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His lips brushed my neck. “It’s true. I would.”
“But you’ve never asked if I would do the same for you. My mate.”
He froze with his lips still pressed against my skin.
“I fell...” I stopped, my voice choking. “I fell in love with you on that trip through the woods. I fell in love with you when you were burning up with fever and too stubborn and too stupid to stop for help until it was nearly too late. I fell in love with you when you were dying in the room at the inn while we were being ambushed and I...” I took a deep breath. “I saved your life.”
He was holding absolutely still.
“I still don’t know how I did it. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to do it again.” I thought of Christen. “I’ve tried, and it... it hasn’t worked. I think that’s because there was no bond. But between you and me, even then. There was. There wasalreadya bond.”
I took another breath. “When I was...dying, I lay there thinking of all that had happened in my life. With Vesper. With you. And only the memory of you was pure, Draven. You...” Now there were tears, stinging my eyes, catching in my throat. “You were the very best part of my life. You were never afraid of me. And I was never afraid of you. I can’t... I can’t imagine you not being with me. And yet, here I am, a thousand miles away, because I’m a fool and an idiot, and I love you and yet I left you.”
And then the tears were flowing. For Merlin. For Draven. For my stupidity. For all of it. He was so close and so far away and it was all too much. I couldn’t bear it.
Draven was moving me. Turning me to face him. His lips were on my face, kissing my eyelids, kissing my cheeks, kissing away each tear as it fell.
“Shhh,” he murmured. “Shhh, silver one.”
“I left you. Why did I leave you?” I sobbed. “And now Merlin is dead. If I had never come back, she wouldn’t be dead, Draven. I should never have left.”
“You did the right thing,” he said firmly, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me against him. “You left for Kaye. I understood why, Morgan. I still do. You’re in the very best place you could be. You did nothing wrong.”
“But I love you, and you’re so far away.” I hiccuped, then wiped at my face. I was a mess. But he just smiled down at me with a smile so tender, it wrenched my heart.
“Do you know where I am right now?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“Well, if I haven’t been assassinated in my sleep by a vindictive cook...”
I punched him. “Don’t even say such a thing.”
He grinned. “Or if we haven’t been boarded by pirates or capsized...”
My eyes began to widen. “Pirates? What do you mean? Where are you?”
His grin deepened. “I’m on a ship. More than halfway across the Kastra by now. I’m on my way to you, Morgan. Did you really think in a million years and a million lifetimes that I’d ever be able to stay away?”
