Page 19 of A Bond in Flames

His eyes opened, locking on mine.

My heart thumped against my ribs. “I just… I woke, and you… you were snoring,” I blurted, lying through my teeth while my face went up in flames. “Keep it down,” I snapped and rolled over so I was facing the wall and could hide my humiliation.

Silence rang out for several stunned seconds, and then I thought—though I had to be wrong—I heard a low laugh before the room went silent again.

CHAPTER6

Death

She’d beenin a trancelike state for the past ten minutes. She sat with her hands pressed to the forest floor, eyes closed, lips moving rapidly, spelling. The knife was on the ground beside her, and I had to grip Raze’s girth strap to hold myself back when she finally opened her eyes, picked it up, and sliced her forearm. The scent of her blood hit me instantly, and the darkness rushed forward, confused, enraged, the shadows afraid we were losing her.

That she was being taken away from us already.

The shadows fed off my emotions, and I couldn’t fight down all that was warring inside me, couldn’t hold them back. The weight of my cloak fell around me, and the world turned gray and misty as the shadows gathered at my eyes, transforming the rest of my face.

Her blood dripped down her arm and pooled on the ground, absorbed into the earth, becoming part of my world, part of me. I’d never felt anything like it; heat trickled over my shoulders and back, sliding around my hips and down my cock. My eyes rolled back in my head.

What the fuck is happening?

She did it again, slicing the other arm, then closed her eyes and tilted her head back, muttering her spell over and over. I couldfeelthe power move through her, because it was moving through me now as well. More blood hit the ground, sinking into the dirt, and I gritted my teeth so I didn’t groan when the warmth washed over me again, down my chest, my stomach—

Fuck.

I fought not to go to her, gripping the leather strap tighter.

“Are you okay?” Her voice drifted over to me, and the shadows instantly receded, her voice soothing them, reassuring them. She was alive. She was okay.

I wasn’t. I was far from fucking okay.

“Yes,” I bit out and somehow managed to stay where the hell I was.

She nodded, watching me closely, but I could tell she didn’t believe me. It seemed I was incapable of hiding anything from her. Taking out a small pot from her bag, she scooped out some of its contents and smoothed it over her cuts, then bound them with linen and slid her jacket back on. “All done.”

Zuri bumped Zinnia with her snout when she reached her, and my consort ran her hands down the beast’s neck. “I’m okay, sweetheart,” she said. “I promise.”

The gentle voice she used didn’t help the way I was feeling right then, so I closed the space between us and tossed her up onto Zuri’s back. She made a sound of surprise, then scowled at me. “We need to leave.”

“Well, I’m ready when you are.”

I swung up onto Raze, and we headed off. I tried to focus, to prepare for what was to come, but all morning, visions of her lying in bed in that tree house, looking at me from across the room, kept infiltrating my mind. The way she’d been looking at me, there was lust in her eyes. I could barely resist her as it was. If she ever decided to act on those feelings, I was fucked, because there was no resisting her. What she didn’t know was that I was hers to command.

She was my queen, and I existed to bow at her feet.

To worship only her.

* * *

Zinnia

The gateway’s power was like a giant magnet—the closer we got to it, the stronger its pull.

Zuri was restless beneath me, jumpy and nervous. I ran my hand down her neck. “It’s okay, sweet girl,” I said. “You can go home soon.”

We wouldn’t be riding them past the gate. We’d be traveling on foot once we entered the Outer Realm.

The forest grew darker the closer we got to it. I shivered. It felt as if night was falling when it was barely after midday. I studied Death; his wide back was rigid as he searched our surroundings.

How the hell had we gotten here? The first time he’d come to me, I’d been fifteen, and he’d terrified me—so much so, I’d refused to sleep until I was sure he wouldn’t invade my dreams again. How did we go from that night to now? To me traveling through realms with him on the back of a beast.

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