Page 12 of Court of Lies and Deceit

But before I can even finish the sentence, my eyes start to droop as a wave of exhaustion crashes over me. And within a few heartbeats, I’ve slipped into dark oblivion.

CHAPTER SIX

The room that comes back into focus around me when I open my eyes is not the same one. Gone are the rows of books and the sturdy table. Instead, I’m lying on a soft double bed covered in white sheets, in what looks like some kind of bedroom. The walls have been painted in a pale green color, and there is a gleaming faelight lamp on the bedside table which casts a warm glow over the room. Given the position of the sun outside the window, I must have been unconscious for several hours.

For a moment, panic floods my body. Because I have no idea where I am or how I ended up here.

Then I see him.

Draven.

The panic inside me drains away the moment my gaze lands on his powerful body. I blink, clearing the last of the fog from my vision, as I study him.

He is sitting on a chair next to the bed. His elbows are braced on his knees and his face is buried in his hands. Tension seems to pulse from his entire body like shockwaves, and his black hair is disheveled, as if he has repeatedly run his hands through it.

I frown, trying to figure out why he looks so worried.

Then my confused mind finally catches up with the events of the past days. The battle. The shard of ice fire. The searing coldness that burned through my body, freezing me all the way into my very soul. My severed spine. The deal with the Unseelie King. The healer.

Dread and hope and confusion crash inside my chest like a violent storm. I barely dare to breathe. To hope.

Then I brace myself.

I move my foot.

And my footmoves.

A gasp rips from my lungs, and I jerk upright in bed, pulling my legs up to my chest. No lingering pain remains from the burning ice inside me. No coldness. Nothing. Instead, warmth fills my whole soul.

Draven snaps his head up.

His golden eyes are wide and haunted when they meet mine.

For a second, it’s as if the moment is suspended in time. Then his gaze darts over my whole body, as if checking to make sure that I’m here. That I’m okay. That I’m alive.

And then relief, so intense that it snatches the breath from my lungs, washes over his face.

Lurching up from the chair, he slides his hands along my cheeks and into my hair and kisses me so desperately that it makes my heart skip several beats. I drag in an unsteady breath when he breaks the kiss. But he doesn’t draw back. Instead, he keeps his hands in my hair and rests his forehead against mine.

“Don’t you ever do something like that to me again,” he whispers against my lips. “Do you hear me?”

My heart pounds in my chest, and several conflicting emotions tug at my soul.

This can’t just be because of the mate bond. Can it?

The sheer terror in his eyes when I was dying. The desperation in his voice when he was bargaining with theUnseelie King. The relief on his face when I woke up. That heart-wrenching kiss. It has to be real. These kinds of emotions can’t just have been forced upon him by the mate bond. Right?

Another memory pulses through my mind. A memory of a darkened forest. Of Draven carrying me towards a glittering portal. And of the words he spoke to me there under the silent trees.

There is nothing I wouldn’t do for you. I would crawl and grovel. I would slaughter entire nations. So you had better fight with everything you have to make it through this. Because if you die, I will rip my own heart out and then claw my way out of Azaroth’s fiery realm and break the barriers between our afterlives so that I can follow you in death into Mabona’s evergreen garden. I will never let you go. You are mine. In this life and every life after it.

My heart aches at the memory of it.

Goddess above, this has to be real. Please, let this be real. Because if it’s not, I don’t know how I’m going to survive being near him.

Dragging in a shuddering breath, I once more curse the universe for making us fated mates. If we weren’t mates, I could have chosen him on my own. But now, I will never know. Now, I will spend the rest of my life wondering how much of his and my feelings are our own and how much has been forced onto us by someone else.

Draven takes his forehead from mine and pulls back enough to lock eyes with me. Pure command pulses in those beautiful eyes of his as he slides his hands out of my hair and instead takes my chin in a firm grip.

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