Dayana’s gaze turned to Westley, admiration in her doe eyes, her voice clear.
“I am his mate.”
Mate.
That cord inside him pulled taut, searching for the other end of the tether to his soul.
Mate.
He thought the word again, his magic pulsing in response. His breathing went shallow, head spinning. He lost track of everything taking place in front of him as Solveig and the queens spoke with the mortals.
Mate.
Westley stood rooted to the spot, the word repeating in his mind. He’d been a fool. A blind fool. From his magic awakening to his inability to see harm befall her. Their connection. He’d thought their magic bound them together. But it all made sense.
They could speak mind to mind. He had felt her fatal wounds and she had felt his. How had he missed it?
Mate.
This time when he thought the word, he felt the tug of the bond, and Solveig’s eyes snapped to his, a question there. Did she feel it too?Did she understand what it meant? As a Vanir, she may not be aware of the depth a Fae bond gave to a pairing.
Solveig was his fated mate.
“That’s impossible,” Westley whispered. He hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but everyone’s attention snapped to him.
“Westley,” North said, placing a hand on his arm. “What did you say?”
“That’s impossible,” he said more clearly, avoiding Solveig’s stare.
“Dayana had the vision three years ago when she was but sixteen,” Nina told them proudly. “She is sure of it.”
Westley shook his head. “She’s mortal. A child.”
“I’m almost twenty,” Dayana responded, a flush creeping onto her pale cheeks. The indignant way she spoke made Westley cringe. “You are my mate, my prince,” she said with a bow of her head.
Even knowing it was false—she was not his mate—he couldn’t help the way his body recoiled at the notion of her claiming him.
“I am four hundred and eighty-one years old,” he said sternly, as he would scold a youngling.
“It is not unheard of,” Koa mused, “for a Fae to have a mortal mate.”
“But one so young?” Aelfsi added. “Tell us, Prince, you are unmated, correct?”
Westley couldn’t bear it, taking another step back. “She is not my mate,” he said firmly, then turned on his heel and walked away, unable to look Solveig in the eye, unable to speak with this revelation flooding his mind.
His sisters’ voices carried over the others, calling for him, but still he fled. Like the coward he was. He fled from her.
Solveig was his mate.
After a lifetime of hoping to find his mate, and then coming to accept that he had none, this felt wholly surreal. His stomach roiled as hedrifted back to his rooms, emptying the contents in a well-placed potted plant along the way.
How cruel were the gods to bestow this fate on her?
The depths of pain he’d caused her could never be forgiven. Solveig reached out, but he closed himself off, wrapping their bond and burying it deep, protecting her from the pain of the revelation.
She was his mate, and yet, after what he’d done, how he’d betrayed her, he would never deserve her. His ignorance was no excuse. He should have known the second his eyes were drawn to her, Block or not.
Pain lanced his heart, the loss striking him harder than he could’ve ever imagined.
