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“I can teach you,” I said, stepping closer.

I wanted to grab her off the edge. I could feel the torment, the pain inside of her. Another side effect of the bond. What I’d only guessed at in the months before our Joining… now it was real for me, as well. I couldn’t feel her emotions, exactly. But there was a sense of her through the bond—always. When I slept, ate, sparred, even when I shifted. I could feel Veyka’s presence, sense her wellbeing and her nearness.

The bond had demanded I find her tonight. She was too far away, the ache in my chest becoming almost painful. But that wasn’t the only reason. I would have found her anywhere. I always would.

I laid a hand on her shoulder, ready for her to jerk away. Ready to catch her if she lost her balance on the ledge.

But to my surprise, she tipped her head to the side and pressed her cheek to the back of my hand instead.

It took every bit of restraint to hold myself back.

To treasure that little bit she gave me and know not to ask for more.

Once, months ago, I would have taken and worried about the consequences later.

But now… every touch between us felt important. A reminder of the bond, a way to satisfy it.

The way she’d recoiled when she found out about the mating bond… it hurt more than any wound I’d ever sustained on the battlefield.

So, I let my hand stay there on her shoulder, warming her cold skin with my rough hand. She wasn’t a small female, but still my palm swallowed her shoulder.

“You’re freezing,” I said, realizing just how cold her skin was.

Veyka didn’t move. “I needed to get out. This was the best I could do.”

She needed to be free. When the darkest moments came, she needed to be free of the walls of the goldstone palace. Except now she couldn’t; now, she was trapped once again.

Trapped by a power none of us understood.

Just like she’d spent twenty years of her life trapped because of her lack of power.

I didn’t know what to do, how to comfort her. If I took her in my arms, we’d likely be overtaken by desire, the bond responding to our closeness. From what Cyara had told me outside of Veyka’s earshot, her father had read that overwhelming lust was common in newly mated pairs.

I wanted Veyka with every breath, every beat of my heart. But that wasn’t what she needed now.

Words… I’d never been good with those. I was a male of action. I was good at issuing orders and having them obeyed. Not untangling a lifetime’s worth of trauma.

But I could share a bit of mine. Like I’d done in the water gardens.

“When you disappeared, I lost control.”

Veyka’s shoulder blades slid closer together, but she didn’t speak.

“I knew the instant your blood entered my veins… what we were. My beast knew it too. Then you were gone.” I had to stop, the words choking the air from my throat.

But Veyka turned her head. Just a few inches to the side, so I could see her profile in the moonlight. Her hair fell down off her shoulders, over her back, loose. Whether it had come undone during her flight up to the tower, or if she’d yanked it free of the plait that Cyara had intricately braided during the day…

I let myself step closer and inhale her scent. I needed it, to get the rest of the words out.

Plum and primrose. Perfection.

“You disappeared, and I lost control. I couldn’t think. All I could do was feel—rage, fear. I shifted. And then I ripped the heads off of every courtier who stood within twenty feet of me. Elemental and terrestrial alike.”

Veyka’s eyes snapped to mine. She moved so fast, I reached for her without thinking, to brace her from falling off the edge. But she was graceful. Always so fucking graceful and quick.

I knew what I’d see in her eyes. The scorn, the pity.

I’d lost control so many times in those early decades.