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It had been weeks since I’d seen her, and with each passing day my brain found new ways to torture me. Thoughts of her suffering at the hands of Ruslan – or worse, fucking him – nearly drove me mad. Every possible scenario had flashed through my mind, until I was simultaneously convinced she was thriving and dying. But she was my mate, and I would know if she had died, even without our bond solidified – at least that was what I told myself.
That Goddess-damned prophecy. When it wasn’t images of Izidora coming undone beneath me floating before my eyes, it was those vague words.
Her mates darkness will rise
My thoughts and desires couldn’t possibly get any darker, could they? The number of times I’d imagined draining the lifefrom Ruslan with the assistance of my newfound binding magic filled me with such sick pleasure that I could barely admit it to myself, and the thought of sharing that with Endre was too shameful for me to contemplate.
As if the male knew I had been thinking about him, my messy-haired best friend slowed his mount to ride beside me. “Where’s your head at?”
Running a hand across my face, I shook my head. “The prophecy, Izidora, the usual stuff.”
“I know you’re worried about her,” Endre said with a furtive glance toward Liliana. “But she will be okay when we get there.”
“What if she’s not? What if she’s dead, or worse, Ruslan has forced her into something?”What if he was her mate, and not me?I had not previously allowed the thought into my head, but it had woven its way in and sunk its claws into my brain.
“Then we snatch her and run, just like we’ve planned.” Endre tried to reassure me, yet his words did not temper the rising anxiety. After all, I had failed to protect her, and what if she thought less of me for not upholding my promise to keep her safe? My hands tightened around Fek’s reins, that black beast inside my chest rearing up, ready to fight. I pushed the dark magic down, securing it behind a wall of moonlight, refusing to let it overwhelm me and harm Endre again.
“But that’s not what’s really bothering you today, is it, Kazimir?”
Fuck Endre and his uncanny knack for making me talk when I did not want to.
“No.” I relaxed my grip, and Fek shook his head to slacken the bit digging into his mouth. Then, I dropped my voice to a whisper, not wanting anyone else to hear. “What if Ruslan is her mate?”
Endre opened his mouth, then closed it again. He blew alock of hair away from his face on a long exhale, then tried again. “I’m not going to tell you it's impossible, because it's not, and you’re not going to be reassured by that statement anyway. But you do feel a pull for her, yeah? That’s solid evidence that there’s something there between the two of you.”
“I don’t feel it now.”
“If you’d felt it all along, we would have found her sooner. You probably have to be near her to feel it,” Endre shrugged, dropping his reins and stretching his arms overhead. We’d been riding relentlessly for what felt like years at this point, and the weariness was not only getting to me. “I’m so fucking ready to be off a horse for a while.”
“After the war, I’m sitting my ass on the beach with Izidora for a month,” I declared. Then I slipped into a brief daydream of her playing in the surf and crashing into the waves with me on the shores of the Day Realm, which remained warm even during the winter months that blanketed the Iron and Night Realms in snow.
Endre snickered, finally pulling his shirt over his head again. “I don’t think you’ll get that lucky, not with a coronation to plan and a queendom to run.”
My stomach dropped as my worries returned with full force. “What will we do if Izidora doesn’t want to come back with us? Who will rule?”
“Probably my father or Viktor’s,” Endre guessed. “Definitely not Valintin or Luzak, though they won’t go down without a fight. Don’t worry about it for now, Kazimir. Let’s focus on getting the army we need and taking down the Iron Realm once and for all.”
He was right. Despite the rising tension in my shoulders, there were more important tasks that required my attention, and focusing on what I could do, rather than the endless possibilities, was what would assuage my fears.
My emotions were frayed after so much time had passed atop our mounts; the days seemed impossibly long, and I had far too much time to think. Between my grief over losing my father, Kriztof, and the twins, and my rage around Izidora’s kidnapping, I wasn’t sure how much more I could take.
20
“Time to wake up, my sprite.” Ruslan’s rumbling voice against my neck stirred me from a dreamless slumber, and I grumbled at him, yanking the warm blanket tighter and turning over in an attempt to stay in bed. Fingers crept along my back, sneaking beneath the wool and peeling it from my shoulders.
“No,” I moaned, but the blanket slipped from between my fingers, and a chill washed over me, quickly replaced by a warm body.
His lips found my neck, and I shivered, but not from the cold. “You’ve been such a good girl, training so hard these last weeks, that I’ll let you sleep for another half hour before we head to the barracks.” My eyes popped open as his fingers brushed my hip bones, and he yanked me flush to his body, his erection digging into my back. “Unless you’re awake now?”
Goddess damn him, he knew exactly what he was doing to me. “Fine,” I yawned, taking a lazy overhead stretch to work some movement into my stiff body. Since I’d arrived in the Iron Realm, I’d spent more hours training than not, first strength and balance with Ruslan in the morning, then sparring with Drazenand the other soldiers midday, and the afternoon hours with Zuriel. When I collapsed onto a soft sofa by the fire at night, Ruslan and I read together, and the previous night, I’d read four pages by myself.
For that I’d earned a rough fucking that I could still feel between my thighs, and the thought of it made my center ache for more. I’d lost count of how many times I had orgasmed, and at some point I must have fallen asleep, utter exhaustion pulling me under when I could no longer keep my head above water.
The bed creaked as Ruslan stepped off of it, throwing on a pair of pants before slipping into the living area of our suite, returning moments later with a tray of food. Stifling another yawn, I reached for a black tunic strewn across the end of the bed and slipped it on, then scooted so my back rested against the wood headboard. Ruslan placed the tray in my lap, planting a kiss on my cheek before crawling onto the bed beside me. He smelled like sex and cedarwood, though my mouth watered from the heavenly scent of cinnamon wafting off the tray. Before I could stop him, he snatched a roll off my plate, smirking at me as he popped it into his mouth.
“Hey! I was going to eat that,” I grumbled.
“If you eat all your eggs, I’ll have Cedomir make you more for after our strength session.”
