Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 123190 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 616(@200wpm)___ 493(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123190 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 616(@200wpm)___ 493(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
I hold his gaze. “Does that scare you?”
“Not as much as it scares you.”
I open my mouth to say more—to explain why it scares me, to tell him that if I could choose, I’d be human like him. But there’s nothing more to be said to that end until I’m ready to reveal what I traded for this ring. And I won’t make this day harder for him by sharing that now.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Mordeus. About the blood magic.” He steps toward me, closing the little distance left between us. “I couldn’t share my suspicions because I couldn’t risk losing you.”
“Because you need me to kill Erith.”
He opens his mouth and then closes it again before sweeping his knuckles over my cheek. “My reasons for wanting you alive and well have never been that singular.”
I can’t muster any of the anger I felt earlier. Maybe I should, but when I reach for it, it’s gone. I could’ve lost him tonight.
I glance toward the bed. It’s big enough for us both, but not by a lot. And just like that, the nervous butterflies are back.
He follows my gaze. “This isn’t how I imagined our first night together.”
I blink up at him and feel a smile tugging at my lips. “You imagined this?”
His eyes are dark and serious as they roam my face. “Thousands of times in the last week alone.”
My face is hot. “How was it different when you imagined it?”
“I could kiss you, for starters.” He flashes me a sad sort of smile, then grabs a towel from a small pile by the wash bin. Before I realize what he means to do, he’s torn it into three strips and is tying them together. “Wrist okay?” he asks, holding out his hand for mine.
I nod and watch as he ties us together, his movements gentle and almost ceremonial. It reminds me of a ritual from home, and I look away halfway through to keep the lump in my throat from surging into tears.
“Is it too tight?”
I shake my head. “It’s fine.”
He studies me for another beat, then nods. I walk around with him as he snuffs out the lanterns on the far side of the room, but when he reaches the one by the bed, he only lowers the flame.
“You don’t have to do that for me. I’m okay.” I’m supposed to be okay when I’m wearing the ring, but here I am fighting tears over some ripped fabric on my wrist. Turns out I’m not very numb at all.
“I don’t mind.” He nods to the bed, motioning for me to climb in first.
I do, positioning my free arm under my head, and he follows right after, letting our tethered hands rest between our bodies.
Our eyes meet in the low light from the lantern.
“Tell me what’s going on in that head of yours,” he says.
I drop my gaze to the soft linens. “I was just reminded of something from my old life, and I guess it made me homesick.” I flick my gaze up to his, then back down. “Brie and I didn’t have a lot of close friends in Elora, but the few we made were very good, and once this couple we were close to invited us to their handfasting ceremony. And I remember . . .” My eyes burn again. “It’s so stupid. It doesn’t even mean that much to me. I just remember thinking that someday I’d like to celebrate finding my match with that kind of ceremony. I hadn’t thought about it in years, and then suddenly . . .”
He threads his fingers with mine.
“So much for this stupid ring numbing my heart,” I say, sniffing. “I think its magic might be dying.”
“I’m glad for that. I like your heart.”
I drop my gaze to our hands. To the ring. To the fabric tethering us together.
“That’s an old tradition,” he says softly. “Handfasting used to be the mainstream ritual observed in marriage ceremonies in Elora, but it fell out of favor. I like hearing that there are people who still observe the tradition.”
“Was that something else that changed with the Magical Seven? Did they forbid it?”
“It wasn’t so much that,” he says, gaze still fixed on our bound hands. “It was that they came in and convinced the realm they needed to be saved from the fae, and the more the fae were demonized, the more their rituals were demonized.”
I prop myself up on my elbow. “Handfasting is a faerie ritual?”
He nods. “Elven, yes. Originally.”
“I didn’t know.” But it makes sense. It seems fitting.
He brings our bound hands to his lips and kisses my knuckles. When he lowers our hands back to the bed, his gaze is on my mouth.
“What are you thinking?” I ask.
He cups my jaw and presses his thumb to my bottom lip. “I’m thinking”—leaning forward, he skims the bridge of his nose over mine, his lips hovering so close I ache to taste him—“that these lips might be worth dying for.”