Page 13 of A Story of Mates and Temptation

He stares at my face, but I don’t dare look back. I stare at the mirrored crystal walls—or at least I think they’re crystal. The smooth, bouncing light around here is so bright. I almost miss the moon, the stars, the calmness of the night. I almost jump when he touches me, when he wipes the back of his finger acrossmy cheek, collecting my tears like trophies. “I saw you looking at me and Etena… I swear I felt your stare in my soul. Etena was telling me about how she’s taken a lover, someone she met here, and it is serious.”

I look at him, surprised. He isn’t facing me now, and it gives me a second to truly admire him—the way his thick muscles press tightly against his dark green shirt, the way his dark hair is held back so precisely in a band, and it looks so soft, silky. His jawline is sharp, his lips a shade of pink that suits his complexion and his dark hair. When I first saw him, I saw what everyone else must, a brute with a huge body and soft brown eyes too pretty for the rest of his body. Then he smiled at me, and that smile echoed throughout my body, warming every part of me. Everything about him is precision perfect, and I feel safe around him.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt safe around a male before—other than my nephew, but he’s a kid. With Calix, it’s different. He makes me feel like he would keep me safe no matter what was coming my way. My whole life, I’ve never felt like that. “She was asking me if it was okay and if I wouldn’t cause any trouble,” he continues, “because of that bond lurking between us. Because of memories she can’t remember. But the truth is, I’ve been chasing a ghost for a long time, and that ghost is dead. That version of Etena died when she lost her memories. And even before that…” He pauses, and it feels like he’s admitting something to himself for the first time, in the safety of only my ears. “We weren’t good before. We used to argue all the time. We were together, but it was more like we accepted the bond because it was there, not because we were in love or because it was meant to be. Sometimes the bonds that lie between our souls are just that—a fleeting connection meant to help us just for that season of our lives—and we are destined for friendship. When she told me she had a lover…I didn’t feel anything.” Hesmiles at me, the same smile that could light up dark, lost worlds. “I don’t know what fate wanted for us, but I know that I don’t love her. I do wish her the best, even with her new lover.”

“You’re not jealous?” I ask, surprised. “I thought…well, sometimes when you look at her, it’s with longing.”

“It’s not the longing that you’re thinking of. It’s something I felt desperate for. It’s what I see when I look at Story and Ziven—or any couple, really. Two people who belong to each other, who have each other’s backs. I like to joke around and not take life too seriously, but the only thing I miss from me and Etena being together is that I wasn’t alone. I didn’t want to be alone. But I realised that my desperation to avoid loneliness had me accepting something not real. It wasn’t real between us.” Then he says one sentence that rocks the ground under my feet. “Then I met you.”

My heart seems to stop—literally stops pounding in my chest. My blood turns to ice, but not in a bad way. It’s like I’ve been on fire and he is the cool ice, calming me down. “Cal…”

He touches a strand of my hair. “Tell me I’m wrong, but I felt this bond between us, from the second I saw you, but I didn’t want to scare you with it. You just ran away from the king, and I don’t know the half of what you’ve been through, but I could see in your eyes that it was a lot. I’ve seen the same look in Story’s eyes, and I want nothing more than to kill the vampyres who made you fear life.” He pushes my hair back from my shoulder, revealing my neck. He looks at my neck for a long time, and I know he can see the echoes of bite marks there. The scars that will never heal. “You’re so beautiful. Not just in looks, but in your soul. You are a survivor.” He looks into my eyes as his words mend cracks in my heart. He thinks I’m beautiful? Even marked with a thousand bites by the king? “Now I want you totell me everything—absolutely everything—when you can, when you want to. Because I think we’re mates, and I want you. I want your heart.”

Until he says it, I never really thought about this feeling between us. How suddenly it came on, how it felt like I knew him already and the feeling of safety I’ve always felt. Maybe even how I found the mansion in that giant forest…I was drawn there. Drawn to him. Calix is my mate. Of course he is. “I want to tell you everything too,” I admit. “I was jealous of Etena just then. I was worried that I was feeling something for you that wasn’t real or you didn’t feel too. But I felt it too, from the moment I met you.” I smile softly. “You make me feel safe, Cal. Only with you.”

He looks proud, and he grins. “My dragon let you ride her because she told me that you were my mate. She has never said that about Etena, and I know she would eat her if she tried.” He smiles faintly. “Dragons seem to know what’s in our hearts way before we do.”

