Page 34 of Bound Paths
Nothing had changed.
That wasn’t entirely true. If anything, since he’d left, she’d wanted him more. Her need for the grounding touch of his magic could be all-consuming. Maybe she just needed to tell him that.
Pushing the water from her mouth with her magic, she whispered, “Luc?”
She spoke the word softly, like a question—still unsure of herself. Her hands scratched through her hair in frustration. She felt like an idiot. Her brain and heart were not aligned. The rapid pounding in her chest as she whispered his name told her some desperate piece of her expected a response.
The memory of the final battle below the Lake of the Gods played through her mind.“Forgive me, Rose. I know you’ll come for me.”His magic had spoken to her then. She knew it. Thewords were spoken directly into her mind, even after Luc had gone beyond the veil—even after he’d left her.
Rose’s finger grazed the black stone again. There had to be a way to reach him through it.
“You know what this means, Rose. You only need to acknowledge it.”The words echoed through her very being. Through a connection even deeper than their hearts and their magic—a connection she had never opened herself enough to have—until him.
“Luc?” she whispered again, her voice steadier.
“You know what you’re feeling. Trust yourself.”The words simultaneously surrounded and filled her as he spoke. The soft hum of his voice was everywhere and nowhere in the heart of her magic.
Rose wanted to scream. She was so close—so close to opening whatever this was. Her hands wrapped into fists as she beat on the stone base of her lake. She knew it was him—would know the silk and sin of his voice anywhere.
She wanted him here.
She wanted to tell him how angry she was with his choice.
She wanted to tell him she loved him anyway.
She wanted them to make the impossible possible.
Everything she was—every part of her magic and herself—longed to be bound to Luc. They would disagree, they would strengthen each other, and they would have an existence together that changed the continent.
More than the well of secret hope she kept was willing to admit it now.
The desire for it to be possible was a truth she buried from even herself—her brain’s practicality at war with her heart’s desire. Now, the words were on the tip of her tongue, begging to be loosed.
As with so much about her and Luc, she had to fight past what she knew to be true. She heard the arguments against them.
They were of different courts.
Bound fae were a fairytale—not reality.
She closed her eyes and shook her head. Those details didn’t hold weight against what she wanted, what she felt. She and Luc’s path wasn’t simple—but it would be infinitely more enjoyable if they were bound in it together.
She wanted them to be bound—desperately.
It wasn’t just want. The need for their connection was a physical thing. The strain in her chest where his magic should be made itself known. Each of these pieces added up to something Rose couldn’t deny. No matter how much her brain told her it couldn’t be.
Rose’s mouth formed the words. She tasted the truth of them on her tongue as they released.
“We’re bound.”
The words were her wish, her truth, and her desperate plea.
She heard his chuckle, that low, rumbling laugh, just for her. It danced along her skin and set her body aflame with want. Her finger skimmed the stone, and she felt its magic pulse, its rhythm the same as the pulse she felt in her chest.
“Finally,”she heard him whisper. Power flooded her, and she knew she got her wish.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
An insistent tapping on the window pane jolted her awake.
