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I didn’t care.
I gulped it down, my greedy lungs yearning for more. In exchange . . .would he demand my soul?
I heard the rustling of wings, could feel the refreshing blast of wind against my heated skin.
Then I realized it—I was not falling anymore.
With a surge of light, the darkness gave way, birthing a blue sky dolloped with lazy, fluffy clouds and a rocky autumn-painted ground, dusted with a light layer of fallen leaves.
I was standing close to the same spot where Arkyn pushed me in.
A thick, black fur mussed by the breeze blocked my view. I tipped my head up, peering over top of a broad shoulder, staring at the Endless Mist. I shivered, the chokehold of it all too fresh. But when I looked up and met the eyes of the male standing in front of me, all of it seemed like white noise, floating away on the wind.
A hand, large and warm, gingerly cupped my cheek, the rough pads gliding along my skin. I nestled into it. Intohistouch. Von.
“You came for me.” My voice cracked.
His onyx eyes held mine. “I will always come for you.”
He said it like it was an oath, written in stone. I knew in that moment, he meant every word, sure and steady, like the setting sun bowing to the clutch of night.
I stared in awe at the male who made the void itself quiver and hide. His long black hair, tinged with an iridescent blue, was unbound, wild. It matched his eyes. The way they held mine.
I let out a withheld breath.
Everything about him pulsed with ancient power, unbridled, a warrior from another time, adorned in black, from his fighting leathers to his hair, cast in steel and shadows. Darkness divine.
For some time now, I had been looking away from what so plainly stared back at me—at a truth I did not want to see, not that I could explain why that was. But now, there was no denying it anymore. Von was not some mere Cursed mortal. He was . . . something muchmorethan that. I was beginning to suspect that Von was a Demi God, a direct son of the Old Gods. Which would make him . . . I couldn’t even fathom how old he must be. Hundreds of years, at least.
The wind wrestled with the leaves on the ground, swooping them up, reminding me of the sound I heard just before I stopped falling—the sound of rustling wings. Some of the Demi Gods were said to have wings, something they received from their divine forebearers. I glanced over Von’s shoulder, searching for any remnant of what I had heard, but nothing was there. I wanted to reach out, to feel the air behind him and see if what I heard, what I expected to see, was invisible to the eye but not the hand.
“How did you find me?” I asked him.
His fingers drifted down the length of my arm, roaming over my tattoo, stroking it softly with the rough pad of his thumb. “This allows us to find one another.”
“It’s for tracking,” I whispered to myself—realizing why he didn’t tell me the other day. Yes, he would have sounded like a complete jackass then. I would have clawed his eyes out for it. But now. . .
That fierce part of me, the lioness that hated when a man thought he had a right to possess a woman—right now, she was purring like a kitten on his lap. I never thought she could be tamed by a man, but now, I was learning she could be . . . It just took the right one.
I looked up at him. “Can I use mine to find you as well?”
“Yes. It works both ways,” he replied, that carnal mouth twisted ever so slightly at the corners, like the thought of me looking for him pleased him. His hand stilled, just above the bruising around my wrist. Gently, he raised it to his lips. The warmth of his mouth spread over my skin like the morning light stirring the cool, slumbering earth awake. I watched in awe, in silence, as the bruising began to dissipate, until it was completely gone.
“How did you do that?” I asked, confusion painting my brow low. I stared at my healed wrist, completely amazed.
“We arebonded.”
The word felt secure, sure, like something I could bet on.
“Can you heal this one too?” I asked, lifting my arm so he could see the stitched gash, the wound itchy and raw.
There was no denying the way Von’s mood darkened when he surveyed it. He wore that look that was tailored so perfectly to him, the signature look that stated he might just burn everything to the ground. Suddenly, the harsh lines in his beautiful face softened. Bending forward, he carefully lifted my arm, bringing the heat of his mouth to the cut, and suddenly, it healed, the stitches falling out, shoved away by the wind.
“Do you always have to kiss it to heal it?” I asked, a light smile playing at my lips. I watched as he rose back to his towering height, cloaking me in his shadow.
“No,” he replied beneath a self-indulgent smile, the tip of a long canine peering out beneath his full top lip.
A memory surfaced of when my neck was bruised because of his sister and how quickly it had disappeared. I didn’t need to ask because now I knew—that had been Von too.
