Page 73 of Magic Betrayed

This hesitation was odd, coming from my normally straightforward boss.

Was he trying to warn me off? Tell me how inappropriate it was to even dream of being with Callum? “You can just say it.”

“I thought since you didn’t have any parents to tell you about this mate-bond stuff… that you might have questions.” He said it rapidly, not quite meeting my eyes.

Oh my heck. Faris was offering to have some Idrian version ofthe talk. This was awkward, not to mention unexpected. And I was pretty sure I’d never experienced anything so simultaneously heart-warming and embarrassing in my life.

“Bonds are all a bit different,” he hastened to add. “So I can’t give you specifics. But if there was anything you were worried about or wondering…”

“Is it awful?” I blurted out, in spite of my intention not to. “Knowing that someone can read your thoughts?”

Faris seemed to relax a little. As if he’d been afraid I would ask something alotmore personal.

“I’m not a shifter,” he pointed out. “So my bond with Morghaine is less intense. I can feel when she’s nearby, and I can tell when she’s happy or distressed or in danger. But she can read me more deeply, and no, it’s not embarrassing.” His arms folded and his head tilted back thoughtfully. “Maybe because we’re committed to each other, and nothing is going to change that. So the less that’s hidden, the closer we’re able to be. Same as with humans. Same as with every relationship.”

The less that was hidden…

I was still hiding things from Callum. If this bond between us grew too deep, too fast, he might learn too much. Might decide he didn’t want me after all, but then it would be too late. We would be bound together with no way to escape each other.

But if I just told him… He might walk away. And yet, wasn’t that what I’d always thought would be best for both of us? For him to return to the Shapeshifter Court, find a proper dragon for a mate, and not subject himself to judgement, derision, and rejection for choosing someone like me—a human and a fugitive from shapeshifter law.

I wanted him so badly. I wanted his warmth and caring and dedication. Wanted his fierce commitment to doing the right thing and protecting the things that mattered most. Choosing to deny those feelings wasn’t going to help either of us, but… Just because I wanted something didn’t mean it was right.

“I’m scared,” I said simply.

And Faris didn’t try to tell me not to be scared. He just nodded. Waited. Listened.

“I’m scared I’ll never be enough. I’m scared that I’ll drag him down. Scared that he doesn’t actually understand how… broken I am. I come with so much baggage, Faris. So many scars, so many bits and pieces of myself that may never quite be…normal. Some of these scars might never heal.”

He sighed and moved towards me, muttering under his breath about Irene and death threats before leaning back against the prep table and crossing his arms.

“You’ve met Morghaine.”

I had. “Once, in your office.”

“Do you know her story?”

“Only a little.” Kira had freed her in the broken world of Idria, but Morghaine had then sacrificed herself so Kira and Draven could escape. Only much later had they learned that she’d survived and been taken captive again by the fae.

“She was captured, tortured, and imprisoned for over eleven years,” Faris told me, his voice turned gravelly with emotion. “The former fae prince Llyr used her blood to construct deadly creatures of shadow that he sent against his enemies. One of them nearly killed Kira.”

The parallels with my own story were not lost on me.

“Her captors took her eye, one of her fingers, and even…” He stopped, and I could see him working to say the words. His eyes went red, and his voice shook with the pain. “They even took her wings.”

It punched me right in the gut. They’dcut off a dragon’s wings?

“She’ll never fly again. Never see again. Sometimes she wakes up screaming from the nightmares.”

He’d earned his legendary distrust of the fae—about a million times over.

“I don’t love her scars, or what she went through to get them. If I could go back, undo her pain, or take it on myself, I would. But,” he said firmly, “I do love the woman that her life has made her. Exactly as she is. Her scars and her broken places are a part of who she is, and I have zero regrets about choosing to share a life with her.”

I was crying, too. How could I not?

“Talk to Callum,” he said. “He’s not a fool, and I’ve never known him to be unsure about what he wants. He thinks things through before he acts, considers all the consequences, and then moves ahead when he’s ready to accept them. He never would have told you about the bond unless he was certain.”

But how could he be so sure when there was so much he didn’t know? Even back when we’d first met, he’d decided to trust me on so little evidence. He’d admitted at the time that it was out of character for him. What if this was shapeshifter magic, causing him to act against his own convictions?

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