Page 158 of Lifebound

I reached out my hand to touch his cheek, trail his lips, the bridge of his nose.

Suddenly I found myself a different person from who I had been when Helid took me through the Aetherway. And it was all because of this man.

“You saved our lives,” Rune whispered, kissing the tip of my fingers as they touched his lips.

“You saved our lives, too. You have swords hidden in shadows,” I said, maybe because I was curious about it or maybe because I wasn’t yet ready to talk about that cavern.

Just for a little longer…

“I do,” Rune said, smiling a little.

“I never knew you had swords.”

“I’m a sword maker. I have a lot of swords, Wildcat,” Rune said. “I just couldn’t carry them on my person on this trip because someone might have guessed who I am.”

Who he was. The bastard son of a ruthless king who’d banished him and sent him to die at the age of six.

“It was wicked cool, not going to lie,” I said, my heart squeezing at the memory of his six-year-old self that wasn’t my memory at all—just my imagination.

“I hid something else in the shadows, too,” he whispered. “Do you want to see?”

Fuck, yes, I wanted to see. “Show me,” I demanded.

He let go of me for just a second and raised his hand right over us. The bird made of light flew a little to the side to give him space, and then a small bundle of shadows appeared just as the palm of his hand lit up.

“Whoa…” I breathed because I felt thecoldradiating from it.

“It’s what Midnight fae call a shadow pocket. A very well-made illusion that takes a lot of energy, but it’s worth it,” he explained as he pushed his hand right into the ball of shadows, and then took it out again to show me…

“A book.” My mind went blank for a second. Abook?

The shadows disappeared, and the little bird flew closer again. Rune brought the book closer and showed me—Tales of the Wild and the Bravesaid the cover, and in it was a drawing of creatures in a woods, small and big, some with horns, and some with two heads, and some with wings on their backs.

“A book. I got it at a bookstore in the maze market.”

My mouth opened and closed a million times as I touched the cover. It was small but thick, and it looked well read, too.

“But…but you didn’t let me stop.” I’d wanted to buy a book at that market, and he hadn’t let me stop!

“I know—and I regretted it, so I got this in another bookstore later, while you met with the vampire and the Twinborn.”

A million butterflies were in my stomach. Tears pricked the back of my eyes, too. I turned to him, touched his cheek, smiling so big my cheeks hurt.

“Thank you,” I whispered and kissed his lips.

“I’ll get you more. A lot more. But I’ll warn you, though. Verenthians tell some really disturbing tales.”

I laughed and the sound echoed in the night. “I still want to read them.”

“Then you will,” he said, offering me the book, and it smelled exactly like the books from back home. I opened it, skimmed through just a few pages. It was written in English, and it was full of drawings, the stories just a few pages long. I couldn’t wait to start on them already.

“These are some of my favorites my mom used to read to me when I was a kid,” Rune said, and my heart squeezed.

“Is your mom…” I couldn’t even say it.

“She died when I was five,” Rune said. “Poison.”

I shook my head. “But you said youknowpoisons.”

---