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Caelan scrubs his big hands over his face, pressing at his eyeballs, then scrapes them back over his hair to cup the back of his skull, elbows wide. It almost looks as if he is tugging the strands there. A pained groan rips from him. His green eyes slide over me and shame at the hurt I can’t hide washes over his features. Edith, bored with the drama, has wandered off to a nearby tree and is stuffing leaves into her pockets.
“I didn’t mean it like that, Tor. I’m sorry.”
He moves to close the distance between us, to hug me, I suppose. But right now, I cannot bear it; it’s too much. I’m emotionally toasted, and this was the very final straw.
I take a step back, further out of reach, closing in on myself. I have always felt his emotions so strongly, but now the strength of the connection is smothering me. It is too much on top of everything else I am already feeling and I no longer have the energy to be reasonable. I wrap my arms around myself, to stop myself from doing anything stupid, like reaching for him and begging him not to hate me. Turning on my heel, away from the confused devastation on his face, I resettle my pack on my back.
“Come on, Edith, we’re only a couple of days away, anyway. This way.” Leaving them both, I return to our path, trudging ahead, hoping they would follow.
Caelan
Bonded mates. Bonded. Mates.
Tor and I are bonded mates.
Tor is my bonded mate.
As I watch him walking ahead of me, I can’t stop the words slamming themselves around my skull, the connection between us pulsing strangely in my solar plexus. It’s kind of like a bruise or insect bite, in that before I knew about it I didn’t really know it was there. But now that I do it isallthat I can notice.
The strangeness of it as my insides adapt to the newness of all this extra… stuff. My skin feels itchy, a size too small for my body, adding to the raging overstimulation of, well, everything.
I know I have hurt him. I didn’t mean the words the way they sounded; I was just shocked. And scared. Tor is now tied to me through magic and I have no idea what that even means. I know there were stories or whatever about my great-grandparents, but they were stories, right? I mean, there hasn’t been an official recording of bonded mates in living memory.
But the beings of the Whisper Woods aren’t exactly fans of official recordings, are they?
Maybe they weren't just stories after all…
According to the stories and legends, beingbonded matesmakes the beings stronger in their powers. Not that I have any of those, which really sucks for Tor, doesn’t it? He really is getting a raw deal here. Bonded mates’ connections are meant to be unbreakable. They are two beings as One. Unable to live without each other, connected through Spirit.
And now he is shackled to me. Forever. Shifters and fae have comparably long life spans, longer than humans, less than vampires. But being part shifter, I only landed somewhere in the middle, I guess. Has he unwittingly shortened his life? Gods, he is so much more than me, and now he is stuck, saddled with meforever. I mean, I get what? A longer life, fae gifts, andTor. He gets me? A small lot of land? My chickens? He deservesso muchmore.
A hand slapping my shoulder, gripping me tight and giving a little shake, rouses me from my depressed musings. “Thinking awfully loud over here, bud.” Edith falls in step next to me, no longer trailing behind collecting random rocks and leaf bits to shove in her various pockets. Her shawls drag along the ground, but she doesn’t notice.
I heave a sigh, watching as Tor hacks a tree branch, blocking our path a little too aggressively. “I think I fucked up a little.”
Edith’s laugh echoes through the trees and Tor throws a murderous side-eye over his shoulder, not bothering to wait for us as he clambers over boulders. The path is getting thicker, denser, and significantly harder to pass. Even the magic here is stronger, turning the air into molasses. Like it’s actively pushing us back. I think we are close.
“A little,” Edith snorts. “You fucked up BIG time.” I bump my shoulder into hers and she bumps me back. I’ve known Edith for nearly ten years now. She is like the big sister I am glad I never had.
“Thanks for the sympathy there. I was just shocked that he would do that, you know? Why would he tie himself tome?”
At that, Edith gives a little cluck of sympathy and wraps an arm around my shoulder. “Here’s the thing, Wolf Boy. Bonded mates are magic, yeah, and you guys may have been chosen for whatever the Woods have planned for you. But you still have to sayyes. You guysboth, through ignorance or instinct, agreed to this thing. It’s a commitment. An oath. Somehow, someway, you two dumbasses managed to conjure up the power and the energy to sanctify this thing. But the most important thing is that it was achoice. One made bybothof you.”
As a witch, Edith is more than well-acquainted with the nature of a commitment when it comes to magic. Witches are born human but borrow power from the earth to form their own magic. It requires dedication and devotion to generate that level of power. Edith’s devotion went so far that she had walked away from her life in the city to live within Whisper Woods. Not all witches go so far. But not all witches have her skills or power.
“But how could we make that commitment without knowing what we were doing? And why, in the name of the Gods, would he chooseme?”
Edith shrugs and plucks a red blossom from a tree as we pass, whispering a quick word to it before tucking it in her hair. “The Woods know what the Woods know. Maybe it was meant to be? Maybe you two are the greatest blundering buffoons?” She sighs, as if the weight of having to deal with my ignorant ass is too much to bear. Which, you know, is fair. “As for why he would chooseyou, Caelan?”
Her hand is warm on my elbow when she tucks her arm through mine, pulling herself close. She drops her head to my shoulder, squeezing my bicep tight. Her sigh is softer this time, less weary.
“I wish you could see yourself as worthy as you truly are, my darling. Especially for someone like Tor. I had a little peek inside that beautiful head of his. It was surprisingly depressing. He needs someone like you, someone who can care for him only as you can. So I guess the most important question is, do you love him?”
Do I love Tor? A manic laugh escapes me, loud and inappropriate, echoing through the trees. I am deeply, almostpainfully,in love with the man. And I have been for a stupidly long time, even if I never, ever let myself acknowledge the depth of my feelings, or how futile and pathetic they were. We have only known each other for such a short time, but it feels like a million lifetimes.
The painful, raw feeling had been manageable while he’d been on the other side of the country, but it has been festering since we stumbled into each other in front of the pasta. Not that I love him, that doesn’t hurt in the slightest.
The crushing fear that he would never love me back though? I have picked myself up and brushed myself off so many times before, but with him, I know in the depths of my spirit, it would ruin me.
