t Carnivalland after all.It was them.
And I could only hope we would find the other part of myself, so I could be complete.
Chapter 22
The last few days had been a rollercoaster of emotions. I couldn’t stop thinking about Gwendolyn; needing her, yearning for her. It was our bond, it had awakened even more, the longer we spent together.
And then we were sitting in the carousel, she had picked the horse with the different colored eyes. My eyes.She knew.
There was no denying our connection anymore.
Unfortunately, it also meant the dragon inside me wanted her just as much, and he wouldn’t stop until he had her. It made it almost unbearable to be near her without claiming her in front of the others.
I might have been able to share her heart with Xavier and Malakai… but the dragon inside me could not. He wouldneverbe satisfied with only a part of her. He craved toownher, to brand her with every fiber of our being, until there was no question of who she belonged to.
I’d wanted nothing more than to rip that soft, delicate dress from her body and take her so hard and fast against the entrance of the castle, so that everyone who dared to step inside would know she was mine. Only mine.
But I kept myself in check. For her sake, and for mine. I didn’t know how it would be if I truly bonded with her, how my powers would change—howIwould change.
Still, it was getting worse.
The longer I remained unbonded to her, the harder it became to function in my own body. It was getting so hard to fall asleep, to even shift into my dragon form without having her on my mind and the things I wanted to do with her.
