Page 22 of Bound By Darkness

“Why do you suppose that is?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know.”

“Do you feel something between us?” I continue, prying to try to get beneath the layers. I’m not convinced she knows more than she appears to. Unlike Dragan, I trust her. I believe she’s as confused and frustrated as she appears to be.

“Something?”

“A connection? Something that exists beyond the vail that’s united us in a common… journey, shall we say?” I ask.

She inhales deeply and then swallows hard. “Yes,” she answers with a quick nod. “I feel the same feelings towards all of you,” she ads.

“I don’t feel a connection towards Dragan or Cambion. And I feel no connection to Baron.”

“Even though he is you and you’re him?” she asks, surprised.

“Baron was me in another life,” I inform her. “But we’re no longer one and the same.”

She nods. “When I had the vision of your coronation, it struck me that Baron was quite different to you now.”

I’m not surprised. “Regardless, I feel compelled to help you though I can’t say why.”

“Then are you going to stay with us?” she asks and sounds hopeful.

“Dragan seems intent on sending me away,” I admit.

“I don’t understand why.”

“Because he’s jealous and he’s threatened by me.”

“Why?” she asks and then realizes her response could be construed as rude. I’m not offended. “I didn’t…” she starts.

I hold up my hand and silence her. “I know,” I say. “He’s jealous and threatened by the connection you and I share.”

“But he hates me now.”

“He only believes he hates you,” I explain.

“I don’t understand why,” she says as her lip begins to quiver. I’m not a man who can handle a woman’s tears. Thus, I am quick to divert her attention.

“Dragan was nearly destroyed by the last of the Succubus,” I say and explain the brief story of Lamia, as the stone portrayed it to me. “But deep down Dragan knows you aren’t the same as Lamia and her sisters. If he actually believed you were, he wouldn’t still care about you.”

“And why do you even think he does?”

“It’s obvious in the way he looks at you, the way he dislikes me.”

“But what does it mean?” Eilish continues. “So what if I’m part Succubus? I’m stillme.Ihaven’t changed. Dragan can’t hatean entire race of people just because he was manipulated by three.”

“I think Dragan can and does.”

“It’s… it’s so unfair.”

“Such is the way of the world,” I respond.

“I’m not those women,” she says stubbornly.

“Aren’t you though?” I ask. “In as much as you share their lineage?”

“How can that be if Succubae are extinct?”

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