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“Not always.”
“How could you want something so fragile when the magic of the soulbond is unshakeable, growing stronger with time, not weaker?”
I frown, searching for the words to explain why this is important to me. “Yes, mortal love isn’t perfect. It’s messy and complicated and not driven by magic, but choice. The choice to commit to one another forever. The choice to stay when life gets hard. When the other falls ill or gets fat or depressed or—the point is, it’s a choice between two people, not some magical bond.”
Something cold and unrecognizable flashes over his countenance. “When my mother lived in your world, she discovered this human love. She was obsessed with it, consuming every book and movie she could find about it. And when she came back to visit me, it was all she could talk about. She recounted in painstaking detail the countless mortal men she fell in love with. How wonderful and magical it all was.”
I freeze, trying to determine where he’s going with this. He’s never spoken of his mother to me before.
“She talked of your mortal love right up until the day she abandoned me, leaving me alone in the clutches of a mad, violent king and a callous father. So I think I’ve had my fill of mortal love.”
My heart aches for him. “Love isn’t what made her leave you, Valerian.”
I reach out to touch his cheek, but he catches my wrist. “Don’t. Please, Summer.”
I look down at his fingers tight around my wrist. Back up at him. Tears wet my eyes. “I can’t keep doing this, Valerian. Not if you can’t love me.”
“You say you want irrational love, but I would give my life for you, my eternal mate. Why is that not enough for you?”
The others burst into the room. They halt for an awkward second, and I think they’ve picked up on the tension in the air, but then Asher cracks some joke about getting a room and Ruby begins drawing an obscene sketch into the ice wall behind us.
Only Eclipsa and Mack seem to notice Valerian’s icy demeanor and the hurt I know is plastered over my face. Sliding from his lap, I wipe my eyes and announce that I’m throwing my name in the gauntlet.
Thankfully, Eclipsa uses that as an excuse to end the dinner.
“Early training tomorrow,” she says through a fake yawn. “Summer needs her rest before the torture begins.”
Asher scowls at her. “What do I do with the tray of ice shots I just ordered?”
Eclipsa looks from Valerian’s emotionless face to Asher and shrugs. “I think you two can figure it out.”
Right before Eclipsa portals us to our dorm, I look to Valerian as I leave, hoping for . . . I don’t know. A look that says he’s come to his senses and realized that he can love me after all. That I’m worth the pain and vulnerability that comes with that.
Instead, he gives me a cold nod that pits in my stomach.
Long after the dinner, when I’m tossing on the lower bunk, reliving everything that happened between Valerian and I, his words play over and over in my head.
I would give my life for you, my eternal mate. Why is that not enough for you?
For a Fae, especially one as dark and broken as Valerian, I know it’s probably the closest he’ll ever come to real love. That I should accept it and hope that he changes.
But I’m done sacrificing my dreams for the Evermore.
I will graduate from this academy.
I will protect the mortal world from the Fae.
And if I choose to spend the rest of my life with someone, it will be for love.
35
“Keep going, Summer!” Eclipsa yells. My glove slams into the red heavy bag over and over, making it shudder on its chain. In my periphery, I catch sight of an object flying toward my head and duck just in time.
“That was a ten pound dumbbell!” I pant, glaring at my sadistic torturer where she sits, legs crossed, on the bench opposite the mat.
“This is the last practice before the final gauntlet,” Eclipsa snarls. “Stop whining and focus!”
I still don’t know how four months flew by so fast, especially considering how brutal they’ve been. Every moment I wasn’t sleeping was dedicated to training, studying with Mack for the upcoming tests, working to unlock my powers, and wondering when Hellebore would call in his part of the bargain.
