Page 15 of Bound in Violet Ink

My mind is blank.

When my eyes open, I’m completely unaware as to where I am. This isn’t the typical room I wake up in, nor does it smell like me— him . Is it a letter? Did I sleep with it under my pillow?

The recollection of the Carrows returns, but it’s such a bizarre suggestion I’m still convinced I dreamed it. There had been Kane…

Sitting up in a bed that is most definitely not my own, I eye the worn quilt with furrowed brows.

Licking dry lips, I search for water—I nearly jump out of my skin, my heart profusely beating, when I see he’s sitting near me, in a chair, with no shirt on.

We stare at each other for a while, the dim lighting creating a confusing intimacy, at least for me, as I don’t often have people in my bedroom at this hour. “What happened?” I croak, my voice dry.

He nods to the table next to me, where a massive water bladder teases me as I greedily uncork and down it. There’s nothing ladylike in my approach, and when I’m done, I don’t bother apologizing for such crass behavior.

If my memory is reliable at all, he knocked me out.

In all my years of observing the masks that people wear, and how those can slip in the slightest ways when someone finally feels alone, I can tell Kane has a mask that has slipped. To the average observer, his expression is still stolid. But not his eyes, that’s always the first to slip.

It reminds me exactly of the times when my adoptive siblings would shut the door, and then their eyes would come to life with the true person inside.

“Care to answer me?” I ask, completely tossing my own mask. “What happened?”

“You were given a sedative,” he smoothly replies.

My first reaction disappoints me. I’m not even mad, or surprised. Silas has used things like this on me many times, and I’m used to it as a form of communication. But how deranged is that? That this is okay to me? “Silas did that to me many times, you know.”

His eyes flare, and dare I say something personal crosses his face with the way he juts his jaw forward slightly. “Were you hurt during those times?” he slowly asks.

“Not that I know of.” It’s so quiet in here that my voice almost sounds funny.“I’m just saying this feels exactly like home .”

His eyes flare even more, adjusting slightly in his chair, reminding me of how broad his body is. “It will never be like that.”

“Yes, because sedating me is such a romantic gesture,” I quip, looking out the window next to me to see where I am. I’m trying my damndest to completely ignore the intoxicating scent of Kane, or the way his voice is like pouring honeyed wine into my ears.

“That was the least of my concerns. The scenes that followed were shocking and I didn’t want you to see that. Carrying you off had the added benefit that kept others away.”

“And why’s that?” I ask, only seeing a dirt pathway and some trees outside this window.

“I don’t think I’ve ever carried someone like that in front of my people.”

I toss the quilt off, the coarse wool falling into a heap beside me as if shedding a second skin.

That guzzle of water seems to have given me new life.

“I’m not to be used like how that castle used me,” I snap, swinging my legs over the edge as my feet meet the cold, wooden floor.

“I’m not to be used at all .” I glare up at him.

If he expected me pliant, he’s about ten years too late.

“I want to leave. Right now. I already know exactly where I want to go to get as far away from these court politics as possible.”

He studies me with something that borders on amusement. “No.”He inhales through his nose, his shoulders rising with the action as he shrugs. “Or fine, go ahead. You’ll find that I follow you.”

Perhaps years with Silas have been good for me, teaching me how to live under pressure. How to breathe within it. So I don’t get angry. I don’t even scowl. I just think . “Where are we?” I ask, needing the lay of the land.

My impassive attitude does not speak for my motives.

I simply am aware that being a hot head is not the best way to lead in a conversation, nor to assess.

I search around this space with my gaze, examining the typical stonework, a hearth with old ash, fading rugs, heavy beams, and a table coated with dust.

“An Unseelie Lord has granted us into his piers, and we are currently in an unoccupied dwelling.”

“Why is it unoccupied?”

“The family relocated.”

My gaze flits back to him, my body stiffening when I’m firmly reminded he is definitely still in this room. “Where to?”

His lips spread into a crooked grin—his presence is just as distracting as his letters. “They relocated to my lands, seeing as how he owes fealty to me. There are quite a lot of people coming to me right now, even while I was in the Carrows.”

