"We collected rainwater. There’s plenty to be found." His words made Luella cringe—that was her fault. "Do youremember what happened before you fell asleep?" His fingers stroked over the back of her hand, eyes flashing bloody red.
"Yes, I do. I agreed to… join you." She was relieved when she did not stammer.
His cool breath ghosted over her flushed cheeks, and she opened her eyes, finding Bastian leaning into her, watching her. "Have you changed your mind?"
Had she?
She thought about it, and in the silence, the red in his eyes grew deeper; he took shallow breaths, lips slightly parted as if he could not stand to breathe in her scent through his nose.
She had said she would join them, because even clouds did not work alone. Just the same, one droplet of rain was not a tempest, but a deluge could only be formed by thousands,millions, of water droplets, working together to cause chaos.
She couldn’t work alone, not like she had been. Perhaps, the same could be said for them. They fought each other so much that they might as well have been working on their own.
What would happen if they all… worked together?
"I’ve not changed my mind. If anything, I feel like this is what should have been done from the beginning." She spoke softly, watching him. "The prophecy—you’ve known all along about what I must do, and still you kept trying to use me. Did it ever occur to you that maybe if you were honest, I would have agreed?" The fever still clouded her thoughts, making her words flow freely. She found she loved it. To speak without care.
She didn’t understand the words of the prophecy. Not truly. Just as she didn’t understand the dreams she had been having. Of Caliban. Not the nightmare of when she had been taken. That, Luella knew, was merely trauma, not some gods-given vision of the past.
The only thing that rang clear to her:
To expel the dark, the shadow’s spark, and defeat the stolen, she must bond with the chosen.
Those words were etched in her mind, imprinted onto the very fabric of her being.
It scared her, knowing what lay ahead.
"I regret what I have done." Bastian swallowed. "And I will spend every day working to make it right. I have not given you any gifts lately—we’ve been busy. How would you like another?"
"Right now?" she asked quietly, eyes drifting to the others, who were doing a good job of looking like they weren’t listening.
Tharen’s head was canted to the side as he spoke with the King; smoke flowed from Vale’s lips, and his fists were clenched as the golden firelight cast warm shadows over his profile. Graves sat silently away from them all, laces on his shirt undone, revealing a tantalizing strip of skin at his chest. The purple stone of his amulet hung there, glinting as if taunting her. Her mind worked to remember something, but it drifted away.
Luella looked back at Bastian. "Okay."
His fangs flashed as he dipped his chin in acknowledgment. He shifted his hold to cup both her hands in his. Az still slept soundly behind her, his steady exhales rustling the hairs on her nape.
"Don’t wake Az," she warned.
Bastian smiled at her protectiveness. "Wouldn’t dream of it." Then he leaned forward, nose brushing hers. Her eyes widened, expecting his lips to press upon hers, but he didn’t. At the last moment, as if he thought better of it, he jerked his chin up, lips softly touching her brow.
And Luella was torn from her mind and welcomed into another.
Her lids fell shut as Bastian used his Mind magic to draw her from her thoughts and place her in his. Her unseen feet sank intothe shifting sands of his mind, smoke drifting around, wrapping her up in a bergamot embrace.
She felt her eyes move behind her closed lids. Bastian’s fingers tightened on hers.
She had been inside him only once before. During her… lessons.
That had been nothing like this. That had been merely looking through his eyes, hearing whispers of his thoughts—now, she was fully seated within, voyeur to everything, peeking through the opened doors of his thoughts.
I love feeling you inside me, pet.The vampire’s words echoed around her.You don’t want me in your mind, so I brought you to mine.
She tried to think a question back to him, but it was hard. She strained. She had no lips to move. A chuckle bounced off the grey, smoky walls of Bastian’s innermost thoughts.
I brought you here because I want you to believe me,he answered her unspoken question.
It seemed as though he heard her, even without her speaking.
