Page 41 of Immortal Sins
“Are you jealous?”
He roams my body up and down, his gaze lingering on the beauty mark on my shoulder. “Very.”
I meant to tease Flynn for his obsession with Cole, but the response is everything but light.
The obsidian stone that serves as an altar shines in the dark. A perfectly circular pool of water—about a foot wide—flows around it. Despite the absence of a proper stream, the liquid swirls languidly around the altar like it’s being stirred by an invisible hand.
Fresh moss and wildflowers bloom in thick patches in the lowest grooves of the stone—the tip of a black, shadowy iceberg. The unearthed rock clearly runs deeper into the earth than I could dream of. I ache to touch it, but the heady magical signature emanating from it gives me pause.
Cole returns to my side and captures my hand in his. “Are you sure about this?”
“Yes.” The word trembles, but not the intent behind it. For whatever foolhardy, impossible reason, I want this, and not just to be remembered. If it’s a dumb mistake, then so be it. I will go down in history as the dumb mortal who accidentally became a Fae princess. I can live with that.
Flynn rolls his eyes. “Let’s do this thing beforeIchangemymind.”
Full-bodied shudders trickle down my spine, making my dress shine with bright embers. “What do I say?”
Cole squeezes my hand. “Whatever you want.”
“What, no weirdly-phrased deals or back-handed promises? I don’t have to swear my devotion to you or something?”
Cole cracks a smile. “We leave the deals to everyday life. Fae marriage is about trust, not obligation.”
I can get behind that. I pat down the skirt of my fairytale dress with my free hand, unsure what to say. “Maybe we skip the vows?”
Cole’s mouth curls down, but he quickly forces a neutral expression on his face.
I tug on his fingers. “I wish I could be eloquent and transparent about my feelings for you, in this crazy, beautiful moment, but I can barely think.”
His shoulders relax, and he smiles, inching closer.
Flynn soaks his hand in the translucent pool at the foot of the altar. Clear droplets crawl up his hands, and his skin blisters at the contact. Tiny drops of water scatter over his arms like legions of tiny piranhas.
His forehead creases in a wince. “Uste garth.”
I steal a glimpse at Cole.
“It means: I stand witness.” The prince licks his bottom lip, his eyes glued to his friend.
Flynn coaxes out one end of a long, seemingly unending black ribbon—or is it a piece of algae?—from the restless current.
The dark thread sticks to my skin as Flynn wraps it across my wrist, then Cole’s. Silver flecks glitter on the strange leaf. Light as smoke and deep as the night sky, it waves and weaves through the space between us, both solid and liquid at the same time.
Water climbs from the pool along the serpentine plant. My skin vibrates at its caress.
Flynn grips our wrists. The rough pads of his hands are chafed and red, as though a layer of skin has simply been peeled off, and his nails dig into my pulse point. “Elstebarst ste roan. Elstebarst ste ugne.”
A ragged breath escapes Cole. “What was, is past. What is, always will be—it’s a rough translation, but it essentially means forever.”
Forever. For us, it means two different things.
The algae sinks into my skin, its sting feverish. I wince at the pain, but the sneaky eel-ribbon hisses happily as soon as it draws blood. It buries into my skin in a discrete, swirly tattoo. The rest of the thread, the part that was still connected to the water, worms its way back underneath the surface.
A shiver rattles Flynn’s body, and he looks away for a mere moment before adding, “Elste u’run tan unillan.”
Cole inches closer. “What you are and what I am are now one.”
“Blood and soul. The melding has begun.” Flynn frees us from his steel grasp.
