“Well, Sir Knight,”I say, mind-to-mind,“I think there are probably a few things we should talk about.”
44
AFTERGLOW
ELYRIA
She didn’t move.
Didn’t dare.
Oh, she was tempted to. She wanted to dance her fingers up his arms, across his chest, over her mark on his shoulder. The cool pre-dawn light leaking into the tent cast the softest glow over Cedric’s handsome features, and Elyria was tempted to smooth his brow which, even now, relaxed in sleep, had just the slightest furrow to it. She wanted to plant another kiss on his scarred lip, wanted to start the long process of replacing every negative memory or thought he’d ever had about it with the knowledge of how much she loved it.
But Elyria didn’t want to break the magic of this moment. Didn’t want to have to come backto realityjustyet.
Cedric lay next to her, body pressed against her, one arm under his head, the other arm draped across her stomach. His breath ghosted across her collarbone, warm and slow and even.
The tent was hushed. The forest itself was quiet. Still. Peaceful.
Right.
Elyria stared at the gentle curve of the tent’s ceiling, her vision slightly unfocused, as if she were still waking up—even though she’d already been awake for hours. In truth, she wasn’t sure she’d been able to sleep at all, not with the mark on her neck throbbing dully and the thrum of magic still swimming in her veins, alight and alive.
She lifted the arm that wasn’t trapped between her and Cedric’s naked bodies to her neck, brushing the pads of her fingers over the raised double crescents there. Satisfaction pulsed quietly through her chest, her magic shimmering up and down the thread between them, thrumming contentedly under her skin.
And it wasn’t just her shadows. Not just her wild power. There was something entirely, wholly new there too. Like a kernel of Cedric’s warmth—his fire, hislight—had danced its way down their bond and was now nestled between the threads of her other magic.
Elyria didn’t know how to describe it. How to explain the way her shadows felt somehow lighter, lessened, yet she felt more powerful than ever. Like they’d been tempered. Fortified.
It was a strange place to be in—this position of knowing and not-knowing. The bond itself, what they’d done last night, the logistics of how they’d claimed each other? Those were all things Elyria understood. It was what had come after, the depths of this thing between them, whatever had been forged in those moments of claiming that she couldn’t quite comprehend.
She took some comfort in the fact that her poor knight didn’t understand much about either thing, though he was taking it all in stride with impressive fortitude, nonetheless.
“Soul-tied,” he’d repeated as they lay together in the afterglow, both curled up on their sides, facing each other, their legs overlapping.
“Or soul-bonded. You can take your pick.”
Cedric ran his hand languidly up Elyria’s spine, brushing the base of her wings, and she shivered in spite of the heat still radiating fromhim. “What does that mean exactly?”
“You’ve never heard the term?” she asked, genuine surprise flashing through her. She knew it was something that rarely impacted humans, if ever. Still, she’d have thought the notion would have made its way into some of the fairytales and romance novels she’d seen littering the shelves of the palace library, at the very least.
“No, no, I know the word. I understand the concept,” he said slowly. “I meant, what does it mean forus?”
“It means this,”she said, the words rippling down their bond. “And it means you’re stuck with me now, Sir Knight, whether you like it or not.”
Cedric’s brow creased and it took him several moments to respond. She knew it was likely because he was simply getting used to hearing her in his head. Still, she couldn’t hide the relief she felt when his voice echoed back and said, “You can rest assured that I like it. I just don’t fully comprehend what happens now. Does this change things?”
“Do you want things to change?”
He brought a finger to her chin, tilting it so that their eyes met. “No,” he said aloud, and Elyria smiled.
“So then, nothing changes. Our mission and our motive remains the same. You and I are just”—she leaned forward and pressed a quick kiss to his lips—“all the more aligned now.”
Cedric arched his brow. “Nothing changes?”
“Nothing and everything,”she said down the bond, laughing lightly. Because these waters were just as uncharted for her as they were for him. The concept of finding atruesoul-bonded partner was so rare that it’d been nearly relegated to fairytales for the fae as well. Most Arcanians went their long, long lives knowing one, maybe two soul-tied pairs—not counting the infamous example of Queen Daephinia and King Juno.
And even that was not quite the same. Juno was human, and Daephinia had indeed claimed him, bound their souls. But the tie had come from her, been her choice, an action she had taken. And the origins around it all have gotten muddy over the centuries, but many say she had really only done so in order to tie his human life to hers. Their marriage was an alliance between the realms, and for peace to reign, it needed to last longer than his paltry human lifespan would allow. Not to mention there was no predicting how long it would have taken forthe two of them to produce an heir.
