“Perhaps once I graduate we can find a small cottage somewhere. A place that’s far away from everyone else,” Emma mused. “We can travel, and when we’re back home we’ll just hide away so no one can find us. People will forget you’re a prince.”
It sounded nearly perfect. I brushed her hair back and said, “I’d like that. After we’re married.”
Emma stiffened. Had I offended her?
“Is there something wrong?” I asked, hoping that there wasn’t.
“Well, no,” Emma said, in a tone that implied there was. “It’s just strange to think of us in that way. You didn’t officially propose, and we haven’t known each other that long. I know we’re engaged, but it doesn’t feel that way. I want to know the darker side of you. Before I take that step.”
The darker side of me? Whatever did she mean? “Do you have doubts?”
She shook her head. “No. I know you’re the person I want to marry.”
Then what was holding her back? I went to ask another question, but Emma cut me off before I could. “When are you thinking of getting married?”
“When you’re ready. But if I had my way, it’d be within the next two years. You’re my mate. I see no point in waiting.”
Emma pondered that. “I want to wait, if only to get to know you better,” she said. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you. There’s no rush.”
I brought her hands up to my face, to kiss them. “I will never rush you into anything,onawilke.You have my heart. Whatever you ask of me, you shall have. I obey your every command.”
Emma took in a breath and held it. Something flashed across her gaze I couldn’t read.
“What is it?”
“I just...” Emma paused. “What’s between us is mysterious, but so magical. I can’t understand why some sorceresses and shifters break their bonds.”
Was she implying she knew we were true mates? Or just acknowledging we’d chosen one another? I rushed into my next sentence, before she could question further. “Rejecting a bond isn’t just a decision. You have to go through a magical ceremony, to break the magic that binds two parties. It’s an irreversible choice. Once the magic is gone, there’s no restoring it back to what it was.”
“I didn’t know there was a ceremony.” Her eyes widened.
“Yes. The gods want you to be absolutely sure you’re making the right decision,” I said. “It’s incredibly painful. And rare.”
“But why would someone put themselves through that kind of agony?”
“Situations like abuse. Infidelity, sometimes. Divorce is illegal amongst the Arcanea unless you break the bond first. Most people prefer to work it out rather than go through that pain. It has to be a terrible situation for that to occur. It feels like you’re tearing your soul in half.”
Emma bit her lip. “Well, that has to be better than getting beat up all the time. I refuse to be with someone like that. I’d walk out.”
“Shifters who abuse their sorceresses aren’t worthy of life. They deserve to be taken out and hanged,” I said vengefully. “I could never hit you,onawilke.I would die first. There’s no one I wouldn’t harm to protect you.”
“And I trust you on that.” Her gaze was kind. “You’re a formidable shifter, but you’re gentle with me.”
“As a mate should be.”
The lights of the city were sparkling in her eyes as she asked, “Ethan... will you tell me about what happened after you lost your leg?”
My eyes widened. “Why do you want to know?”
“Because I’ve heard so many things from so many people, but I want to hear it from you,” she said. “What matters to me is how you felt. So I can take that into account, and be sensitive if something’s bothering you.”
She didn’t want to trigger me. That was very sweet of her. I hated talking about those cursed months last summer, but this was Emma. I could open up to her. “I can’t remember much of it, if I’m being truthful. I woke up in the hospital a few days later. Looked down, saw that my leg was gone.” I sighed heavily. “The next thing I was told was my father had died.”
“I’m so sorry, Ethan. It must’ve been horrible for you.”
“It was terribly traumatic.” Admitting the words out loud, instead of endlessly repeating them in my head, made a part of myself heal. “I tried to keep a straight face for my mother, and for my country, but my grief was plain to see. There were so many stories from the reporters about how miserable I looked, pushing myself in that wheelchair after my father’s casket as the funeral procession marched through Dolinska. I think that was the worst part of it. How I was expected to keep it together when all I wanted to do was fall apart. And that was exactly how I felt, because I’d come back with pieces of me missing.”
Hot tears began to well against my eyelids. I felt so bitter. Not for myself, but for my father— and the years he’d lost. He still had a long life to live, and it’d been wrenched away from him.
