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I could endure.

“Our kingdom has survived a great threat. A spear to the heart of our race and our peace. We turn now to the Heirs who have pledged themselves to Annwyn, in hopes that they shall seal the treaty our Ancestors bled for…” a dramatic pause, “And usher in a new era of prosperity for the realm of the fae.”

The column of water jutted apart into two different streams, spinning through the cavernous room in spirals and curves. The symbolism was impossible to miss. As was the length of time she kept those individual tendrils spinning on their respective sides of the throne room.

One glance at Veyka’s face—she was glaring at the priestess, blatantly curling her fingers around Excalibur’s hilt.

I dragged one finger over the head of my battle axe as Veyka crooned her threat in a velvety voice that promised death— “Enough, Merlin.”

The priestess’s eyes flared. I hadn’t realized—Veyka had learned her name. A mysterious, nameless danger no longer.

The two tendrils of water shot for the center of the room, spiraling together above our heads, back up towards the ceiling, until suddenly Merlin dropped her hands and the water exploded in a mist over the heads of every fae in the room. Rainbows shined in the fine droplets as they met the bright rays of evening sun streaming through the throne room’s open arches.

Merlin flicked her wrist, and suddenly an object appeared in her hand. A jeweled dagger, though not the same one she’d used in the Offering. She turned to me first.

“Do you, Arran Earthborn, consent to join with Heir of the Elemental Fae? To bind yourself to her for all eternity, in this life and beyond, first a thousand years and then a thousand more? To protect Annwyn as its High King, until your dying breath?”

Her words didn’t shake me. They couldn’t, so long as Veyka was at my side.

“I do.” I offered her my hand, watching detachedly as she swiped her knife across it and my own blood bloomed, coppery tang filling the air, carried away on dozens of elemental breezes.

“Do you, Veyka Pendragon, consent to join with the Heir of the Terrestrial Fae? To bind yourself to him for all eternity, in this life and beyond, first a thousand years and then a thousand more? To protect Annwyn as its High Queen, until your dying breath?”

Veyka pretended to ignore the priestess. Merlin’s eyes darkened dangerously, but Veyka only flashed me that wicked grin that already had my cock and my beast rising to attention.

“I do,” she said, holding out her hand.

Another slash, this time without error. The scent of Veyka’s blood mingled with mine, and I had to resist the urge to lift her hand to my mouth to taste her. Not quite yet, I soothed the beast inside of me.

Merlin lifted our hands by the wrists above our heads so that every fae gathered could see. “I join you,” she decreed, and pressed our palms together.

Veyka’s blood flowed into my wound, and mine into hers. Joined, in every way.

Heat blasted through me, more powerful than anything I’d ever felt before. So hot, it burned into every crevice of my body and my being. Through my soul, my heart, deep into the wells of my magic itself.

Suddenly the world sharpened. It was as if everything I’d ever seen had been through a thin veneer of fog and with one brutal stroke, the fog had been wiped away. The vines of ivy that wound around the archways were not green. They were a deep, otherworldly emerald that sparkled as the sun’s rays hit them. That sun… it was infinitely brighter than it had been a moment before. So bright that I tried to close my eyes against it. But I could not.

Because that would have meant tearing my eyes away from her. From the female inches away, her defiant chin trembling.

The realization hit me a fraction of a second later. I lunged forward—-

But in the next breath my mate erupted with power.

A flash of light as bright as the fire that had burned inside of me, wrapping around Veyka until she was consumed by it. Then just as suddenly, it disappeared. The light was gone.

And so was my mate.

THE END