Lightbringer had known that either she would come to me, or another dragon would be with her mate, or I would die.
Fear’s plan forced Lightbringer into the world. Against her will. And so she was trapped, and she would not speak.
Fear had been frustrated by Lightbringer’s stubborn refusal, but I felt a sudden well of loss opening in my soul.
“The mate bond runs through you as well. Dragon to dragon, husband to wife.”
“I am aware.” My voice came out dry and steady.
“Are you?” Her brows arched. “Are you aware you will never be able to experience a love that you chose of your own volition?”
Those words slowly wormed their way through my fear and slowly began to knit together in my racing mind. Shadowbane and Lightbringer were mated—forever. Across centuries. Lightbringer had claimed me, either to save my life or to keep someone else from being bonded to her mate. Her claiming might not have been a mercy at all.
It might have been ancient jealousy.
For the first time, it occurred to me that the dragon—the voice in my head, the one Fear saw as an ever-faithful friend—might despise me. Might despise me always.
And though Fear and I did not have centuries…
Our bond was just as unbreakable.
If the queen was not lying.
Her voice was even, unhurried. “There will be only Fieran. For the rest of your life. As long as he lives.”
She might be lying.
If so, she needed something from me. Something soon. Something she wagered she could trick me into giving. I would give her nothing.
But I was not entirely sure she was lying.
Marry me. Fear had grinned, with my knife to his throat.
Marry me.He had asked, in the Night Market, hand-in-hand.
Marry me, I had begged him. To protect Tay. And only then—when he had begun perhaps to truly care for me—had hehesitated. It takes so little in the midst of all this Fae trickery to find yourself bound.
I had chosen him.
I had been angry at myself for caring about him, had fought it, had argued with my own instincts, and eventually had accepted the whole of what he was: the charming deceits, the endless calculation, the ruthlessness and the caring intermingled.
I’d chosen him anyway. He was a deceitful trickster rogue, but he was mine.
If the queen was telling the truth, I had been tricked, and I was being tricked, and I would be tricked again in the future. I could not trust my foolish heart to him.
“He let you believe you could leave him, didn’t he?” the queen said. She had not raised her voice. She was watching me with the keen judgment of a woman who knew how to manipulate even better than he did, and it reminded me not to trust a word she said. “You are that rare mortal who values your freedom.”
“I believe we all do.” I was not special. The idea that I was not special underlay my entire life philosophy.
“I do not believe so. The mortals rally at the gates to be raised to Fae and bound to my service,” she told me. She held a hand to cup her ear delicately; whether she could truly hear their distant cheers or not, a satisfied smile ghosted over her perfect lips. “But you are different. You do not wish to be raised; you do not want to sit on my throne as a Fae queen.”
“I’m mortal.”
“You cannot be forever now, can you?” she said gently. “At any rate, you believed that you could leave Fear, if you chose. He has known all along that this was not true. He lied to force you into a bond you can never escape.”
Fear had known, the entire time, that the choice I was so carefully making was a door with no room beyond it. I pressed my lips together. My fingernails were biting into my palm, and I forced myself to release them.
“What do you want?”
