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Chapter Twenty-Seven

Jasalyn

T IME DRAGS IN THE SHELTER. My mind won’t stop spinning, won’t stop imagining what could be happening to my friends. To Kendrick. But when the wyvern’s screeching finally ceases and someone throws open the shelter doors, less than an hour has passed.

“Jasalyn,” Kendrick calls.

I run up the stairs behind a few others and throw myself into his arms. He’s here. He’s alive. He’s okay.

He hugs me tightly for two beats before releasing me. His face is haggard, eyes red, but he’s whole. “I was afraid you were hit. I thought...”

“The others?” I ask. Then I realize there are dead bodies all around me, and I need to be more specific. “Remme, Skylar, Natan?”

“They’re okay,” he says. His eyes grow haunted. “I wish I could say as much for all Lons’s fighters. These people lost more than their homes today.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. “I wish I could’ve helped.”

I try to take in my surroundings, but everywhere I look is another horror. Half the village is in ashes.

“That wasn’t Crissa,” I say.

Kendrick’s jaw twitches. “No. That was a trap, and we fell right into it.”

“The Magical Seven?”

“I think so.” He drags a hand over his face. “They have to know we’re close to something. They’ve never bothered us outside of Elora. I didn’t think they’d know where to find us, but it was a targeted attack. It’s hard to imagine anyone else was responsible.”

“What about Isaak? Did he know he was bringing a wyvern into his home?”

Kendrick closes his eyes for a beat. “If he did, then he got his just end.” There’s no satisfaction in his words.

“He didn’t make it.”

He swallows hard, then shakes his head. “He was at home—where we sent him—and his was one of the first houses the wyvern hit.”

People slowly emerge from the cellar and look around wide-eyed.

“Find Lons in the square,” Kendrick announces as people pour onto the street from the cellar below. “He’s assigning temporary housing to everyone who lost their homes.”

He frowns, then seems to realize that people are staring at me, entranced when they should be looking to reunite with their loved ones. “You’re wearing the ring?”

I give a shaky nod. “I needed it. To help.” Then, with the most convincing smile I can muster, I say, “Go find your families and meet Lons in the square.”

He frowns. “Are you going to take it off?”

“It’s stuck,” I say. I tug again, testing it, but it still doesn’t move. Not even a little.

“What do you mean stuck ?”

My gut knots. I haven’t let myself think about it. I can’t.

“Come on. I’ll help.”

He leads me back to our house and into the kitchen. My hand trembles as Kendrick wets it with soapy water, but dread is icing over my heart. I spent the entire wait in that cellar trying to get the ring off my finger, and I know there’s nothing Kendrick can do.

When he takes hold of my shaking hands, his are steady. It’s a comfort—those rough fingers on my slippery ones—but I already know.

“How...?” He holds my hand up to the lantern, turning it this way and that, rubbing the edge of the ring. “It’s like it’s not a ring at all. It’s as if it’s part of you.”

We’re sitting in the kitchen when Natan, Remme, and Skylar return.

“We have a problem,” Kendrick says. He squeezes my hand as their eyes glaze over, one by one.

“Jasalyn,” Remme says, standing and stepping toward us.

Skylar jumps in front of him, eyes glued to me.

“How can I serve you, Princess?” Natan asks.

“Avert your damn eyes,” Kendrick commands, but they ignore him.

Kendrick’s authority means nothing so long as I’m wearing the ring.

I smile. “Please turn your attention to that wall,” I say softly. “We need to speak with you while you aren’t looking at me—so you can focus.”

Once their backs are to us, their shoulders drop, my spell loosening its grip on them.

“Jasalyn used the ring to help during the chaos of the attack,” Kendrick says, “and now it won’t come off.”

Natan turns toward us.

“The wall,” I remind him sweetly, and he fixes his face toward the wall again, hands clenched at his sides.

“What do you mean, won’t come off ?” he asks. “Have you tried getting it wet?”

“It’s as if it’s part of her,” Kendrick says. “The ring has become one with Jas, and she can’t rid herself of it.”

