Page 82 of Moonmarked

And it also made me feel like shit, all of a sudden, that we were lying to Lyall.

“Not as well as you do,” Rune said, and the sound of his voice slipped into my ears and soothed my chaotic thoughts like a lullaby.

The questions remained though—why lie? Why not just tell him? What’s Lyall going to do about it, anyway? Rune said that a life-bond does not mean a romantic relationship, and we weren’t cheating on anyone, were we?

But Rune.

He knew better. I had to believe that he did. He knew this man better than I ever would—because they were friends. It was easy to see in just the way they were looking at one another right now, and even Rune was half smiling like he did most of the time.

“Iambetter than everyone at everything, but you have a sneaky eye, bastard. I’m sure there’s a lot of things I still don’t know about you. Your very name spellssecret.”

My blood turned to ice suddenly, but then Lyall laughed.

He laughed, and Rune shook his head, and he was still smiling. “Half the bad when you know. Makes you a bitmore tolerable, you arrogant son of a king,” he said, and Lyall laughed more.

I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply and reminded myself that it was okay. They were just joking. This was how friends talked—they’re just joking.

They said something else, the both of them, but I didn’t hear it over the sound of my panic until my heartbeat calmed down.

“Let’s focus on the orbs, shall we?” Rune said.

“Of course. I’m sure you’re eager to lose,” Lyall said, and he moved forward. “Go on, spread out. Let’s see who has the better ears.”

A moment later, we were all spread out into the clearing, looking at orbs floating and spinning against the bright blue sky, offering very little shade from the scorching sun. I was focused, though, and I didn’t let myself think about anything else right now. I was trying so damn hard to count the heartbeats, but it really was impossible to separate which was common from which wasn’t.

Minutes passed and I moved from one orb to the other, growing more frustrated by the second, until…

I was under a bigger one, its shadow deeper, falling over me, giving me momentary release—and whispering words in my ear.

Close your eyes,Wildcat. Feel, don’t listen. Your heartbeat will know when it finds its match.

It was Rune.

It was his voice, but when I opened my eyes again, I found him with his back turned, staring at the orb overhim, just like Lyall was doing a few feet away. Neither were smiling or humming or looking my way.

Maybe I just imagined it, but then again, I’d heard him on the balcony before I jumped, hadn’t I? I’d heard him then just as I heard him now.

So, I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath, and I tried to do exactly what he said. I focused on the beating of my own heart, which had accelerated again.

It took me a while to drown out the beating of the orbs, though. To me, it felt like hours before I began to hear them less and less, and began to walk about the clearing again, only opening my eyes every now and again to make sure I wasn’t about to crash into a tree—or Lyall and Rune. I counted the beats of my heart in my head, but I didn’t hear one on the outside as clearly until I had reached over two hundred.

Then it was there, somewhere to my right, in the distance—a beating that wasn’t coming from my body, but that matched me exactly right.

In my excitement, I opened my eyes—and almost instantly the beats of every orb over my head filled my ears again.

Cursing under my breath, I closed them again, breathed, began to count, never moving a single inch. And this time, I only had to count fifty beats before I heard the one outside.

With my hands out in front of me in case I was about to slam into something, I moved, my steps slow, my heartbeat becoming faster. The strangest thing, though—the one outside followed the same rhythm. I wasn’t sure whether it was in my head or not, but it was just a game, and so I went with it. I walked and walked until I was right underneaththat beat that was identical to the one of my heart, and finally, I opened my eyes.

A white orb spun silently in the air right over my head. I raised my index finger and touched the very edge of it.

My heartbeat took a pause when the one inside the orb did.

Then, it shrank right in front of my eyes, and fell onto the grass without a single sound.

The same second, every other orb that had been floating over us disappeared into thin air. I leaned down and grabbed a round piece of white rock engraved with a half-moon on either side.

Holy shit.

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