Page 96 of Bound to the Shadow Queen
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, trying to shake the feeling from my bones before I could give in. “You have hated me for something I couldn’t control.”
Draven took another step, and the air tasted like him. Sweet, and spiced like the forest. Fresh like mountain snow.
“Yes, I do hate the Unseelie, but I have never once hatedyou.” He said it like it should have been obvious.
My lips parted as I sucked in an unsteady breath, and Draven tracked the movement.
Maybe it should have been obvious. All of it. Looking back, had he ever reacted typically to anything where we were concerned?
He hadn’t killed me when he discovered I was Hollow. He hadn’t abandoned me when I failed the Heartstone.
Still…
“Your fury and the way you locked me in my rooms tells another story,” I tried to make the words sound bold, but even I couldn’t help but hear the question in them, like I was begging for him to give some reasonable explanation.
He nodded, further closing the distance between us.
“Yes, I hated that you lied about it. That it never even crossed your mind to trust me, not with the truth and not when I told you that I always protect what belongs to me.”
Another step forward, his gaze following the rise and fall of my chest before meeting my eyes again.
“Then you shoved me behind the shard-mother-damned wards and let them drag you away in chains,” his tone was low and dangerous as he dragged out his next words. “Rather than tell me there was a threat tomy wife.”
Another small step forward and we were breathing the same air, the corset of my gown brushing against his chest with each quickening breath.
He stretched out a hand to brush a navy lock of hair from my forehead.
“If I had known, I never would have let them take you,” he said, gently dragging his fingers down my skin to the pulse point on my neck. “And I sure as all forsaken hells never would have let themhurtyou.”
A gasp hissed past my lips.
I tried to make sense of his words, to navigate the contradictions that had mapped our lives from the moment Nevara stopped in front of me and called out the number three.
I felt the warmth of his arms wrapped around me, shielding me from our shared nightmares, and again when he carried me through the Voidtouched when he could have just as easily floated me on his mana.
He didn’t just keep me alive when I was a Hollow. He wouldn’t let the mages hurt me—slaughtered one of them for considering it—even for mana he needed to save his kingdom.
Then he took me to save my sister with nothing more than my tears to convince him.
The pieces fell into place, gentle hands on my skin and the Frostgrave King on his knees.
You are my wife…I do not allow anyone to harm what belongs to me.
A promise. A vow that I had taken as a claim instead.
You were my wife.Until I had decided not to be, he meant.
I hadn’t understood the way my lies would break him—would break us both. It had felt like the only way.
“You believe this marriage vow is the only thing between us?”
I swallowed, nearly coming undone at the sound of his voice.No, I didn’t think that. I hadn’t believed that for quite some time.
“I think that bonds can confuse all manner of things,” I said vaguely, my voice coming out in a breathy rasp.
He didn’t press the wording, which told me that he had felt the truth, too, resonating in his own soul.
“They can and they do.” His voice was the lethal whisper of steel sliding from a sheath, his aurora gaze honing in on mine. “But even with no bond, and no blood vow, and no Visionary, there is no one and nothing I would allow to hurt you or chain you ever again.”
