Page 45 of Fractured Souls
We had branded each other’s very veins.
“Because I’ve wanted to since meeting you,” he confessed. “Because the minute I saw how much danger you were in, I couldn’t help but want to mark every inch of you so I could protect you in the one way I knew I could—tying us together. Now if you’re ever hurt, you can take from my life force.”
“Holy shit,” I breathed out.
His eyes shaded dark with guilt. “Of course the opposite is true as well. I fucked up.”
There was no way I was going to let him think that.
“Don’t say that. Don’t fucking say that. I love that we’re connected, and I love that we can help one another—I don’t want any of that to change.”
He growled in frustration. “Do you know how long forever is, Lorcan? You will never get rid of me.”
“Good!”
My emphatic response caught him off guard, and he closed his eyes. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“What are you so afraid of?” I whispered, trying to not sound accusing.
“Hurting you,” he answered. “But more than anything, I’m scared that you’ll be ripped away from me. That this fragile hope I have for some level of happiness in my life will vanish. I’m scared to claim it, scared to claim you as mine, because if that happened…if I lost you, it would break me.”
Leaning forward, I brushed my lips against his. “You won’t lose me, and I want to be with you. I want this, Zander. I know our relationship is kind of complicated, but it doesn’t change anything. I want to figure this out with you, and I am not going anywhere.”
Zander’s forehead pressed to my own as he let out a low rumble before twisting us so that I was laying on top of him, splayed on his massive body. My gaze moved around briefly, realizing we were in fact on top of a carriage moving away from the Kingdom of Day.
But where were the others?
“Some are inside the carriage resting, others are walking alongside it, and Adriel and Dean are driving it. He had it portalled from his kingdom to take us to our next stop,” Zander explained softly.
“We’re right here, bunny!” Rhett called out, distracting me from asking where our next stop was. I sat up fully, Zander grumbling as he wrapped an arm around my waist. I felt a massive sense of relief as I leaned over and saw Rhett walking next to Cash—both of them seeming beyond relieved to see me. They also look exhausted.
“I’m so glad you guys are okay,” I said, some of the tension draining from my body.
“I think that’s our line, kitten,” Cash rumbled. “I don’t even know how to explain how fucking scared we were when we heard the explosion in the warehouse.”
“Took years off my fucking life,” Rhett agreed.
The warehouse… “Did we lose the books?” I winced at the possibility that this had all been for nothing. But why did that ring false? I felt like I was forgetting something…
“No,” Cash immediately answered. “The fires were fairly localized, so while the books are dirty and covered in debris, they are whole and intact.”
“Thank the Maker,” I murmured.
“Although the same can’t be said for at least a quarter of the Kingdom of Day,” Rhett mused.
Zander grumbled inaudibly, closing his eyes as if resting.
“What?”
Cash flashed a smile, his gaze still filled with tension and concern but obviously not about what he was going to tell me. “Zander didn’t tell you? He leveled the damn place getting you guys out of there.”
“And then he sent his siren out,” Rhett added, “literally like a fucking hologram to tell us what happened from the warehouse. Really fucking cool.”
Okay, that was a lot to take in…sirens could do that? Mine offered me a small shrug, looking confused herself.Wonderful. More importantly,Zander had destroyed part of the Kingdom of Day?
I looked behind us, my eyes widening at the smoke and fire billowing into the sky from one section of the city.
“Holy shit,” I murmured. Zander was watching me with caution, his ears slightly pink. “You did that?”