Skylar presses her palm against the wall and squeezes her eyes shut. “Which means I’m going to feel like this every time she’s around?” she asks.

Kendrick glances at me, then back to his friends. “Probably.”

“I just want to look. I want to please her, ” Remme says, shaking his head. “I promise I will be so good.”

“The longer you look away, the easier it gets,” Natan says, his fists uncurling.

“Why can Hale look at her?” Skylar asks.

I hold his gaze for a beat. “That’s a good question.”

“I don’t know,” he says softly, but something in his eyes tells me he’s lying or at least that he has his suspicions. Fienna.

Skylar’s shoulders rise and fall with a deep breath. “Okay. I think I’m better now. So we can’t look at her, and you’re unaffected by looking at her, but what do we do about the memory part?”

Kendrick squeezes my hand again. “As long as the magic doesn’t think we’ve parted ways, I don’t think I’ll lose my memories. And I’ll keep my journal updated for if we have to be apart.”

“And how are you going to make the magic think anything?” I ask.

He holds my gaze. “We stay tethered at all times. Especially when sleeping.”

Sleeping. Tethered to Kendrick. My stomach shimmies, then goes into a free fall of dread when I realize what will come in the morning. “What do we do about the daylight?” I ask.

“Right.” Kendrick flinches. “You’ll be weak all day. Will your strength come back at night?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never kept the ring on that long.”

“Lovely,” Skylar says.

Remme mutters a curse.

“We’re sure it will act the same when it’s permanently attached?” Natan asks.

“We’ll have to wait and see, I suppose,” Kendrick says. “If the daytime weakness holds true, we’ll figure out something to combat it.”

“We need to get that ring off,” Natan says.

“Agreed,” Kendrick says. “If it makes her that ill after a few hours of wearing it during the day, we don’t know what it’s going to do to her long term, but it can’t be good.”

“If it makes her too sick, we may need to cut off the finger,” Skylar says.

I flinch. Remme and Natan gasp in unison.

“To protect her ,” Skylar growls.

“Let’s save drastic measures until we know they’re necessary,” Kendrick says.

“We’ll take her home and find a mage who can destroy it.” Natan’s words are so matter-of-fact. Destroy the ring. I wait for the kicked-in-the-chest feeling, but it doesn’t come. I want to be free of this ring—the good and the bad.

“The sooner the better,” Skylar says. “I’ve been hot for chicks before, but this feeling is what the straight folks call a girl crush, and that makes me want to punch myself in the face.”

“Don’t do that,” I say.

“I won’t. I promise I won’t do anything that displeases you,” she says, eyes big and voice placating. Then she growls. “ Make it stop. ”

“Sleep first,” Kendrick says. “We’ll figure out the rest tomorrow.”

The room Kendrick and I planned to sleep in together has very different energy when we enter it this time, the ring on my finger, tomorrow so unsure.

“I would give you some privacy to change, but—”

“No, right. I know.” I look around the room. If I were Skylar, I’d probably just strip down to my undergarments in front of him. “Maybe just turn around?”

He faces the wall without another word, but my hands still shake as I change out of tonight’s dress and into the soft cotton sleeping shift. It’s off-white and sleeveless and hits me just above the knee. There’s nothing sexy about it.

“Okay,” I say, “I’m decent.” I busy myself folding my dress so I won’t have to meet his eyes.

I hear the soft clank of knives and shucking of fabric behind me, but don’t dare look. I wonder how he sleeps—on his side or his back? On one side of the bed or in the center? Will he sleep differently tonight for my sake?

I sense him approach behind me before feeling him sweep my hair over one shoulder. He trails his fingers over the sensitive skin at the nape of my neck. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to see if there’s anywhere that sonofabitch didn’t cut you.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. This morning’s glamour faded while we were in the kitchen waiting for our friends to return. “If you think these are ugly, you should see what he left in my head.”

He turns me slowly. His broad, strong chest is bare, and I can’t help but notice the tattooed line of characters over his heart. He tilts my chin up until I meet his eyes. “There’s nothing hideous about you. Inside and out, you are beautiful.”

