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Water still dripped from his defined chin, and his dark eyes widened the moment he saw me. The door kicked the rest of the way open. Gavyn Seeker, still shaping into his broad, strong form from his water shifting, stepped into the room.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think.
A grin split over Gavyn’s stubbled face. “I don’t know how I arrived here, but good hells, it is a relief to see you, My Queen.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE SERPENT
The pain had ceased,but the sorrow remained. Heavy, unyielding, damn near torturous. Since the war, since those nights my songbird would come to read her tales to me, I’d been filled with her light, her beauty, her heart.
I’d been so lost in my own hate and anger, I’d never truly noticed it.
Now, it was as though my body were nothing but a shell. Without her, I was half a soul.
I stared down at my bare chest. The blood had ceased flowing, but the skin was split and irritated.
After I’d spluttered about the heartbond, after I’d mentioned Livia’s name, the earth fae went mad. I’d been half awake, but the earth bender himself demanded I be taken away. Stieg and the warriors took action.
They’d barked orders to be wary of my blood, but to settle me in some locked room, somewhere in the fort.
Tait had followed, explaining in hurried words anything he knew of heartbonds until the guards seized him again and separated us.
The heartbond connection was meant to be unbreakable. A knotgathered in my throat, sticky and hard. Meant to be unbreakable, yet it was broken. Gone. Lost. Nothing but a flicker of remembrance remained.
Memories were muddled, no mistake. Along the way, the pain had robbed me of my consciousness, but I was alert now.
Part of me wished I wasn’t.
This was not the reality in which I desired to live. To know Livia was still out there, to know something had happened to her to cause this, remained my sole purpose, remained the strongest draw to wake, to fight, to bring her home.
She had to be out there. She had to.
The anguish had cut me at the knees. Never before had I experienced such torment. For too many moments, I could barely walk, barely breathe. I’d damn near pleaded for the seas of the Otherworld to drag me away.
I peered into the foggy mirror hanging on the washroom wall. My hair stuck to my brow in sweaty waves. Dirt and grime tinted my cheeks, and bruises littered my arms and chest from the treatment from the prince and warriors.
I pressed my forehead against the cool glass.
Songbird.
There was a feeble tug in my heart, like whatever corpses of my bond remained yearned to find its mate.
My eyes squeezed shut, and an unfamiliar and mightily unwanted sting bit behind my eyes.
Gods, I would not bleeding shed a ridiculous tear in the halls of my enemies. How long had it been since I’d cried? My mother? During my torture? I was not even certain if I’d cried for my father’s death.
Hopelessness was crushing, and tears seemed the only step to take, but it would solve nothing. To crumble and break would not bring her back.
With the back of my hand, I rubbed the burn away, sniffed, and straightened to face the mirror.
“This means nothing,” I said to the emptiness, imagining Livia could hear every word. “Bond or not, you are mine, and gods, I’m yours, love.”
“Is that so?”
I froze, lifted my gaze, and peered into the glass.
“Queen.”
