Page 74 of Lifebound

“I don’t care.” If he couldn’t see it in my face, he was just wasting our time here.

He sighed deeply. “It meansthat.It means your life is bound to another. It’sone. It means one cannot die through magic or curses or poison while the other lives. The only way to kill you or the prince right now is to cut off your head or pull your heart out of your chest. You both die if that happens.”

Lifebound.

Oh, my God, the word wasliteral.

I was tied to a fae prince with my very life.

“Wildcat, we have to go,” Rune said, but I raised a finger at his face.

“Just…just a moment.” I turned around and I started walking—where, I had no idea. I barely saw from the black dots that exploded in my vision, but I kept on going for a little while.

Eventually I began to see the gravel and the thick walls of the stone buildings, which were surprisingly really smooth to the touch. Creatures walked about and they had shops and they had restaurants, those strange-looking roosters on the wooden holders in front of at least one in ten houses. There were little ones, too, running and playing ball—an old ball full of thick threads andfabric,like it had been stitched together a million times before.

I stayed away from the beautiful creatures, though—thosemade me feel the most uncomfortable, but the animals I didn’t mind. Like the lizard that seemed to be half hiding under the shade of a carriage at the side of a single-story building with no windows in the front, just a round door that would barely fit me even crouched over.

I stopped to the side of it, and I squatted down, looked at the lizard, trying to determine why he looked different from the lizards of Earth.

That’s because its green scales were rhombus-shaped, and its eyes were as pink as that woman’s hair, and when it opened its mouth, three different tongues came out to lick the air while I watched.

Then those pink eyes locked on mine.

“You’re…pretty in a very strange way,” I told it.

Its response?

This strange vibrating sound suddenly came from its throat, and the lizard opened its mouth wide.

Three tongues—yep. It had three thin black tongues, and like a fucking fool, I leaned in to see better.

That’s why I only noticed the spit coming at me from deep inside its mouth when it was too late.

The scream was stuck inside me, and I turned my head away on instinct, even knowing I couldn’t get away in time.

But somehow, that spit that was as green as its scales never reached me, and when I opened my eyes again, I found Rune squatting next to me, holding up a piece of metal in front of my face.

“What the…” He turned the metal over—must have been some sort of a tray.

The green goo that was stuck to the surface was bubbling like it was fucking boiling.

I had never in my life stood up and moved back faster, my entire body shaking.A lizard—a fucking lizard!

“Hey, look at me,” Rune said, and his face was there in front of mine, but the image of that lizard was still in my mind’s eyes. “You’re okay. You’re okay…”

“It…itspitat me.” Was that even normal? That wasn’t a fucking llama—it was a lizard as big as my hand!

“Yes, that’s what they do. It’s okay. You’re okay.”

“What the hell was that spit? Was itboiling?”

“Acids,” said Rune and bile rose up my throat on cue. “Look at me, Wildcat. You’re okay. Nothing can hurt you.”

At this I laughed, and it was bitter. Even Rune looked surprised. “You don’t know that. If a tiny lizard could kill me with spit, youdon’t knowthat nothing can hurt me!” On the contrary—everythingcould.

“I do,” he simply said, and his confidence pissed me off.

“How?” I demanded. “How the hell would you know?”

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