Series: Lords of Rathe Series by Meagan Brandy
Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 95227 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95227 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
“So he says,” I manage around the mouthful.
London tilts her head. “But you don’t think so.”
My jaw works once, swallowing hard.
The thing behind my bones flares like someone dragged claws across the inside of me. It’s been doing that more and more lately—every time I see him, or smell him, or hear someone say his name. Even thinking about him lights some stupid ember low in my stomach, a heat I can’t control and don’t understand.
It just keeps getting worse, a constant tug beneath my ribs that gets more unbearable each time I try to ignore it.
Ugh. Damn it.
I wipe my fingers on the edge of my jacket and lean back. “Bonds are new to me,” I say. “On the island, the only people who talked about mates were the ones who’d already lost themselves, claiming they had someone back in Rathe. But no one ever explained more than that, and you don’t ask fucked-up people any real questions. They just lie.” I suck the sauce off my pointer finger and thumb. “I figured it was…I don’t know. Someone you like to fuck. You know, ‘mate,’ so you basically imprison them.”
London’s brows shoot up. “Imprison them?”
I shrug one shoulder. “I mean, that’s what I would do. You know. Just in case. So no one else could have them.”
A small laugh leaves her, soft and almost genuine, but her features tighten again almost immediately.
“Haide,” she begins. “Do you feel Legend on the inside? Here?” She watches me closely, tapping two fingers against her sternum.
I feel him everywhere. In my pulse, in my teeth, in the back of my throat. In the way my breath changes when he walks into a room. But I’m also prone to obsession, and that king is good with his hands. And his dick. So…who the hell knows?
I don’t answer.
Her eyes narrow with interest, but her expression softens. “When my and Knight’s bond first presented,” she begins, voice low, “it was instant chaos. Pure destruction. I was drawn to him instantly…and he wanted to ruin me because he felt the same and he hated it.” She smiles lightly.
Her gaze drifts out toward the violet fog hanging over the hills, but she keeps talking, words rolling like she’s reliving it rather than recounting it.
“It was a pull that never stopped,” she says. “A hunger. A certainty. It didn’t matter how much we fought, something in me kept dragging me toward him. And him toward me. Like gravity. Like fate had a hand around my throat. I guess it did.”
My lungs tighten one slow notch at a time.
Because that’s exactly what Legend feels like to me.
Chaos. Pull. Hunger. Certainty.
Even when I don’t want it. Especially then.
London goes on. “And the dreams started almost overnight.”
That snaps me out of whatever soft, dangerous place I’d slipped into.
“Dreams?” I echo, maybe too fast.
London’s eyes lift back to mine, studying every twitch in my face. “Oh, yeah. The dreams are the most important part,” she says. “That’s how you really know. It’s one of the steps in completing the bond.”
A cold, heavy dread sinks into my gut like a stone dragged down to the bottom of a deep, dark well. I hate it. I hate it because I don’t have dreams, and I loathe it because what the fuck?
It’s not like I want to be his…fated mate, right?
I don’t want to want or need something or someone.
But I do want Legend and I like the thought that I’m here for a reason. That I’m not just a forsaken child of a damned isle.
The admission slams into me without permission. So hard I choke on nothing but my own spit.
No. No, no I don’t want Legend.
I want his dick.
There is most definitely a damn difference.
Right?
Holy shit, maybe I’m a power bank and sex is what fuels whatever powers I may—or may not—have.
I’ve been having sex with Legend and today, my body healed itself.
I need to fuck him again and maybe then I’ll be able to portal!
That would explain everything.
It would explain why he’s always on my mind, his scent tickling the tip of my tongue.
His voice in my ear.
Maybe I should find a way to imprison him…just until I’m sick of him or whatever.
London watches me closely, and just as she makes to speak, something buzzes from inside her pocket. She pulls out a small square, lifting it to her ear as she climbs from the branch seats. “Be right back.” She wanders a few feet away, keeping her back to me as she faces out the cauldron house window, voice dropping low as she answers.
Flames crackle from the open-air kitchen behind us, mixing with the wind carrying Blackwood spice and steam across the hilltop. I keep eating, tearing through my food with my hands and letting the warmth settle in my chest while London murmurs a string of hmms and okays.