Page 211 of Sky’s Edge

“Right, I suppose,” I replied, sitting on the edge of her bed, and I indicated her lapcomp with a dip of my head. “Have you made a decision?”

She shot me a rueful look. “I fear if I insisted on going my own way, I would be worrying you all. And I’m not a fan of living in danger or upsetting someone, even if I’m ticked at him.”

I shared her rueful look.

“It’d also upset Aleksei, not to mention Dad, Mom, Tim,” she continued.

She was right about that.

“So yes. I’m in for the duration, and now I’m trying to decide what I can hand over to Tim, what Mom might be able to make, and what I need to do,” she concluded.

“I hope you know, if you need to talk about it. Any of it…” I let that trail.

The rueful expression left her face. “Thanks for that. But honestly, in the end, it is what it is and there’s nothing I can do about it.” She granted me a whole smile. “I mean, I’d never say this to him, but it can’t be denied, destiny didn’t deal me a bad hand.”

No, it didn’t.

Bainon was very easy to look at, and the more I was around him, the more I liked him.

“It’s just…” she continued. “I mean, I get that I was very young when he realized we were bound. And as such, he was really young when he made the decision. So part of me can see why he’d make it. But the adult me is totally not cool with him making it without saying boo to me.”

“The adult and the young me would feel the same,” I concurred.

“It’s also after the fact, and I can’t say it doesn’t give me some relief, but still, it ticks me off that I had to live for years thinking there was something wrong with me.”

That comment surprised me.

“Something wrong with you?”

“I never connected with males. I mean,”—she grinned—“I connected.” Her grin quickly died. “But it was never…right. It never went deep. Even though I knew Mom and Dad were not fated mates, they still fell in love. And I suspected they were going to try to arrange something for me, shove me in the path of some rich baron or count or something. But, like I said, I was beginning to think there was something wrong with me.”

And this comment made my insides feel funny.

“I’ve known Bainon for as long as I have memories,” she carried on. “I think some part of me knew I had a mate, it was him, and that was what kept me from feeling anything other than wanting other males to get in my pants, you know?”

“I know,” I forced out.

“And it explains why he’s never been with a female for very long,” she continued, and now a dark look was coming over her face. “He went through a lot of them, but he did it in a way it was clear none of them were serious.”

“Knowing his mate, how could he do that? Be with other females, I mean,” I asked, not expecting her to have an answer.

“He’s already told me, it was so difficult to know I was his, and he had to remain distant, therefore he alternately memory spelled himself, or spelled himself the way Gayle has done.”

“Memory spelled?”

“Spelled himself in a way that would cloak his connection to me.”

“Just the connection?”

She nodded. “Not him knowing me, our history, just our connection.”

I was impressed. “That’s some mad magic.”

“Aleksei tells me his sorcery is off the charts. Anna didn’t have a lot of interest in practicing the craft, so she isn’t a very proficient witch. But Bain has apparently eclipsed even Dagsbrun in his abilities.”

Dagsbrun was known as an unwands-being (that being, he didn’t have to hold a wand to access his magic, like fae didn’t—and this was an indication of the amount of power he held, which was to say, it was a whole lot of power). It was also common knowledge he was a highly proficient potion maker.

Aleece kept talking.