I’m a big fan of his dragon now. “Your dragon’s amazing.”

“Maybe you’ll get one someday.” He winks at me. “For whatever it’s worth to you, I’m yours now. I’m always yours.”

I hesitate, my voice barely a whisper. “I don’t know that I’m ready for a relationship. All I’ve known is abuse and pain.” I look down. “I might mess us up.”

He leans in, gently kissing my cheek. I close my eyes, savouring every second of his lips on mine. I want to lean into him, kiss his lips, find out how he tastes. “For now, I just want to know you. Everything. I don’t want there to be secrets between us. I’ll tell you everything about my life too. Then we can spend as long as you want getting to know each other.” He pauses, a small smileon his lips. “Starting with, what did you see in that boy you were watching? Your smile was so warm.”

“He reminds me of my nephew,” I admit, my cheeks lifting. “I don’t know where he is at the moment, but I think I’d feel it, in my chest, if he and my sister had left to be with the deities. One day, I will find them.”

“Together,” he vows, holding out his hand. I take it, watching as he links our fingers. I tell him everything for hours. Everything about my family, about the orphanage where I was found by the king, about the years of abuse. I can see he struggles to listen to it all, but he stays at my side. He stays, and he holds my hand. He makes me feel safe.

Somehow, every crack in my heart, every crack in my soul, is changing for the better.

Maybe love—maybe love can mend us.

Chapter Eight

Page Eight. My wife is furious, and she won’t listen to reason. She fears losing me, but how can I tell her she lost me the day our daughter was born a slave?

It takes me five days to be able to leave my room and to convince Calix, Luna and Hettie that I’m well enough to sit through a meeting. It’s been five long days where even getting out of bed is a struggle, but in my dreams, I’ve seen Ziven. He isn’t dead. I know it in my soul, even if I can’t sense where he is, but my dreams are the tokens of hope I let myself hold on to. I need them; otherwise, I’m alone in the darkness. I’m without Ziven…who made the darkness home.

Healers come twice a day, trying their best, but they’re nothing like Ruelle, and they don’t have the natural power to fully heal. We lost nearly all the healers in the fight, and the ones who remain were in training. They’re not skilled enough to fix my wounds, but they managed to save my life. Without the healing water from the mansion, these injuries take a lot longer to heal. I’d forgotten how vulnerable I was—almost took it for granted.

Calix and Avaluna are with me as I walk toward a hut where they tell me Daegan is staying. He’s called a meeting, a war plan—the first one—and I have to be there for the Moon Dynasty. “Are you sure you’re up to this?” Calix asks again, looking close to picking me up and carrying me back to the hut to rest more. I glare at him, wordlessly warning him not to try it.

“I’m fine,” I repeat. I want to be mad at him, but he is just trying to protect me. He keeps calling me his queen, and I know in his mind, it’s how he sees me. I’m not even mated to Ziven, and I’m not sworn into the Moon Dynasty yet. “I could literally run around the block and be completely fine.” Not a total lie. I’d be close to passing out and likely sweating a bunch if I tried to do that. Calix only shakes his head at my sort-of lie. We both know the stitches have just come out and running would pop my wound back open, I’d bet. “Anyway, my main issue is Maeve. I want to see her.”

Avaluna touches my arm, her eyes sympathetic. “Is she on her feet yet?”

“Yes and no. She isn’t flying, but another dragon is feeding her, apparently.” I sigh. “She keeps talking to me daily but avoiding most conversation on her wing.”

“I can hear you,” Maeve grumbles. “I could fly if I wanted to.”

“I’m just as bad a liar as you, it seems,” I mutter back to my dragon.

Calix rubs his chin. “Dragon healing can take weeks. She’s still got a massive tear down her wing. My own dragon told me, but he is being strange. In fact, all the dragons are strange with their riders at the moment.”

“Maybe they are tired of the deaths of their kind and their riders?” Avaluna ponders. “We mourn, and they must too.”

Etena opens the door to the Sun Dynasty hut, where Daegan and his closest people are living. It’s on the opposite side of the town from my hut and the Moon Dynasty people. She looks at Calix first, then Avaluna before her eyes settle on me. She nods her head toward me in greeting. “You didn’t die, then. I would even go so far as to say it is good to see you alive after my king nearly sacrificed himself to save you.” Her usual sharpness snaps through. She’s always so lovely to me.

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