Page 121 of Brutal Birthright

A convoluted mess of broken soul threads that left her chest aching and raw.

She knew he wasn’t dead. He still had a heartbeat and a pulse whenever she’d laid beside him with her head over his chest and let silent tears run down her cheek, listening to the quiet thud below his ribcage.

But beyond that, she was one half of a soul bond floating and spinning through space without a tether. The strong, reassuring presence of Rowan and their fated connection was gone, and every day she sat here at his bedside, she felt the tiny flicker of hope inside her begin to struggle a little harder to remain alight.

They’d shifted him here to his cottage in the woods after every healer known across the realms had taken their time to work on him in the initial days after the attack. But the bitter truth remained that the entity had taken hold of him, with the kind of primordial power that had been enough to wrench his physical body into a plane of existence that was somewhere far from here.

As Ri looked down, she realised that she was cradling Rowan’s big palm in her hands over her lap.

Clinging to him like her life depended on it, because it fucking did.

The only thing that mattered was Rowan.

She nodded dumbly. An understanding passed between them in the special way they’d always had as sisters. Blood didn’t matter. Their connection was just as fated as it was with the men in their lives.

Ri had refused to leave after they’d moved him here, and Niall had quietly agreed to let her stay on and keep watch.

At least he knew something of the truth between them, and she knew it would only have been a matter of time until he told her sister.

“I understand why you didn’t say anything.” Ruby sat down on the edge of the bed, facing Ri’s spot where she curled in the big armchair. She’d pulled it up beside the bed and spent most of her days sitting here as the sun traversed the sky and the shadows shifted around the room.

“But that doesn’t mean there’s not a part of me that can’t understand why you chose not to.” Her sister looked exhausted. The strain of everything the Nocturnes had been through clearly showing in her eyes.

“We just wanted time.” Ri looked at the figure lying on the bed. The inked patterns across the back of his hand that she gently traced and stroked with the pads of her fingers. If she didn’t know any better, Rowan was in a deep sleep and might wake at any second. But she’d cried enough tears to last an eternal lifetime in the past few days when that moment never came. No matter how hard she prayed to the Goddesses to make it happen. “I was so stubborn and didn’t want my place in the Astrals to be taken away from me… And now…”

She chewed on her bottom lip.

“And now it all seems insignificant. I get it.” Ruby knew as well as anyone what it meant to nearly lose your fated mate.

The two sat in silence for a while before Ruby got up and busied herself, making them both some herbal tea. It was nothing Ri couldn’t have done herself, but knowing how weak she felt these days, it was a relief to have her sister here, even for just the short moment she could spare to spend time away from her life as queen. Then, as she sat back down and handed Ri her steaming mug, her sister narrowed her gaze slightly.

“Does he know?”

“Know what?”

“That you are fated to one another?”

Oh, that.

Ri took a long gulp and cradled the warmth of the cup against her mouth.

“No.” Her exhale was long and shaky.

“Oh, Ri.” Those big brown eyes of her sister welled up.

Fuck, now she was going to make her start crying all over again.

“How did you know?”

Ruby sipped on her own tea for a moment before answering quietly. “You love him in the way he needs to be loved. Not forcing something on him, or trying to sway him to be different. That is the kind of connection between souls that can’t be anything but fated.”

Now, she was swallowing a lump threatening to form in her throat.

“But you barely saw me or Rowan, while we were at the academy.” Had her sister seen them together all this time and never said anything?

“That’s true… but the moment you were taken, I’ve never seen Rowan fearful of anything, and he was afraid of losing you.” Her sister reached out and squeezed her thigh. “Speaking from experience, as someone who hid things from Niall, I’m what you might call an expert in spotting the signs now.”

Which was all well and good, but it didn’t solve the issue that remained.

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