Page 106 of Cursed to Be Mine
“Good girl.”
A moment of silence passes as we both wrestle to get our arousal under control. Then her head pops up, worry in her eyes and she raises a hand to her throat. “Derek bit you, didn’t he? Did he...hurt you anywhere else?”
“He stabbed me in the side.”
She sucks in a sharp breath, and I both like that she worries about me and hate that it’s causing her anxiety. “I didn’t see anything earlier,” she whispers with a tinge of guilt.
“We don’t heal as fast as werewolves or vampires, but we know healing spells. I only know the bare basics.” I can cauterize a wound rather than bleed out.“But Mother is a full healer, and Leno can fix most things with his plants, so it’s completely healed now.”
I smile. “They can teach you how to make healing potions if you’d like.”
“Why do you need potions? I thought you healed?”
“Not until after our ascensions.” At Scarlett’s look of confusion, I clarify, “It’s when magic properly bonds with us and usually happens during puberty.” I pause as I eat a fry. “Unless you’re cursed like my brother, Varius.”
“Cursed?”
“Mmm. He has magic inside him, but he can’t access it, so he ages like a human and scars like one too. You’ll be able to tell which one is him as soon as you see him. He looks old.”
She studies me as she plays with a fry. “How old are you? You look maybe only a few years older than me, so are you like, a thousand or something?”
I laugh. “No. I just turned thirty-three last month.”
“That’s it?”
“We have one of the shortest lifespans –two hundred and fifty being the average– but we can extend it with magic.” Dark magic that requires the life of another.
“Oh. Who’s the oldest person you know of?”
“Sebastian. He’s over five thousand, give or take a few years. They start to blur at that point, but he’s millennia above the average. To hit a thousand is equivalent to your hundred.”
She eats silently as she mulls everything over. Her eyes on her food, she asks, “So will you live long after I die? Am I just a...blip to you?”
“I’ve bonded with you,kira.That’s for life, and you’ll live as long as I do because of it.”
She gasps as she looks at me. “What?”
“It’s a ritual as old as time for us witches. When we find someone we want to bond with, we enter a magical contract through blood. We share a lifeforce, meaning part of me is inside of you, allowing you to age like me and wield magic. You won’t ever be a strong witch, but you’ll be stronger than any human who learns.”
She raises an arm to where her implant used to be. “Is that why you bit me?”
My eyes narrow. “I took that out because I want you swollen with my children. I started the blood bond a few days ago.”
Her lips stay parted as she stares at me. “So that’s it?” she whispers. “You decided for me, and now it’s done?”
I shift as I finish off the last of my burger, then the last few fries. “No. It will take weeks to complete. If I give you the amount of blood you needed at once, my magic would kill you. And if you gave me it, I’d be weakened to the point that the magic inside me would kill me. Magic is not a friendly beast.”
She pales, and I shift again.
“What you saw with Derek,” I say slowly, “is what happens when magic isn’t controlled. That could’ve been me just as easily as it was him. It was only pure luck that I was able to protect myself.”
“And if you die, I do?”
“No. You’ll live the rest of your human lifespan. So you won’t age rapidly or anything. You’ll just start back at twenty-two.”
She stares at her plate as she finishes off the last few bites. So much new information is swarming around her skull, and I sit back, letting her come to terms withit all. As much as I want to eat dessert, I want her comfortable in my world.
“How is the blood bond completed?” she finally asks.
