“You are mine, and I am yours. But I will not force you to be with me if you do not love me the way I love you, my star. You’ll be safe in the Winter Court, and you will die your true death when your natural time comes,” he said, his eyes dropping to the ground beside me.
“And where will you be?” I asked, pondering all that I knew of Caldris. All I had were questions about the truth behind the hints he’d given me in his tales of his life.
“Until the day comes that you’re willing to accept me as your mate, my place must be in the Shadow Court. And should you die your final death as a human, I will join you in the Void to await judgment,” he answered, watching as the final Mist Guard lowered himself into the last remaining hole. One of the skeletons broke off from the Fae Marked, taking up the task of burying him properly.
When the skeleton had finished burying the last of them, cutting their uniforms from sight entirely and leaving us with nothing but the long-since dead, Caelum held out a hand for me. His power lessened to a less-suffocating force with the number of dead he needed to control cut in half, and the air returned to my lungs in a rush. “Why would you allow that?” I asked, ignoring his offered hand.
“Because until you accept the mate bond, I am the same as I have always been. You aren’t the only one who knows what it is to be a prisoner in your own life, min asteren. I would see you as free as possible rather than have you imprisoned at my side.”
“Then leave me in Nothrek,” I said, wincing when his fingers wrapped gently around mine. He cradled my trembling hand, running his thumb over the shadow mark on the back.
“I won’t leave you here to suffer and die before your time comes. You’ll be comfortable in Catancia and able to live a full life, if it comes to that,” he said, dropping his forehead to mine. Pain lingered in his dark eyes, which were tinted by a burst of blue behind the obsidian, leaving no doubt in my mind that he still hoped I would change my mind.
I couldn’t. Not with the betrayal he’d forced me to endure. If I couldn’t trust him, then how could I even begin to trust that he would have my best interest at heart, if I accepted the mate bond thrumming between us?
I felt it tugging at me every time he came near, pulling tight in the moments when his eyes landed on mine. His glamour had done far more than just disguise his appearance; it had masked the bond that connected us, lessened it in a measurable way.
“And what I want for my life doesn’t matter to you at all? I was ready to choose death once. I’m not sure what makes you think I wouldn’t choose that again, if it meant my freedom,” I said, staring into that stunning deep gaze. He raised a hand to my forearm, the contrast of his golden skin against the deep bronze of mine drawing a gasp from my mouth. He’d always been fairer than I had, but now his skin gleamed like the shimmering reflection of sun on snow-covered fields.
“You were ready to die?” he asked, his voice dropping low. We hadn’t spoken of it in depth, had never really delved into the fact that I’d been only moments away from death when the Veil collapsed. His eyes narrowed, his nostrils flaring as he stared down at me. “I felt your resignation before I broke through the Veil. Would you care to explain?”
“Not particularly,” I said, evading the question in its entirety. Caelum knew about Lord Byron and his disgusting interest in me, but he didn’t need to know the details of just how horrible that fate had seemed to me.
Caelum had my secrets. Caldris didn’t get to have more.
A strained laugh rumbled up his throat, both uncomfortable and amused. “I did ask you not to lie to me,” he said, raising a brow as he remembered all the times I’d done just that in far less serious situations.
“Like I care what you want,” I scoffed, twisting away from his presence. He took my hand in his, twining his fingers between mine as he guided me away from the place where his dead guarded the remaining Marked. They whispered amongst themselves as he led me back the way we’d come, leaving them as I looked at them over my shoulder. “Where are we going?”
“We have one more dead to tend to,” he said, his voice dropping low as we maneuvered through the city streets. We passed by the stone I’d vaulted off of when the iron chains had caught me around the throat, then walked down the winding road to return to the main street where Beck had disappeared and Melian had been stabbed.
I broke free from his grip when her crumpled body came into view, hurrying across the ruined street to drop to my knees by her side. I hadn’t been able to go to her in the moments after the attack, when my focus on survival had to take precedence over an injury that I knew even a Fae Marked couldn’t heal.
My hand trembled as it hovered over the wound in her torso and the blood and gore seeping out of it. Her body shuddered, a ragged breath escaping her as she forced her eyes open. Her Fae Mark glowed with a hint of red, the power in her Viniculum working to save her from something that it couldn’t prevent.
“She’s alive!” I shouted, turning to find Caldris waiting at my back. He stared down at her with anguished eyes, and it struck me that Melian didn’t even have the strength to glare at him. Seeing her eyes soften when their gazes connected was potentially the worst of all realizations, a concluding factor in just how far gone she was. “You have to heal her.”
Caldris’s lips pursed as he turned his gaze to me. “I would if I could, min asteren.”
“You just healed me for something that barely mattered! Just give her your blood—”
“Blood magic only works within the Mate Bond. A Fae cannot heal a human who is not the other half of our soul,” he explained, making me hang my head in despair. I needed her to live, to tell me what to do. He stepped away, giving me a moment to grip Melian’s hand in mine and lift it to my cheek. Blood covered hers, as if she’d tried to reach down and hold her entrails within her body to prevent the death she knew was coming.
“It’s alright,” she whispered, her breathing ragged. “Would rather die than go to Alfheimr, anyway.”
“It’s not alright. You have to get back to the tunnels and warn them about Caelum. I should have listened to you. I shouldn’t have been so blind to what he was,” I whispered, the words hovering between us.
Her lips twitched into a sad smile, knowing as well as I did that it was true. All this time, and he’d turned me into a fool. “You have to get away from him,” she said, pausing to swallow painfully for a moment before she continued on. “You’ve seen how powerful he is already. Just imagine what would happen if he completed the mate bond and accessed his full potential. No matter what it takes, Estrella, you cannot allow him to take you to Alfheimr.”
Her words cut off as her eyes bored into mine, her fingers squeezing my hand weakly. “I won’t. I promise,” I said, knowing that no matter what happened, I needed to honor my promises to her and my brother.
I couldn’t allow Caldris to take me to the Faerie Realm.
Her eyes drifted halfway closed, her body sagging even as she continued to breathe. “Put me out of my misery,” she groaned, dropping her hand from mine to touch her wound once more.