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I felt every one, in every tired, broken corner of my soul.
Holding my other hand tightly in her lap, she lowered her mouth to my face. But not to kiss me. Her tongue dragged across my chin, right over the stubble of several days without shaving. She covered the lower half of my face in long sweeps.
Licking away the blood.
Her blood.
It would have been erotic, if I wasn’t so fucking broken.
But every touch, every rough path her tongue tracked over my skin, brought me closer back to reality.
Cyara had said that I was Veyka’s tether, when she disappeared into the void.
But Veyka was my tether. She was my reason for existing.
The reason for every nightmare.
Finally, her task done, she leaned in and pressed her forehead to mine. “What is it?”
“It is nothing.” A lie, even when I’d promised myself I would never lie to her again.
If the others heard me lose my mind, they must have heard Veyka as well. Wisely decided to stay away.
My hand was still pressed to her heart. I felt the long breath she dragged in, felt her mustering the strength to say, “You said we could ask one another anything.”
I had said that.
I had meant it.
Ancestors.
“I started having nightmares,” I said. Maybe she’d leave it at that.
But my nosy and persistent mate was having none of it. “Obviously. You’ve been shaking me awake with them since we came to the human realm.” She paused, squeezing the hand that was still cradled between us. “Did they start before that?”
I swallowed, the small sound suddenly huge in the close space. “After our Joining.”
After you disappeared.
She tilted her head in enough to press a kiss to my cheek. She didn’t pull away, letting her soft cheek linger against my stubbled one. “Tell me about the nightmares.”
Not a question. An order.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
She leaned back, held up her arm. The wounds where I’d sunk my teeth into her were visible, her arm still smeared with blood. But they’d scabbed over, already beginning to heal.
“I am stronger than you think.”
“I know exactly how strong you are.”
“Then stop trying to protect me.”
I’d promised as much—to myself and to her. We’d said no promises, and yet we seemed to make them to each other with every other breath.
We were tied together. Our souls bonded.
Maybe that was why I couldn’t stop the rising tide of agony in my chest as it crested, broke, and spilled out.