And just like that, the metaphorical wings of mine that Silas believes he clipped are spread wide by Kane. One thing is probably certain—I don’t think I’m going back to that castle. “Why are you in here with me?” I ask, looking him over. No weapons. He has a belt but no holsters.

“You know why.”

That sends the most unpleasantly wonderful chills down my spine, the burning desire from when we exchanged letters nearly scalding hot.

“At some point, you have to leave,” I say, trying to figure out how I get a chance alone.

Silas could keep an eye on me because I was in his castle .

But here? There’s a chance to flee. A chance to disappear among the trees.

I’m so close to the woods, it’s almost mocking me.

Kane’s fingers wrap around the armrest of his chair, gripping it as he rises.

I have been alone for far too long, because the image of his veined hands and arms flexing should never, under any circumstances, be this tantalizing.

It’s as if the things I feel never even bother passing through my brain. They merely exist .

The bastard even takes a step near me, and I scoot back onto the bed, propped on my knees so I can spring away if necessary.

Silvery eyes bore into mine as he tucks his chin down to look at me.

“It has not gone unnoticed that you are currently completely unclaimed and outside Silas’s purview. It is already an issue.”

The animal within purrs at the idea of him staking a claim, which furthers my belief that something is wrong with me. That scent—that damn smell—makes it worse. “I do not have to be claimed,” I say, shocked at how wrong that statement feels.

He tilts his head. “Unfortunately for your sense of freedom, you do. You are the way into Silas’s perceived protection. Unless you have an army hiding in the woods to defend you, you need to use someone else’s.”

I know exactly what he means, as I’ve considered it so many times. I’m painfully aware that without another castle to hide within, Silas will come for me. “I didn’t ask for any of this,” I grind out, slightly baring my teeth. “How am I supposed to know what’s the best decision to make?”

He quirks a brow. “You’re in luck that your mate happens to have an army.”

Oh, I don’t like what those words do for me. I rise to my feet on the bed, just barely avoiding touching the ceiling with my head, looking down at him now. “You’re so certain of this declaration.”

“Oh yes , because we are,” he replies, almost as if he finds this humorous. “And yes , we will make that bond solid. You will then hide behind my army.”

“Either you’re an idiot or naive, because a mating bond requires consent ,” I quip, wanting to scratch his face. Then bathe my skin in his musk and bite his neck— no! My gaze flits up to the door…

“I can be persuasive,” he says with even a hint of play.

Glaring back into those eyes that confuse the shit out of me, I ask, “Why are you doing this to me?”

“ I can’t even protect you among my people, little flower,” he calmly replies, perhaps even gently.

“Not unless you are bound to me, and I bound to you. But that clearly cannot happen in such a short time, and you also cannot leave this house until there’s no doubt what you are going to mean to me.

You’re very familiar with court politics, which means you understand why this is a pressing matter. ”

Mean to him . It suggests a sense of caring. Like a spindle turning ferociously, my mind spins the possibility of a life where he is my mate and is bound through fate to actually take care of me. Love me. Defend me. Honor me.

And as I stare down at the man that somewhere inside of me knows he’s my mate, I’m met with paralysis.

He seems to have cleaned off some of the grime from the Carrows, but the wound is still fresh on his stomach.

He hasn’t even been free for an entire day and is already planning on bonding with me.

“How can we be mates—” I breathe out, struggling to get the remainder out.

Saying it aloud shatters the foundation I’ve built my identity on.

If he’s Unseelie, and we are mates… my hand mindlessly rises to the back of my neck, the birthmark existing as long as I can remember. The answer is so obvious and brings so much understanding to my life that I cannot deny it further.

Am I… Unseelie?

Kane doesn’t move toward me, or reach out.

He just stares with what feels like an invasion into my soul.

“When we had our very brief encounter, I’ve never been so affected by another’s scent.

Nor has someone maintained my rapt attention like you have.

It didn’t take long to piece it together, but I didn’t understand how a Seelie could be fated to an Unseelie.

With whatever turn of the fates, the Carrows held the answers, and I researched all I could and learned of the binding tattoos.