He drummed his fingers on the chair. “He’s a hunter.”
I pictured the falcon on his glove, recalled his words. Remembered the way he watched his bird—how he watched me.
“He stalks, he waits…he assesses how to make someone break. It isn’t strategic. It’s his magic. He uses it to hunt humans and fae like...”
“Prey.” I was his prize. He was waiting. A knot folded within me, tense and tight. I pulled my hair off my shoulders as my skin grew hotter. Thalen wouldn’t give up. Not now. Maybe not ever.
“Thalen took the Vale, Aelira…He made himself Lord of it. He finds a way to get whatever he wants.”
“Pyrran didn’t do anything to help him get to me,” I said.
“Didn’t he?” Lioran’s eyes widened. “He said that you were nothing to me.”
“They’re just words.” I didn’t want to hear anymore. Those words gnawed at me still.
“And if that wasn’t enough, he made sure you knew that Thalen was waiting for you. He made sure that you’d tell me.So if his words didn’t threaten you enough, the pact would threaten me.”
Thalen and Pyrran weren’t the only threat.
“Your parents wouldn’t want me to be with you, because we’re supposed to be enemies.” The words cracked in my throat.
“It’s more than that.” His eyes finally met mine and his shoulders slumped forward. “You’re part-human.”
“And human isn’t good enough?”
“We could never be bonded. It wouldn’t be accepted.”
I had never heard the phrasebondedbefore, but the way he said it invoked so much power.
“What does it mean to be…bonded?” I asked.
“Bonding is a union of love and commitment that is sealed with magic—It’s sacred for the fae. It can only be undone by death. In the human realm, you call it marriage.”
I had only ever been kissed by Thalen—chosen by Thalen. I knew no other kind of intimacy. Bailoc only permitted it between promised, or married, couples.
Lioran kissed me without reservation, without needing to know I was his—without ever being able to promise I would be. It was freeing, it was beautiful, even if everything I was taught said it was wrong.
I wanted to say it didn’t matter—that we could just exist without anything beyond what we were. Yet I didn’t know if I could. The kind of future I had always envisioned for myself involved a promise he could never choose. There was no time to consider what we could be—what we even wanted. The choice would be made for us.
Tears brimmed to the surface, threatening to release. I was desperate to hear a different explanation.
He sat beside me, taking my hand in his. I didn’t have tosay how I felt—he knew. “I still want a future with you. However, we can have one. For as long as we can have one.”
“Why wouldn’t it be accepted?” My hand rested in his. The warmth of his touch radiated through me.
A heavy sigh escaped his lips. “I am the heir to the throne. It is my duty to keep the royal fae bloodline alive.”
I wasn’t fully fae. I was only something in between—someone wrong for him. My heart slid down deeper in my chest; each aching beat echoed through me. He would have to marry someone else.
“Has your future queen been chosen?”
He fell silent for a moment too long, but he kept my hand in his. It broke me. Tears cascaded, and I didn’t even wipe them away.
“Not yet.”
“Yet…” I glared at him. “How could you get so angry with me about Thalen? You should have just let me go.” How could I feel so upset with him now knowing that my future was spoken for, too?
“I planned to, but I can’t. My heart feels like it’s no longer mine…like it only responds to you.”
