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)
Emmie’s eyes soften. “I wish I could. But if I show up, it’ll cause problems. For me. For you. For Legend.” She squeezes my shoulder. “But I’ll be thinking about you. And tomorrow, you’ll tell me everything.”
I swallow the disappointment. “Deal.”
She hands the bottle back. “Finish this. You’re going to need it.”
I take a long drink, watching the purple liquid disappear. Through the window, Legend’s still talking to Arabella. But now he’s looking up. At the window. At me.
Our eyes meet.
He’s too far from me to feel that ever-present pull, separated by distance and wards, yet I still feel him as I think of him. I feel him because he’s inside me. In that irrational bond that my body understands even if my brain doesn’t.
He smirks. Like he knows exactly what I’m thinking. Like he can taste my jealousy from across the quad.
Bastard.
I raise the bottle in a mock salute.
He laughs. Silent. Visible. Then turns back to Arabella, but her hand drops from where she was touching him.
Good.
Emmie watches the exchange, shaking her head. “You two are going to burn this place down.”
“Probably.” I drain the last of the Fae Juice. “But at least it’ll be entertaining.”
She laughs. For a moment, I let myself imagine what it would be like to have this. Real friendship. The kind that isn’t built on survival or violence. Or sex.
It feels dangerous.
It feels good.
“All right.” Emmie collects the empty bottle. “I need to go before Legend comes back and finds me drunk and alone in a room with you.”
“He’d probably laugh.” I watch as she plucks discarded trash.
“He’d definitely laugh. But Creed wouldn’t.” She heads for the door, pausing at the threshold. “Haide?”
“Yeah?”
“For what it’s worth?” She glances back. “I think you’re exactly what Legend needs. Even if some refuse to believe it.”
Before I can respond, she’s gone, door clicking shut behind her.
I’m alone.
With a dress that could start a war.
A mate I’m not ready to claim.
And for the first time since I arrived at this cursed university, I let myself feel it. The pull. The need. The terrifying, exhilarating truth that maybe—maybe—Legend Deveraux is mine.
And I’m absolutely fucked.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Legend
Gods, her body is fucking perfection, so soft for such a prickly little thing, my mate.
My Haide.
“He’s waking,” someone says.
Waking? From what?
I reach for my mate’s legs, tugging her closer, but my fist closes around nothing. My eyelids flutter, peeling open to find my brothers standing above me.
The sight of Creed has my teeth clamping until something in my jaw pops. I stare at my oldest brother, wondering if I look hard enough, I’ll find the seam where the lie he spoke was stitched into him.
My bond is real.
Sinner bursts through the door, wearing my fucking face. I glare at him, until it morphs back into his own. He looks from me to my brothers. “It’s done. She saw me.”
A sound in the hall draws all our attention, and Silver rushes in, eyes hard. “She’s waiting.”
“Let her in,” Creed orders.
The room goes thin around the edges as the smell of salt and winter herbs cut through smoke and copper just as the mage appears. She steps over the threshold and stops like she ran face-first into a fate she didn’t order.
Her eyes take me in. From my busted nose to the smear of black drying at my mouth and chest. The shake in my wrists I’m pretending isn’t there. Something like alarm breaks through her stone-cold expression.
“This is worse than I thought,” she says. She drops to her knees beside me. Cold, dry fingers press to my sternum, and every muscle in my body lights like a fuse. My limbs burn, a starved fire racing out to my edges, and then some invisible hook takes my spine and lifts.
My chest rumbles with a deep groan. Every bone aches as I’m held, torso suspended, eye level with the Stygian like the room forgot which way gravity was supposed to go.
Knight swears and steps in, but she flashes him a look that stops him mid-lunge.
“Touch him and you will snap his spine,” she warns. “And it seems he’s unable to heal so I suggest you stand back. It’s weak. Any movement, it tears.”
“Tear what?” Sinner asks, voice gone flat.
“The braid,” she says. Her palm never leaves my chest. I can feel her power tasting me like a viper’s tongue. “Two threads, one knot, and a third, much older, looping the others tight.”
“Speak like a person,” Knight grinds out.
She ignores him, eyes on me. “Listen, boy,” she murmurs, and the word boy should make me laugh, but nothing in me remembers how. “The shore you want will drown you if you go as you are. The moon split its light to keep a tide alive. One part burns in you. The other burns where she’s missed.”
“Riddles,” I breathe, head lolling, fury too tired to lift its fists. “Why are you here, mage?”