Page 16

CALY

I could feel him. I could feel Eli.” I had run to the dungeon knowing Mendax had planned on training his new commander and would be there. At the sight of me, I saw Mendax’s face stiffen in alarm.

“I’m okay,” I said as soon as I saw him.

One of the guards rushed to meet me at the bottom of the stairs, attempting to help. “Stop,” Mendax commanded in a low growl. “Take a single tread closer to her and you will be left to decompose in the nearest cell.”

“Calm down. He was just trying to help.” I nodded my thanks to the guard as I ran past him. Thankfully he had been a part of Mendax’s army for long enough to have listened to his warning knowing that he was quite serious.

Every time I came to the dungeons of the Unseelie castle, I was struck with a weird sense of nostalgia.

So many things that had changed the course of my life had happened in these cells.

But it also had a tendency to bring about other feelings—much less empowering feelings that generally involved my overthinking or thinking about Walter.

Aside from Eli, Walter was the first person who had tried to help me—something I’d never experienced before.

He changed the course of my life in so many ways and I never got to thank him for it.

So many people had died who shouldn’t have.

I ran toward my husband. It still felt funny to call him that.

Granted, it had only been a few months, but it also felt solid and positive—two things I never thought I would live to experience.

We had our marriage ceremony a few weeks after our return from Moirai.

Mendax had wanted to do it immediately, but I had been so devastated after losing Eli that I could barely function for a while.

Right after the wedding ceremony, I found out I was pregnant when the vampire moths kept appearing and following me.

It took me a few more weeks to come to terms with that realization.

I had never wanted children nor a husband.

I thought about revenge and making my mom and sister proud—it had consumed me.

When Eli died, he said that he wanted me to live the life I never got to.

At the time, his words hadn’t even made sense to me…

until we found out about the baby. That’s when I began to realize all of the things I hadn’t thought about because I hadn’t planned on being alive after I killed my father.

There was an entire world at my fingertips I’d never even considered.

Every day I experienced something different and unique with an appreciation I could have never had if it were not for Eli.

“What are you doing here? What do you mean you could feel Eli?” Mendax’s blue eyes darted over my face, searching for answers in a mix of concern and rage. His eyes shot to his new commander, and he let out a wisp of smoke in warning.

I was trying my best to be patient with his overbearing protectiveness since finding out about the baby, but if he didn’t chill out, I was going to lock him in a cell. Honestly, with these hormones and vomiting constantly, a little prison revenge didn’t sound half bad.

“I had a dream, and Adrianna and Eli were in it.” I couldn’t get the words out fast enough.

“Okay,” he said, beginning to relax.

“But I couldn’t see them—the others. I couldn’t see Adrianna, but I could feel her. Does that make sense?” I scrambled. Something flickered in his eyes and hope stirred in my belly.

The Unseelie king put his arm around me and guided me back up the stairs and out of the dungeon. “But you saw Aurelius?” he asked.

I stopped at the top of the stairs. “No. I couldn’t see him, but I spoke to him. It was like I could hear and feel everything he was hearing and feeling. Kind of like…” I trailed off, too afraid to give verbal hope to the thought. I didn’t want to feel disappointed.

He guided me into his old office, moving a box of books so I could sit on one of the chairs. I shook my head—I was far too excited to sit.

“You say you spoke to him in this dream?” he asked. “What did you say?” He sat in the other chair, crossed his legs, and put his fingers to his lips, looking sinister in his all-black attire. He was distractingly sexy.

“Well, I didn’t say anything. I screamed when I felt Adrianna. It was her, and she had power—lots and lots of power. I know what I felt,” I said before he tried to argue with me.

“Okay.” Mendax nodded, and I was instantly grateful that he didn’t try to convince me I hadn’t felt them or that I was being stupid. Suns, I loved him. “What did he say to you after you screamed?”

“Nothing. I couldn’t really hear everything though. It was like it was coming through someone else’s head first. But I know Eli heard me when I screamed! I heard him say my name,” I shouted as I paced the office.

