Page 72 of Blade of the Nightking

I pressed my lips together. Truthfully, I didn’t know anymore.

The naked sorrow on his face made my chest ache. “Things have changed between us.”

The chasm yawned wider. I didn’t know how to cross it.

“We can fix it,” I said, my throat tight. “Whatever this is—we can heal it.”

“You believe that?”

“The bond…” I swallowed. “It’s stronger than it’s ever been. Lately it feels like it’s pulling me toward you—like something is tightening. I feel…”

I hesitated. How could I explain something I barely understood myself? That I thought I'd been losing my mind. That for days I'd been feeling things I couldn't account for, so vivid I'd mistaken them for my own.

“Aedric,” I whispered. “I can… I can feel your emotions.”

He stilled, his attention sharpening.

“I feel them all the time,” I continued desperately. “They bleed into me like they’re my own.”

He crossed to me at once and took my hands in his, his fingers lacing tightly with mine. His eyes were suddenly too bright, shining through the dark.

“You can feel them?” he breathed.

I nodded. His grip tightened.

“You can truly feel them?”

“Yes.”

For a heartbeat he simply stared at me, and then something inside him seemed to come alive.

“Elowen…” The word left him like a prayer. “Do you know what that means?”

I didn’t.

“It means…” Wonder filled his voice. “It means we have a soul bond.” A disbelieving laugh escaped him. “It’s the rarest kind there is—so rare it’s almost a myth. When two souls are perfectly matched, they intertwine... Their emotions can no longer be contained in one heart. They flow between them.”

My breath caught. “That…” I swallowed. “That can happen?”

A smile—a true smile—spread across his face. “Only between the strongest of bonds.”

Hope radiated from him so fiercely it almost overwhelmed me. “Then... can you feel mine?”

His expression softened. “Not yet,” he admitted. “But you opened the way.” His thumb brushed gently across my knuckles. “The bond rarely awakens in both souls at the same moment. One reaches first. The other follows.” He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me against his chest. “You have no idea how incredible this is.”

I could feel his heart beating against me, his excitement pouring through our bond. Beneath it pulsed another emotion altogether: a dark, electric anticipation laced with something perilously close to hunger, a thrill so fierce my own pulse quickened in answer.

“I feel… drawn to you,” I said, pulling away to look at him. “Like I can’t help myself. When you were in the library, I wanted to leap down the stairs just to get to you.”

The joy vanished from his face.

“The library?” he repeated.

I nodded. “You drew me to you. If the bond is that strong, then we're not broken, Aedric. We can't be.”

He stared at me, his expression draining of color.

“I wasn't in the library.”