I lick my lips. “That’s just the ring playing its tricks on you.”

“I don’t think so. You were the most beautiful creature I’ve ever met long before I saw you with the ring.”

“Creature?” I try to make the word sound like a joke but fail. Creature. Not human.

“Person. Human who will soon be fae.”

I hold his gaze. “Does that scare you?”

“Not as much as it scares you.”

I open my mouth to say more—to explain why it scares me, to tell him that if I could choose, I’d be human like him. But there’s nothing more to be said to that end until I’m ready to reveal what I traded for this ring. And I won’t make this day harder for him by sharing that now.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Mordeus. About the blood magic.” He steps toward me, closing the little distance left between us. “I couldn’t share my suspicions because I couldn’t risk losing you.”

“Because you need me to kill Erith.”

He opens his mouth and then closes it again before sweeping his knuckles over my cheek. “My reasons for wanting you alive and well have never been that singular.”

I can’t muster any of the anger I felt earlier. Maybe I should, but when I reach for it, it’s gone. I could’ve lost him tonight.

I glance toward the bed. It’s big enough for us both, but not by a lot. And just like that, the nervous butterflies are back.

He follows my gaze. “This isn’t how I imagined our first night together.”

I blink up at him and feel a smile tugging at my lips. “You imagined this?”

His eyes are dark and serious as they roam my face. “Thousands of times in the last week alone.”

My face is hot. “How was it different when you imagined it?”

“I could kiss you, for starters.” He flashes me a sad sort of smile, then grabs a towel from a small pile by the wash bin. Before I realize what he means to do, he’s torn it into three strips and is tying them together. “Wrist okay?” he asks, holding out his hand for mine.

I nod and watch as he ties us together, his movements gentle and almost ceremonial. It reminds me of a ritual from home, and I look away halfway through to keep the lump in my throat from surging into tears.

“Is it too tight?”

I shake my head. “It’s fine.”

He studies me for another beat, then nods. I walk around with him as he snuffs out the lanterns on the far side of the room, but when he reaches the one by the bed, he only lowers the flame.

“You don’t have to do that for me. I’m okay.” I’m supposed to be okay when I’m wearing the ring, but here I am fighting tears over some ripped fabric on my wrist. Turns out I’m not very numb at all.

“I don’t mind.” He nods to the bed, motioning for me to climb in first.

I do, positioning my free arm under my head, and he follows right after, letting our tethered hands rest between our bodies.

Our eyes meet in the low light from the lantern.

“Tell me what’s going on in that head of yours,” he says.

I drop my gaze to the soft linens. “I was just reminded of something from my old life, and I guess it made me homesick.” I flick my gaze up to his, then back down. “Brie and I didn’t have a lot of close friends in Elora, but the few we made were very good, and once this couple we were close to invited us to their handfasting ceremony. And I remember...” My eyes burn again. “It’s so stupid. It doesn’t even mean that much to me. I just remember thinking that someday I’d like to celebrate finding my match with that kind of ceremony. I hadn’t thought about it in years, and then suddenly...”

He threads his fingers with mine.

“So much for this stupid ring numbing my heart,” I say, sniffing. “I think its magic might be dying.”

“I’m glad for that. I like your heart.”

I drop my gaze to our hands. To the ring. To the fabric tethering us together.

“That’s an old tradition,” he says softly. “Handfasting used to be the mainstream ritual observed in marriage ceremonies in Elora, but it fell out of favor. I like hearing that there are people who still observe the tradition.”

“Was that something else that changed with the Magical Seven? Did they forbid it?”

“It wasn’t so much that,” he says, gaze still fixed on our bound hands. “It was that they came in and convinced the realm they needed to be saved from the fae, and the more the fae were demonized, the more their rituals were demonized.”

I prop myself up on my elbow. “Handfasting is a faerie ritual?”

He nods. “Elven, yes. Originally.”

“I didn’t know.” But it makes sense. It seems fitting.

He brings our bound hands to his lips and kisses my knuckles. When he lowers our hands back to the bed, his gaze is on my mouth.

“What are you thinking?” I ask.

