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“You stay here. Even go back to Two if you wanted, enter Delirium, reclaim your powers, help us fight against the Deks. Or, you can just be. Build a life here for yourself, whatever that might look like to you.”
Adrian interjected, “And The Nine?”
Leo shook his head. “It’s her birthright, Adrian. We take her to the next council meeting once the portals open, and I reveal what I’ve done. She’ll get their approval, and she can stay, if that’s what she chooses.”
“What makes you think they’ll accept this so easily?” Adrian asked.
“They won’t,” Leo said plainly. “But they don’t have another option. If they don’t accept her, I’ll withdraw my protection from all the realms. And I’ll withdraw One from The Nine.” A wisp of Leo’s shadows ran through his hands. “We’ll fight them if it comes to it.”
“You’ll start an intergalactic war over my soul?” I asked incredulously. “There must be another way. One that keeps the peace.”
Leo shrugged off my concern. “It will be up to the council to keep the peace, since that is what they tout. We’ll ask them to prove it by accepting you. Accepting us . . .”
Us.
Leo’s words held a question for me. Asking if I saw a future of an us.
“Adrian, can you leave us for a moment? I need to speak with Bryn, alone.”
His voice lilted on the word alone.
Without a word or a glance in my direction, Adrian left, shutting the door behind him.
Leo stood and walked toward me, stopping when there was only a foot of space left between us. “I know to hear you’re my betrothed must be a shock, but the term means nothing to me.”
My heartbeat wavered, pain traveling down my arms from the skipped beat.
He continued quickly, stanching any further pain. “What I mean to say is that what was arranged between us in the past is gone, but there could be a future . . . for something new.”
“But I hardly know you,” I whispered, closing my eyes to feel the pull toward him deep within me. “And yet, I feel this need to be near you.”
Leo stepped closer, coolness drifting off him and along the exposed skin at my collarbones. “The pull you feel is because your soul has been touched by me. It’s your soul, but it’s also mine,” he rumbled softly, moving his hands to touch my waist.
He pulled me into him. All of him. “Stay with me,” he purred, his cool breath tickling my face. “Get to know me.”
I shook my head. But I didn’t mean it.
“Tell me you’ll think about it?”
I stepped out of his embrace, fighting against every nerve in my body that signaled for me to stay in his arms. “I’ll think about it.”
He appeared relieved. “Take as much time as you need. I’ll be here when you’re ready to talk.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
BRYN
My childhood had been simple.
Calm.
I’d been loved and cared for.
Protected.
Maybe it was the calmness, the normalcy of having two parents who’d loved each other, that had made me crave a life of adventure.
Aside from my incessant need to always be doing something, and jumping out of planes sounding like a good time, I’d joined The Guard out of loyalty.
