Page 53 of The Filigree Key

“I can’t feel you like I once could,” he moaned. “There’s this hole in my heart that won’t go away.” Arthur lifted his head, revealing damp cheeks and sorrowful eyes. “Even now, so close, there is something dividing us.”

The stolen fated mate bond.

Cupping his face, I lifted his gaze to meet mine. “I’ll make this right, bear claw. I will get us back.”

My fingers slipped once again into his hair and grazed against his scalp. His arms tightened, crushing his chest against my breasts. I wanted to kiss him, to drink in all the gentle sweetness of his mouth, but I wouldn’t waste this rare opportunity for a moment of carnal pleasure. It would only grant a fragment of bliss without the mate bond connecting us anyway.

In a low, hushed tone, I said, “There’s so much happening, but I don’t know how much I can risk telling you.”

“You don’t become a Coalition enforcer without some mental conditioning,” was his reply. Still, he shook his head. “I wouldn’t risk it, sweetheart. I am not so proud to rule out the chance he might still break me.”

I couldn’t tell him about Brandi and the sabotaged Caer powder. Nor that the Crafting Circle ladies were awake and that Grandmother had voluntarily surrendered herself to Ossian’s dungeon. I couldn’t even mention Sawyer. That brave cat who’d helped me keep my sanity when everything seemed lost.

Pinching the side of my bottom lip between my teeth, I rapidly sought a way to salvage this. I had to tell him about the summoning mirror, how it would be Ossian’s first target after I went into Elfame without him.

“You said Ossian’s seen all your memories?” I ventured. “Including a certain shiny reflective thing in the woods next to my apple orchard?”

Recognition flickered in his hazel eyes. Then he shook his head vehemently. “Yes, but any new thoughts—”

“It must be protected,” I said in a rush. “He’ll want to destroy it when I—”

Arthur smooshed his hand over my mouth, silencing me. “No,” he said firmly.

I sucked in a frustrated breath through my nose, then I stuck my tongue out and smeared it against his palm. Immature, certainly, but I was desperate to see his eyes light up with even the faintest whisper of mirth.

Unflinching, he cocked an eyebrow at me.

“O-aaay,” I promised in a muffled voice.

He removed his hand, wiped my saliva off on the white fox-fur coat, and held me close. Leaning forward, Arthur touched his forehead against mine. “I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

“Never. I got what I really wanted.” I caressed a hand down his beard. “You, knowing you’re not abandoned.” His beard was coarser than I remembered. More fur-like. “Can you understand me when you’re a bear?”

“Your emotions and intent, yes, but your words . . . only some,” he admitted, pained. “I used to, but it’s been so long now. This collar—” He shook his head. “What man is left in me must be here, in these dreams, to protect the Coalition secrets that Criminal cannot know. And now, this one too.”

His humanity is slipping. My heart shivered like a sluagh had just stolen away all my warmth with its icy caress.

“I’m sorry,” I croaked, that tightness in my chest spreading everywhere else like a blight. “For everything. I never thought coming to Redbud would lead to this.” I dissolved under the immense weight I’d been carrying for so long. Guilt and shame and no small amount of remorse tore through me. “None of this was supposed to happen, least of all you. I only wanted—”

“I don’t regret anything,” he interrupted gently. “And you were right, you know, about it being the rodeo. I knew then, without a doubt, that I would do anything for you. Be anyone for you, so long as it keeps you safe and happy.”

His large hands were reverent as he placed them on either side of my neck, his thumbs stroking away the moist tracks left behind on my cheeks. “This man will always love you, Meadow Lavender Hawthorne. And even when he is long gone, the bear will love you still.”

I shook my head, caged as it was in his tender but firm embrace. “Don’t say that.”

His lips pressed against mine, so firm and cherishing and—

A wind ripped me from his grasp. It was so violent it smothered my scream. Eddies of mist shrouded me in white and whisked me away. I shouted for Arthur, reached for him. Deaf to my pleas, he only lifted the rambler rose from where I’d dropped it and held it to his chest. A heartbeat later, my essence stood within the vaporous environs of the wight’s prison.

“He ejected us,” the setter said quietly.

I could only nod and touch my lips where his kiss lingered. I hadn’t even told him I loved him.

“I trust I’ve proven my good will sufficiently.”

Again, only a nod. Then I choked back the knot in my throat to say, “I don’t know your name to thank you properly.”

“That is because I have none. We wights know who we are without one. You can thank me by releasing me, as you have promised.”