I stilled, and my eyes snapped to Lucien. He sensed my gaze and returned it, his own somewhat inscrutable. “I’ve been meaning to ask Blaise,” he told me in a murmur. “He’s the most well-versed and widely contacted pack member when it comes to the Underearth. What you described ...”
Swallowing the sudden log in my throat, I merely nodded and gave him a wobbly smile. “Thanks.”
His eyes caught mine in an almost unbreakable hold, and they were filled with so much warmth and other emotions I couldn’t decipher, all I could do was stare, wishing I could get into his head and peel back the layers to reveal what he was really thinking.
The sound of a clearing throat made me jolt, and I looked away to see Thayer glancing between us again, that earlier suspicion still there.
Ignoring his look, Lucien headed toward Thayer. “I’ll go shower,” he murmured, glancing briefly at me before looking at my brother again. “There’s leftovers in the fridge if you’re hungry.”
He disappeared into the bathroom a moment later.
Now Thayer and I were alone.
I stared as Thayer walked toward me.
“You told him.”
It was a no-brainer what he was referring to. “Yes,” I said hoarsely.
He paused before me and let out a heavy sigh. “Figures. He’s your boyfriend now, isn’t he?”
My head whipped toward him so fast, it was a wonder my neck didn’t twist. “He’s mywhat?” I said in a little panicked voice, because I was sure he didn’t just say what I thought he said.
But Thayer folded his arms and arched a brow in disbelief. “Boyfriend,” he repeated, jerking his head back to motion toward where Lucien had just disappeared to. “I’m not blind. I saw the way he looked at you.”
I mouthed his words on repeat, confused, as the panic rose. “You’re wrong,” I said, hugging myself as I dropped my gaze to the floor. “He’s just ... protective of me.”
“Ah, yes,” he murmured, and his bitter tone made me glance back up at him. He was scowling. “You’re his Eteria, after all.”
My heart rate picked up. “How—”
“They told me earlier today,” he answered, making me clamp my mouth shut. “They said it was something like a binding of souls. That the basis of it is that you were born for him.”
There was doubt but also a certain amount of grimness in his voice that told me everything I needed to know. Whatever Anais and Enoch told him, they hadn’t mentioned the other part. The fact that I would never be able to love, or want, another man. That I quite literally belonged to Lucien. Otherwise, Thayer wouldn’t have remained so calm and collected.
You’re way too calm about it yourself, too, Drew,a little voice murmured in my head.
And for the first time, I acknowledged it. Because it was right.
Iwastoo calm about having my soul enslaved by Lucien for the rest of my life.
Was it because I trusted Lucien to never use that against me?
Or was it because some part of me suspected everything I felt for Lucien, all the emotions I was desperately trying to suppress, existed in the first place because I was magically forced to feel them?
That thought made a chill go down my spine.
“Drew?”
Thayer’s voice snapped me out of my spiraling thoughts, and if I’d had any sort of appetite before, it all disappeared then and there. So had my appetite for talking to him about anything.
Instead, I felt the urgent need to talk to Lucien.
“No, Lucien isn’t my boyfriend,” I said hastily, “and yet, I’m his Eteria. It’s been a long day, Thayer. I’m going to sleep. Good night.”
Thayer opened his mouth, but I was already striding toward Lucien’s room and, a second later, latching the door shut behind me.
But I never got to speak to Lucien that evening, because the moment I sat down on the bed, exhaustion poured all over me. I knew I was mentally drained, but I hadn’t realized just how much until I found myself crawling into bed and under the warm duvet, sleep pulling me under before I could even form another thought.
