“Someone is going to have their hands full with that one,” Aramis said, a smile lighting his face as he looked at Holt. It was a game, all of it: the human suffering and the fear we felt in being chased—the deaths we mourned.
It was all part of the thrill of the Hunt for them, and I wanted no part of it.
19
ESTRELLA
Caldris slept beside me. His face was peaceful in the moments when his brilliant blue eyes were closed, his posture relaxed as I slipped out of his hold. He’d clung to me as he fell asleep, as if he could feel me drifting away.
I wouldn’t question his ability to feel my growing distance pulling through the bond—not with how estranged I felt after watching the Wild Hunt bring back the Fae Marked male they’d caught. Only a few weeks prior, that might have been me.
If it hadn’t been for Caelum’s deception and interference, I might have been slung across Holt’s horse, dragged back to the carts, and shackled with the rest of them. My brother would still lie dead in a heap at the bottom of the cliff, leaving my heart in tatters and wishing I’d managed to go with him.
The bond between us was silent as my mate slept. It should have been peaceful, the knowledge that the only emotions plaguing me at the moment were my own. Instead, it left me unsettled as I tried to understand where I’d gone wrong. When I’d allowed the link between our minds as a way to take my pain, I’d given myself to Caldris in a way I’d planned to take back.
I’d intended to wake the next morning and slam that window closed, cutting him off from my head and my heart as best as I could. But I hadn’t. I couldn’t be alone all over again—not when I’d finally felt like I had somewhere I belonged, for the very first time.
I sat beside him, staring down at the golden skin of his face and the relaxed seam of his mouth. My eyes slid down his shirtless form, dropping to where he’d trusted me enough to rest his weapons beside the bedroll. There was no attempt to put them out of reach or make it harder for me to get to them any longer. My shackles lay on the other side of them, deposited for the night until he would need to put me in them once again to placate the humans who already hated me.
I’d done nothing to free them in spite of my promise. I’d settled into my place at Caldris’s side in all the ways I swore I would never do, and it hadn’t been until I’d been reminded of the fear they caused that I recognized what I’d done.
I had taken the easy road—allowed my heart to dictate what my mind knew to be wrong. Mate or not, the Fae Marked deserved to go free, and I already knew I probably wouldn’t survive an attempt to set them loose.
Not when Caldris was gone and I was no longer the mate of anything.
I reached over his body slowly, wrapping my trembling fingers around the hilt of his dagger. I lifted it carefully, easing it out of the sheath and wincing at the light sound of iron against leather. Weakness plagued me when I touched a finger to the blade itself, confirming that the metal would serve my purposes.
I shifted to my knees beside him, careful not to touch his body with mine. Leaning over him and touching a hand to the bedroll beside his head as carefully as I could, I raised the dagger until I held it to the front of his throat. My cheeks were wet as I stared down at him, my hand making the blade shake as it lingered just off his skin.
I pushed forward and then retreated, choking back the sob that stuck in my throat. Caldris’s eyes peeled open slowly, the bond remaining quiet as his blue eyes met mine. There was no surprise in his gaze as it landed on me, as his eyes roved over my tear-stained cheeks. “I wondered what you would do.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, sniffling and turning my eyes down to stare at the knife. I pressed the blade into his skin, wondering why he never flinched back or reacted to it at all. Surely, he had to know the blade was iron. That his death would be final when I cut through the sinew of his neck and carved his heart from his chest.
A strangled sob escaped me.
Caldris reached up to grab my wrist, finally forcing the blade away from his neck while I struggled. But instead of guiding it away from his body, he shifted it down his chest and cut a thin line toward his heart. Pressing the tip of the blade to the skin covering his beating breast, he held my hand steady. “It is yours. Whether it beats or not,” he murmured, reaching up to cup my cheek with his other hand. “I have felt your desperation coming through the bond all day, Little One. If my death is what brings you peace, then I will pay that price.”
I shook my head, my brow furrowing in confusion as I fought back the torrent of tears. I felt his resignation, felt his lack of fear. “You’re supposed to fight,” I whispered, sniffling and pulling against his hand.
He held me steady and blood welled at the tip of the blade where he guided my hand and pressed it into his skin. “Why would I want to fight with you? All I want is to love you,” he murmured, his thumb running over the skin on the back of my hand soothingly.
“You woke with your own dagger pressed to your throat. You’re supposed to fight,” I repeated, watching as a tear dripped off my cheek and splashed against his chest.
“If you are able to imagine your life, your future, without me in this world, then why would I want to live?” Caldris asked, running his other thumb over my cheekbone. It smeared through the tears wetting my face, moving smoothly over my skin as I searched for any anger coming from him. There was nothing…nothing but the calm resolution of a male who would welcome death. “I love you, Estrella. I have loved you for centuries and waited for you to be mine. If there is no hope, no chance of you accepting me into your heart in truth, then I will gladly allow you to be the one to end my eternity of suffering. If the last thing I see is your face, then I can go to the Void in peace.”
I sobbed as he dropped his hands away, letting them settle against the bedroll at his side. “Stop it,” I pled.
“Claim your freedom, Estrella, because if you do not, I will never let you go. Do you understand me? I will not stop until you have accepted me—until you’re my mate in truth. I will take from you, but I will give you more love than you could have ever imagined. This is your moment to choose, min asteren. You can have your freedom or you can have me, but you cannot have both,” he said, his voice gentle despite his harsh words. Despite the fact that he admitted I would always be a servant to this compelling bond between us, mangling my truths and demanding my secrets, I couldn’t help but see the gift he offered me.
For once, I could choose. Something. Anything.
His understanding flowed through me, coursing through our bond as he felt the emotional mess that choice created in me. The first choice I would make on my own, and it was the one that would tear me in two.
It was the choice that would demand me to sacrifice a part of myself, no matter which way I chose: freedom or love. One was all I’d ever wanted in my nights wandering in those woods, not answering to anyone as I made my way through the darkness. The other…the other was exactly what I’d never dared to dream of.
I shifted my other hand, sitting back and tucking my legs beneath me. The tip of the dagger still pressed to his chest, but I stretched forward with my free hand to touch his lips with trembling fingers as he spoke. “I love you. In this life or the afterlife, my star. I will always wait for you.”