Page 124 of Lifebound

“You threwme away,” I said, trying to forget the fact that Raja was right there watching us, even if she was far away.

“They would have gotten to you if I didn’t—and, no, biting them wouldn’t have helped the situation, Wildcat.” There he went, smiling like that again.

“Just don’t do it again, okay? Not if you’re going to remain behind. If something happens to you, I…” My mouth closed because I really didn’t know what the hell I’d do.

“Nothing’s going to happen to me,” he said. “I knew it then and I know it now.”

For a moment, we just stood there looking at one another, barely blinking.

Could he see how terrified I’d been when I found myself in that forest? Could he tell that I had been about to do something…stupidbecause I refused to sit back and watch those incibu kill him?

“We’re okay,” Rune whispered and, yes, that was the most important part. We were alive, despite what had happened.

“How?” I asked. “How did Raja know? How did…how?” She watched us still as she violently pulled weeds from a planter or whatever the hell she was doing. Her gaze weighed so heavy on me.

“Shadows,” Rune said. “Fae of the Midnight Court can use shadows to communicate sometimes. I can do it with Raja. She taught me when I was a teenager.”

“Is she your family or something?”

“No, she was my mother’s friend. She left the Court after I got banished and I found her again a few years later. We’ve kept in touch since. I come to visit her sometimes through the tunnel. She showed it to me—that’s how I know it exists. It’s not too far from here.”

I nodded. “Are we in Blackwater?”

“Yes.” Rune pointed a finger behind me, to where the blue sky merged with the darkness beyond. “You remember what I told you about this part of Verenthia?”

Again, I nodded—how could I forget when I’d been with him on that horse, wrapped up in his arms, feeling better than I ever had in my skin before?

“Yes. It’s close to the star Reme so most of Blackwater is in permanent darkness.”

“Exactly.” He flashed me a smile bigger than usual. I tightened my grip on the edge of the table. “That’s where it starts, and there’s only darkness in the rest of the Blackwater. Those who live here who are not vampires usually stick to the parts where the sun hits, near the lake.”

“Dovampirescome here, by any chance?”

“No. We’re safe here. Nobody comes near Raja’s property.”

I looked at the woman again—for once she seemed focused on what she was doing, not on us.

“She’s so powerful,” I said in wonder. The way she’d made those shadows—fuck.It was like she didn’t even need to bother at all.

“She’s fae,” Rune said with a nod, and maybe I was just fooling myself, but I thought I was starting to really understand what that meant. Being fae versus being any other kind of Verenthian. The difference in power…

“Are you the same without that tattoo on you?” It really did look just like ink on his skin. It started as a star with four points on the side of his neck, and it extended in swirls and dots and squares all over his skin, and way more shapes that were merged together like they’d started out to be something else but had ended up just spilled ink on him.

“No,” Rune said. “I’m more powerful than that.”

I looked up at him. “You are?”

He nodded. “It’s why I was sealed when they banished me. Had they left my magic untouched, I’d have had no trouble surviving.”

My mouth opened and closed a few times as I looked at him. “Whoareyou?” I finally whispered.

The smile he gave me was almost heartbreaking. “Just Rune.”

And it was bullshit. He was so much more thanjust Rune.The curiosity burned me to know everything about him, every little detail. But, of course, I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to push him or make him uncomfortable.

So, for the moment, I just turned to the lake.

“Beautiful,” Rune whispered, and it really was. Especially with the darkening sky.

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