Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 132138 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 661(@200wpm)___ 529(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132138 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 661(@200wpm)___ 529(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
That isn’t all she wanted. “You wanted power.”
Gillian’s jaw tightens, a sure sign she’s frustrated. “Of course I wanted power. I still do. You know what it means to be a woman. Without power we have to rely on our men or our king, and Torin proves that this is not a good idea. Goddess, even my own father uses me as a bargaining tool, and I know for sure he loves me.”
I saw the way the vampire mercenary and his lieutenant stared at Gillian all the long trek through the woods. “It’s not so different, is it? You did the same to me. You walked into my father’s palace with the intention of either purchasing me or selling yourself.”
“Damn it, Bronwyn,” Gillian curses. “Why do you have to put it that way? It’s not the same. Not at all. I went to negotiate a marriage between the crowns. You knew you wouldn’t be allowed to marry as you liked, didn’t you? And my current situation is not at all like yours.”
“I don’t see how.” We were both basically sold.
“Because you’ve known them all of your life and they all of yours. I did not consider it buying or selling you. I thought I was bringing you home.” Gillian reaches out for a moment and then seems to think better of it. She pulls back into herself. “Since my brothers could speak, they talked about their princess. I felt as though I knew you as a sister before I ever set foot in the White Palace.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
Gillian shakes her head, staring into the river. “Because you were so lost after what happened and then you said something about the connection being broken. You cried out at night that you couldn’t feel them, that your Dark Ones were gone. I thought my brothers were dead.”
Gillian thought Lach and Shim were dead? Those first few months after Torin’s coup were a desperate time. I was dead inside. I searched for the connection but nothing came, as though a black space opened in the center of my being and something that was always filled was empty. I walked around, simply a body moving without any more purpose than to be alive.
What did Gillian go through? Cut off from her family and everything she knew, she was the one who forced me to survive, finding tutors so we could both learn the skills we needed. It would have been so much easier to escape the plane alone.
“Why did you stay?” I ask.
“Because I wasn’t sure at first,” Gillian replies after a long pause. “I thought perhaps that the magic I used to bring you back cut the connection. I used a white spell that drew energy from someone who cared about you. I gave you a bit of my own life force. I’ll be honest, I was surprised it worked. I was desperate. I didn’t know what else to do. After a while, when the connection didn’t return, I had to assume they were gone or something terrible had happened. Then I decided I would honor my brothers. They would have wanted you taken care of. And then somewhere between years two and three, I simply loved you as a sister and would have done anything to protect you.”
I want to believe, but I can still hear those words Gillian said as Shim held me. “You certainly reverted to form the minute you realized your brothers were alive.”
“I’m not proud of that. I was so happy and I felt powerful for the first time in years. I’d succeeded. Bron, I had done the impossible. I had survived, and all I wanted was to celebrate that fact. You belong with them. You have to know it.” Gillian speaks with the fervor of a true believer.
I shake my head. “I don’t know them. You don’t understand what it’s been like. You seem to think that I went into these dreams and Lach and Shim and I exchanged all sorts of information. We didn’t. They were dreams. I didn’t even know their names. I didn’t even understand they were real.”
“No, I don’t understand the connection. I don’t know how it works. The way they explained it to me, they could hear and feel you clearly, but they didn’t think you always could hear them. That’s why you need the full bond. You’re strong, Bron. You’re a strong bondmate. Roan says you glow more brightly than any consort he’s ever seen. Maybe that means your powers to bridge them are stronger, too. So strong that they could feel you, be pulled to you even across the planes. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that they know you. They love you. You’re married. Accept it.”
Bitterness wells despite the fact that I’m already deeply involved with them. “Yes, you should take your own advice. Accept it. You’re practically married, too.”