And he did.
He delivered me to the Watcher at the threshold, the old man who tends the crossing places between our world and this one. The Watcher saw what Eldryn had already decreed.
He placed me in her path.
Nora.
My mate.
I knew it as soon as she stepped up to the table. As the wind lifted her hair and her scent wafted over to me. It settled deep in my bones, immediate and unmistakable. The recognition of her. Like something inside me sliding into place. The click that echoed through my mind.
Still echoes even now.
But she does not trust me. Does not feel the same way I do.
To her I’m an unknown. A threat. A problem to be solved and then disposed of.
She’s right to feel those things. To be suspicious.
Magic is hidden in this world. A secret known only to a chosen few. If I did not already feel the bond between us, I might question Eldryn’s wisdom myself.
Why would he pair a royal lagomorph with a magicless human?
But in my world, we do not question Eldryn’s will. Not because he speaks to us. He does not. But because the crossings, the portals, exist. Because the bonds between mates take hold. They cannot be forged by spell or hand.
They simply are.
I did not create the bond when I bit Nora.
That happened before we were born. When Eldryn tied our fates together. Long before she ever laid eyes on me. Before she reached into my cage with those gentle, human hands.
The bite only allows me to use the bond.
Magic thins in this world. I cannot access it. I cannot shift without aid.
Nora’s blood is that aid.
Each time I bite her, I can change.
Man to rabbit. Rabbit to man.
Each time I draw on her, our bond deepens.
And as it deepens…she will begin to feel it too.
The pull.
The awareness.
The way my presence settles somewhere beneath her skin and refuses to leave.
Each time I take from her, I anchor myself more firmly to her and her to me.
Each time I do it, I make it easier for my uncle’s hunters to scent her. Easier to follow the thread that runs between us. I ammeant to shield her from my uncle’s reach. Instead, I am the beacon that will draw him straight to her door.
That knowledge settles heavily across my shoulders.
A drowning weight.
