“Say what I’ve guessed from the moment we met,” he breathed. “What I knew the first time I kissed you. What became unbreakable between us on Solstice night.”
She wouldn’t.
“I am your mate, for fuck’s sake!” Cassian shouted, loud enough for people across the river to hear. “You are my mate! Why are you still fighting it?”
She let the truth, voiced at last, wash over her.
“You promised me forever on Solstice,” he said, voice breaking. “Why is one word somehow throwing you off that?”
“Because with that one word, the last scrap of my humanity goes away!” She didn’t care who saw them, who heard. “With that one stupid word, I am no longer human in any way. I’m one of you!”
He blinked. “I thought you wanted to be one of us.”
“I don’t know what I want. I didn’t have a choice.”
“Well, I didn’t have a choice in being shackled to you, either.”
The declaration slammed into her. Shackled.
He sucked in a breath. “That was an incredibly poor choice of words.”
“But the truth, right?”
“No. I was angry—it’s not true.”
“Why? Your friends saw me for what I was. What I am. The mating bond made you stupidly blind to it. How many times did they warn you away from me, Cassian?” She barked a cold laugh.
Shackled.
Words beckoned, sharp as knives, begging for her to grab one and plunge it into his chest. Make him hurt as much as that one word hurt her. Make him bleed.
But if she did that, if she ripped into him … She couldn’t. Wouldn’t let herself do it.
He pleaded, “I didn’t mean it like—”
“I’m calling in my favor,” she said.
He went still, brows bunching. And then his eyes widened. “Whatever you’re—”
“I want you to leave. Go up to the House of Wind for the night. Do not speak to me until I come talk to you, or until a week has passed. Whichever comes first. I don’t care.”
Until she’d mastered herself enough to not hurt him, to stop feeling the old urge to strike and maim before she could be wounded.
Cassian lurched toward her, but winced, back arching. Like the bargain tattoo on his back had burned him.
“Go away,” she ordered.
His throat worked, eyes bulging. Fighting the power of the bargain with his every breath.
But then he whirled, wingbeats booming as he leaped into the skies above the river.
Nesta remained on the quay as her spine tingled, and she knew her tattoo had vanished.
Emerie was at her kitchen table when Nesta appeared at the back door. Mor had winnowed her here without a question, without so much as a glance of disapproval. Nesta had been beyond caring about it, though. Was only grateful the female had appeared—likely sent by Cassian. She didn’t care about that, either.
Nesta made it two steps into Emerie’s shop before she collapsed and cried.
She barely noticed what happened. How Emerie helped her into a chair, how the words tumbled out, explaining what she and Cassian had said, what she’d done to him.
A knock sounded on the door an hour later, and Nesta stopped crying when she saw who stood there.
Gwyn threw her arms around Nesta. “I heard you might need us.” Nesta was so stunned to see the priestess that she returned the hug.
Mor, a step behind, gave her a concerned nod, and then winnowed away.
Emerie was the one to say to Gwyn, “I can’t believe you left the library.”
Gwyn stroked Nesta’s head. “Some things are more important than fear.” She cleared her throat. “But please don’t remind me too much. I’m so nervous I really might vomit.”
Even Nesta smiled at that.
Her two friends fussed over her, sitting at the kitchen table and drinking hot cocoa—a belated Solstice gift to Emerie from Nesta, pilfered from the House’s larder. They ate dinner, and then dessert, and discussed their latest reads. They spoke about everything and nothing long into the night.
Only when Nesta’s eyes burned with exhaustion, her body a limp weight, did they go upstairs. There were three bedrooms above the shop, all pristine and simple, and Nesta changed into the nightgown Emerie offered without a second thought.
She’d talk to him tomorrow. Sleep now, safe with her friends around her, and talk to him tomorrow.
She’d explain everything—why she’d balked, why it frightened her, this next step into the unknown. The life beyond it. She’d apologize for using their bargain to send him away, and not stop apologizing until he smiled again.