Page 214 of Sinister

He nods. “In those dreams, we were just two people. There was no history, no baggage. Just us.”

“I see,” I say, and I do. If I had known earlier that those weren’t dreams, I might’ve reacted differently. I might’ve tried to stop it. I might’ve feared what it meant—that he could take me from my room without me ever noticing.

But the more I got to know him, the more his presence became the only thing that felt safe.

“You were right to do it,” I tell him after a moment. “If you hadn’t approached it that way, maybe I would still be trapped in my own misconceptions about you.

“But I’m still curious,” I whisper, “about what these symbols mean. Because what happened back then wasn’t normal. My skin healed like nothing ever happened, and I remember you piercing it with a knife.”

“The answer is simple,” he says. “The marks are magical. And this symbol isn’t something caused by my own ability.”

“Then what caused it?”

He gazes at me and places his hand lightly over my chest, above the mark.

“Fate. Because we’re meant to be. This happened because, out of everyone in the universe, you and I are the perfect pair. We were destined for each other from the beginning. Your soul is mine. Mine is yours. We’re tied together.”

He hovers his fingers over the spot. “This isn’t just proof of that. It’s a tether—binding us. When we shared blood, the bond formed. That was the first step.”

“First step?” I ask, furrowing my brows.

“For the bond to become permanent, we would need to consummate it,” he answers gently.

I blink. “Consummate? You mean . . . ?”

“Yes,” he says. “Exactly that.”

“But how do you know this?”

“The entity told me. There are people out there fated to find one another, though not all do so in every lifetime. Sometimes the stars align. Sometimes they don’t. But I recognized you, Petra. As mine. And you recognized me, too—I know you did.

“What did you feel when you first saw me?” he asks.

I think back to that moment in the bookstore—how striking he looked to me. The impossible beauty of him, the deep blue of his eyes that seemed to pierce right through me. I hadn’t been able to think of anything else afterward. It was unlike anything I’d ever known.

“I see you know what I mean,” he murmurs, satisfied.

“What happens after we consummate the bond?” I ask quietly.

“Then we will truly be one. We’ll share life and death—in this world and the next. Nothing will ever be able to separate us again. I will find you. Always. No matter what.”

I nod. Slowly. Steadily.

The prospect of belonging to this man for all eternity makes me warm and tingly. I want that. Perhaps I’ve wanted it from the first time I saw him. But I know I would have never dared to admit it to myself back then.

Even now, I find myself hesitating. Years of conditioning, of keeping quiet and suppressing my emotions, have taken a toll on me. Yet it’s because of him that I’ve started to open up, to go against my fear of being judged and punished for my thoughts.

He became my safe haven the moment he allowed me to be curious, to dare to know.

Perhaps I should be scared of being bound to someone until the end of time. Because he’s not talking about just this lifetime. He’s talking of forever.

That is quite the commitment, isn’t it?

The logical part of me tells me to take my time, consider things carefully.

But the other part of me? The one that’s finally at peace in his presence, the one that yearns for him more than oxygen, that part of me tells me to take the leap. And I choose to listen to it.

“Can we . . .” I wet my lips. “Can we do it?”