“So what happened next?” he questioned as he bit his lip.

I stopped my pacing. “Well, nothing. I bolted out of bed and came to find you.”

“And what makes you so certain this wasn’t a vivid dream?

Have you felt either of them before?” he asked calmly.

“I know this wasn’t just a dream, or at least I think it wasn’t. I don’t dream anymore, not since I got Eli’s SunTamer powers anyway. ”

“Was it similar to how you and Eli communicated before, through the tie? I feel nothing abnormal with our bond, but I’m uncertain if that means anything,” he added.

“I don’t know. Eli and I never really talked through the tie, not like you and I do with the bond. Do you—do you think?” I leaped onto his lap, straddling him and tucking my feet into his sides. I was so filled with excitement and hope, I could hardly say the words out loud.

A muscle in his jaw feathered as he looked into my eyes.

He had been so amazing and kind to me after everything happened with Eli and it had meant the world to me.

I knew he hated that I thought about another man so much, but it also seemed like after everything Eli had done so Mendax and I could be together, Mendax had really seemed to look at Eli in a different light—or maybe Mendax was just relieved Eli was dead.

“We never saw them sever the tie. I had assumed the tie between us severed when he died, but what if…what if it didn’t?

What if the tie is still in place, Mendax?

You said the Fates were going to leave our bond in place if you went to Tartarus, so you could watch me.

What if Eli had a similar agreement with them? ” I said.

“Well, then what was the point in him dying? It’s against the Fates’ laws to be bonded and tied,” he said gently.

“Yes, but what if—oh, I don’t know. What if they forgot or something?” I said excitedly.

Mendax wrapped his arms around my sides. “The Fates forgot to sever the tie?” He scowled at my foolishness.

“Okay, fine. Maybe they didn’t forget, but maybe…” I couldn’t think of anything else. Disappointment began to dig at me. This was so stupid. It probably was just a dream. I slumped down. “I’m sorry I interrupted your training. I?—”

“Maybe they didn’t sever the tie because the tie with the Seelie royal shifter is to Artemi only, correct?” he asked.

I perked back up immediately. “The pendant. So what, could it be residual from our tie?”

“Well, you held that drop of Artemi power for decades before your father put it into the pendant along with your sister’s ashes.

Perhaps it’s linked to you until it goes to your sister?

It’s not that far-fetched to be honest,” he said as he grabbed my chin.

“You’re right!” I exclaimed happily. “The pendant!” I knew he was probably just saying all of this to make me happy, but it made sense. “So then why can’t I speak to him now?”

Eli! Eli! Hello? Can you hear me? I closed my eyes and tried as hard as I could.

“Are you trying now?” Mendax asked with a soft chuckle. “What are you saying? Are you talking about me? Tell him how quickly your body took my offerings and created a child. Congratulate him on being a part of a good conception in the caves.” His pale eyes glittered.

“Gross, I’m not telling him that.” I cringed at the thought of my body taking his “offerings.”

“Go on, then,” he whispered. One of his hands found its way between my legs as I straddled him. Like always, the second he touched me, my skin was on fire, only now that I was a SunTamer, it literally crackled like embers were under my skin wherever Mendax touched me.

“If it’s true and he can sense you through the tie, I wonder how often the poor lad must hear my name being called out?

” he whispered into my neck in his deep voice as I folded into him like putty.

I wondered if this would ever stop and my body would grow accustomed to his touch, if every breath from him on my flesh wouldn’t spark a lustful need. Somehow I didn’t think so.

“Stop it. Tell me what the bond is like from your side?” I giggled as I reached down and ran my hand over his hard shaft.

The truth was, we only used the bond to sense one another’s feelings; we didn’t really communicate through it anymore.

To be honest, I’m not even sure if we had spoken through it since I had received Eli’s powers.

Maybe it’s real and it’s not just dreams. Maybe it’s because I took his powers with the Artemi blade my father created for me.

Mendax’s eyes shot to mine in reaction to my using the bond .

“I don’t wish to discuss Eli anymore. And I command you to quit dreaming about him.”