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He’d come up tocomforther. How had he become the bad guy?

“Look…” Skye dragged his hands over his face. “It’s– That is– We’re bonded!”

Fuck it.

“You’re my bondmate, and I’m yours, and that’s why I didn’t want you to think— that is, I thought it was important for you to know before we…”

A vague, helpless gesture.

“It’s not that I didn’t want to. I did. Ido. It’s just…” He looked at her, defeated. “We’re bonded,” he ended lamely.

In his head, he saw that going differently. There was supposed to be a speech. Maybe candles. Some kind of food offering.

Taly didn’t say a word, just stared at him, wide-eyed and unmoving.

The silence stretched. Was she angry? Disgusted? Had he completely ruined everything?

“After you left Ebondrift,” he explained, because obviously,morewords were a good idea right now, “I started having these dreams.Yourdreams. It’s how I knew you were still alive.”

Taly crossed her arms over her body. “You were in my dreams,” she said, voice too quiet.

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t think to mention this sooner?”

“I was trying to—”

“Did you do it on purpose?”

“What? No, I—”

“Because that seems like a gross breach of my privacy, Skye.”

“Taly, if you would just let me explain—”

“Not to mention mytrust.”

“Oh, and you’re one to talk about trust!” The words snapped out before he could stop them.

Taly’s brows shot up.

“I’m sorry,” he added quickly. He took a deep breath to steady himself. Women didn’t typically like to be chastised, and the rest of his forever was sort of hinging on this moment. “You did hear the part where I said we were bonded, right? You see, with the Fey, their souls can reach—”

“I know what a soul bond is, Skylen.”

This was not going well.

“I’m not explaining it right.” He paced a short, tight circle. He was supposed to be smooth, charming, irresistible. Instead, he felt like a tongue-tied idiot. “Look, Tink, I… I had a plan to tell you about all of… this. It was agoodplan—anokayplan. I was still working out the kinks.”

He exhaled sharply, somewhere between a growl and a curse. “Please, if we could just—”

A sob burst from her, and Taly clapped a hand to her mouth.

No, not a sob—alaugh.

Her eyes finally flicked to his, bright and shining.

Great. Now, she was laughing at him. And there must’ve been something in his expression—pure bewilderment—because she took one look at his face and laughed harder.