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He folded his hand over her painfully poking finger, holding her hand against his heart.Finally.“Yes. Tell me.” He braced himself for the worst.
“I did have a plan.” Her eyes narrowed with keen malice and deep regret. “I reviewed all the applicants and used my power of summary dismissal on the ones I knew I wouldn’t be able to manipulate. When I saw yours, I thought, ‘Hmm, desperate upstart with no competition in his family. He’ll be some wide-eyed, dewy-fresh wizard that I can manipulate until I consolidate my power. Then I’ll run his life, and no one in his family will have the wit to know I’m doing it.’”
“I see.” He considered that with some relief, that it wasn’thimshe hated. Her strategy made sense, and he admired her wily intelligence. “You weren’t far off the mark. It could’ve worked.”
“Withyou?” She jerked her hand away and plopped herself in a chair by the window, gripping the arms so her knuckles whitened. “I knew from the moment you walked into my tower room that you’d be as easy to push around as a boulder. Worse, I—” She broke off, looking away from him, firming her lips. “I knew my only hope was that your seed wouldn’t take, that it would be someone else. I should have saved myself the trouble of hoping, because I never stood a chance, did I?”
He wanted to go to her. He also knew she wouldn’t accept comfort from him. So, he stood there, awkward and ashamed. “If it makes any difference,” he said quietly, “I apologize. I was thinking only of winning.”
“Yes, well.” She gazed steadfastly out the window. “That’s why you’ve been succeeding, against all odds. You couldn’t know I didn’t want to be won by you.”
That hurt, considerably more than he expected, though it was hardly news. “I’ll release you,” he said, not exactly on impulse because he’d been mulling the possibilities over the long journey home. She at least met his eyes again. “Whatever it takes to make you safe, I’ll do it. I’ll take you back to Wartson, finance your life so you can raise our child in peace, find a wizard to bleed off your magic.”
“And the hunters? My family? The Convocation?” She ticked the points off on her fingers.
“Obstacles to be overcome,” he replied stubbornly. “You said it yourself: I succeed against the odds because I’m determined. I’ll find a way to make this happen. I owe you that.”
She smiled slightly, though her eyes remained sad. Then she shook her head. “That’s not what we’re going to do.”
No? He hadn’t expected her to dance with joy, but he had thought she’d agree.
“Youdoowe me, Lord Phel,” she said, holding his gaze. “Make no mistake there. You owe me, and I’m claiming the debt: you will give me what I want.”
Cautious, not liking the bite in her voice, he nodded. “Anything within my power.”
“You’re going to bond me as your familiar. We—” She held up a hand to stop him when he started to argue. “Hear me out. Thisiswhat I want. We can have that wedding ceremony if you wish—tell your family that we wanted to have another for them to share in, I don’t care what excuse you use—and you will bond me so no one can take me away from you. That is the least you can do for me.”
He went to her, kneeling on the polished wood at her feet, and took her hands in his. “I know you don’t truly want that,” he said hoarsely. “I’m offering you freedom, which shouldn’t be mine to give anyway. Since it seems to be, I’m giving it freely. Take it.”
She tugged a hand loose and brushed his hair from his face, that strange sadness in her eyes. “You don’t understand, Gabriel. I can never be free of you. It’s too late. Even if you sent me to the other side of the world, I’d find a way back to you.”
“You would…” He didn’t think she was saying she loved him, or that she wanted him. She looked far too unhappy for that. “I don’t understand.”
“I know.” She trailed her fingers down his cheek, tracing the line of his jaw. Her anger seemed to have evaporated, leaving a misty sadness like wilted roses. “You are, in some ways, that naïve wizard I supposed you to be—though far from dewy fresh and wide-eyed.”
True. He’d lost any naïvety in those terrible days while he tried to stop the deluge he’d started and couldn’t control. “Not for a long time now.”
“Remember when I told you about the power imbalance in wizard–familiar relationships?”
“Of course. That’s why I don’t want to use you. I won’t—”
She put a finger over his lips to silence him. “Familiars bond to their wizards, whether we want to or not. We call it Fascination, and it’s in here somewhere.” She lifted her finger to tap the center of her forehead, leaving a cool and lonely spot on his lips where she’d touched him. “I felt it from the beginning. I hoped that if I ran, I could escape the bond before it formed. I didn’t want to become like Maman, and she didn’t want that for me either, which is why she helped me.”
The pieces slid into place with heartbreaking clarity. “She was to arrange the contact in Wartson but couldn’t because your father put her in cat form.”
Nic held up her palms. “Maybe? I have no way of knowing, but it seems likely. I know she wouldn’t have abandoned me if she had any choice. Gabriel, you must promise never to tell anyone that she was the one.”
“I won’t tell a soul.” He could only imagine what they’d do to the self-possessed and graceful Lady Elal for such a crime. “If I hadn’t come after you, would you have succeeded in freeing yourself of this… compulsion?”
“I don’t know. I was working very hard not to think about you. Remember that copper snake bracelet you asked me about—that you thought I never took off until I did? I would press the fangs into my wrist to try punish myself out of longing for you.”
He didn’t know what to say. The idea of her hurting herself to try to escape him, like an animal chewing off its paw to free itself from a trap was unbearable.
“It’s a moot point because we didn’t figure on the hunters. No matter what, they would’ve brought me back and eventually given me back to you, and I would’ve bonded to you anyway. At least you saved me suffering all of that. I don’t have any choice in this, so all you can do for me at this point is make me yours, so I can’t be taken from you.”
He stared at her, trying to make sense of it all. “I don’t want to take away your choice. I acted wrongly, I know, but I never intended…” He trailed off at her vigorous head-shaking.
“I keep telling you that what I want literally does not matter, not even in my own mind. It’s all very clear to me right now. You broke Convocation law by cheating the Betrothal Trials, which means they’ll try to take me away from you. If you haven’t bonded me, it will be easier for them.”
