Page 156 of Fractured Fates
“You feel it too?” I ask her, although the answer is written all over her face.
“How long have you known?” Her voice trembles as she whispers.
I don’t answer.
“As long as I have …” she says, her words trailing away as understanding dawns across her features. She frowns. “But you didn’t say anything.”
“Neither did you.”
“I didn’t understand what it meant.”
“And I didn’t know that.”
“So you just thought, what? That I was ignoring it?”
“I didn’t know what to think, Rhianna. This took me by surprise. Fated mates are rare. And you’re younger than me. I didn’t know if it was real.”
“Or,” she says, holding my gaze, “you didn’t want it to be me. You didn’t want me to be your fated mate.”
Shame floods through my body and that hook in my stomach aches.
“I didn’t know you then,” I whisper.
“You still don’t know me now.” She leans forward on the bed. “You never even told me your name.”
“Azlan,” I tell her. “My name is Azlan.”
“I know,” she says, the tears cascading down her face, “because I heard that other woman call it you.” I lift my hand to her face but she bats it away. “Don’t. Don’t touch me.”
I can’t pull my hand away from her so it hangs there in the air between us.
“Please just leave,” she whispers.
“I can’t,” I say firmly.
“Why not? You left me before. You’ve left me over and over again.”
“The pain would be too much.” I dip my head, finding her gaze again. “For you.”
Her body stills.
“What have you done?”
I hesitate. I still don’t know why I did it. Except that she was waning, waning in my arms, becoming weaker and weaker, her magic so low I could not find it. And in that moment the cold fingers of fear gripped my throat in a way it never had before. All those times I’d faced death unafraid. Never frightened. Never fearful. Never with anything to lose.
And yet, the idea of losing her, of watching her drift away in my arms, had paralyzed me with terror.
I did the only thing I could.
Damn the fucking consequences.
“I gave you my power.”
Her forehead crinkles. “What does that mean? What does that mean you gave me your magic?”
“It means the fated mate bond between us is sealed.” She’s still too weak to feel it, the thread connecting us, vibrant and alive, binding us together. “And now it’s unbreakable.”