He cups my jaw and presses his thumb to my bottom lip. “I’m thinking”—leaning forward, he skims the bridge of his nose over mine, his lips hovering so close I ache to taste him—“that these lips might be worth dying for.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“It’s painful how close to the truth it is,” he says, his breath feathering over my mouth. He shifts, trailing his lips down the side of my neck before bringing them to my ear. “I’ve never craved anything in my life as much as I crave your mouth.”

“It’s the ring,” I say, but I want to believe it’s not. “The magic draws you to me.”

“Then why did I want you like this before tonight?” He sucks my earlobe between his teeth, and pleasure shimmies down my spine. “The ring doesn’t make me blindly devoted to you. It doesn’t make me lose my thoughts and beg to do your bidding. And I don’t believe for a second it has anything to do with why I’m drawn to you.” His fingers trace up my back, grazing over each vertebra like he’s scanning for a secret message. “Maybe the rest of the magic wouldn’t work either. Maybe I could kiss you and survive.”

I squeeze my eyes shut hard—at the things his touch is doing to me, and at how much I want what he’s describing to be true. “Maybe it’s the forbidden that really appeals to you.”

“There have been countless pleasures forbidden to me in my life, but I never cared until you.” He inhales deeply, as if he’s trying to fill himself with me. “I felt such relief tonight. Such relief when I realized my queen hadn’t been found after all.”

“Kendrick...” But I don’t know what to say. That he should want Crissa to be found? That he should stop wanting me? I can’t. Not when I feel like my next breath hinges on his touch. Not when the idea of letting him go hurts so much.

“I’m not proud, but it’s true. I’ve been looking for her for three years, and tonight when I thought she’d been found, I felt nothing but dread. I need you, Jasalyn. And I don’t believe for a second the Mother would let me feel this way if I’m supposed to be with another.”

I slide my free hand behind his neck and lean my head against his chest, my breathing uneven.

As his fingers reach my waist, they slow their tour of my spine. He traces a line around to follow the curve of my hip. Burying his nose in my hair, he breathes in deeply. “Your scent haunts me. But not at much as your kiss does.” He inches up the thin fabric and slips his hand beneath it, gently tracing up my side with rough fingertips.

I shudder softly and let my fingers tangle in his hair. I bury my face in his neck and breathe him in, too afraid that if I meet his eyes and see the longing there, we might both lose the tentative grip we have on our self-control.

He sweeps my hair to the side and trails hot, open-mouthed kisses down my neck. I tilt my head to give him better access, and he follows the path to my shoulder, slipping the strap of my sleeping gown down my arms to expose more skin to his mouth.

Lips and teeth and lust.

I can’t think. Can’t remember what I’m supposed to be doing and why I’m supposed to pull away. I don’t care that he’s been promised to another. I don’t care about anything but promising myself to him.

Kendrick pulls back and follows the hot path left by his mouth with his hand. His gaze darkens, locked on his fingers on my skin. When his rough fingers brush the swell of my breast, I gasp—from the heat that floods my belly and the matching heat I see in his eyes.

His gaze holds mine as he continues his journey down the front of my body. He searches my face as he slides his hand between my legs.

All the heat in my belly seems to follow him there. I gasp—because he’s barely moving his hand, but it’s so good, and I never thought to imagine anything like this.

His eyes go dark, but they stay locked on mine as he touches me, rough hands moving with more tenderness than I would’ve thought possible.

When my back arches and my body winds too tight, his breath hitches, and he shifts his body closer. “So beautiful,” he murmurs, and for a moment the whole world seems to fall away. There is no queen. There is no ring. There are no scars. There is no carelessly sacrificed future. There is nothing but Kendrick and me and this moment.

I catch my breath, clinging to his arm, pulling as close as I can. “Is that what you imagined?”

“A very small preview.” He sweeps his lips along my neck again. “Sleep, Princess. The sun will rise again tomorrow.”

I close my eyes and think of Fienna’s sailor. I think of how good this moment is—despite everything—and how I don’t want it to end. And I think of how badly I wish I’d never gotten this ring, never traded my future for something I didn’t understand.