Page 25 of Golden Bond (Pleasure Palace #1)

Chapter

Fourteen

CALLIS

T he ship groaned beneath my feet, timbers flexing with each pull of the wind.

The sailcloths, thick and sand-colored, billowed and snapped like the wings of great birds.

Ropes creaked. The crew moved with practiced ease across the deck, their murmurs carried off by the sea breeze before they ever reached me.

I stood alone at the aft rail.

The dock was long out of sight. The cliffs had narrowed to specks, then faded into mist. Now the island itself—the orchards, the temples, the pale stone corridors where I had kissed Auren in silence—was just a faint shadow, growing smaller with every breath I took.

Eletheria was vanishing.

My hands tightened around the rail until the bones in my fingers ached. I was cold, despite the sun, despite the layers of fine garment Auren had wrapped me in that morning. The wind off the waves sliced through everything.

It smelled of salt and memory.

I did not wave. I had not looked back when the gangplank was raised.

I had walked the deck as instructed, as a proper bonded man returned to his place.

Quiet. Composed. Fortunate. The other passengers on board—mostly merchants and clergy making their way between the islands—had offered small nods and polite distance.

One man had even congratulated me on my return.

I had smiled.

A false, stitched smile.

And now I watched the world behind me shrink to nothing.

There were books in the hold below. Crates of scrolls, marked with Auren’s seal.

A gift, he had said. A gift for the little temple that raised me.

For the acolytes with oil-streaked fingers who had never seen the golden script of the Old Cycle.

For the records keeper with his limp and warm voice.

For the shrine with no altar, only stone shelves and driftwood incense burners.

For the cot that had held my body for years—narrow, sun-bleached, home.

That temple was waiting for me.

They would smile when I arrived. They would welcome me back.

I would take up my duties again, as if I’d never left.

I would tell them what I had learned, share what I had seen.

I would teach them the new rites. I would wake before dawn, sweep the halls, and tend the sick.

I would touch the old scrolls with reverent hands.

I would speak softly in the evenings and write carefully by lamplight and maybe, just maybe, one day I would rise to something higher.

But none of that was today.

Today, I was half a man.

I turned from the wind, legs stiff with chill, and made my way down the steps to the lower deck. Lanterns swayed gently in their sconces. The scent of wax and salt hung in the narrow corridor. My cabin door shut behind me with a muted thud.

It was small. Barely wide enough for a bed and trunk. But clean and warm. The books—his books—rested against the wall, wrapped in linen. I sat on the edge of the cot, staring at them.

And then I folded forward, elbows to knees, and let the sob rise.

Not a cry of anger. Not pain. Just… loss. A loss too full for words, too old to name. My chest cracked open beneath the weight of it. My hands dug into my scalp. And still I wept, soundless and shuddering, like a boy grieving the only good life he had ever known.

And through it—through the hollow ringing ache—I felt him.

A flicker. A breath that was not mine. A thought that hovered just behind my own.

Not words. Not quite. Not like speech.

But presence.

He was with me. Not beside me, not before me. In me.

Auren.

I sat up slowly, heartbeat wild in my throat. I closed my eyes and reached for him—not with my hands, but with whatever it was the bond had made of me. I let it pour out of me. My grief. My gratitude. The ache that pulsed with every pull of the ship’s hull against the sea.

A whisper stirred at the edge of my mind. Not sound. Not even shape. But it was his.

I pushed one thought forward like a prayer: It hurts.

It hung in the dark. In silence.

And then—slowly, achingly, unmistakably—came the answer: Yes. It does. A pause. I lied.

The bond quivered.

Not like before. Not with lust, or longing, or even promise.

With pain. Shared. Borne between us like a weight neither of us could drop.

And then it began to fade.

The tether loosened. The warmth behind my ribs began to cool. A flicker, a silence. I gasped, like I’d been pulled from water.

He was leaving.

No—not leaving. Just… receding. The tide going out, taking part of me with it. That was how bonds ended. Not with a knife. With a slow unraveling.

The pain didn’t stop. But now, it was mine alone.

His presence had receded like a wave that forgets the shore. One moment, I could still feel the shape of him in my chest—vague and distant, but there—and the next, he was gone. Not severed. Not torn away. Just… gone .

And I was left behind.

I sat there in the dim glow of the swinging lantern, listening to the wood groan and the sea slap the hull. The sway of the ship was gentle, but relentless. Everything moved. Everything shifted, except the hollowness inside me. That stayed. That rooted.

I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes. I didn’t want to cry again. I was tired of crying. But the ache had no shape, and grief, when it filled you like this, had no rules.

Above me, I heard the distant sound of boots crossing the deck. A murmur of laughter. The clatter of something being hoisted. Life continued. The men had tasks. Purpose. Morning bread. Sea birds trailing behind the stern.

I had no such thing.

I stood slowly, joints aching from sitting so long on the cot, and crossed to the crates stacked in the corner of the cabin.

My palm skimmed the rough linen bindings, the wax seals, the soft bulge of scrolls packed in hay.

I reached for one—just to touch something he’d touched—but I didn’t open it.

I wasn’t ready to see what he had chosen to gift me. Not yet.

I crouched and ran my fingers along the floorboards behind the nearest stack. The lantern cast low shadows, and I blinked against their blur.

And then I saw it.

Tucked behind the crates, almost hidden, sat a smaller chest. A polished box of darkwood, no larger than a folded tunic. Its corners were bound in brass, and a length of silk ribbon, pale gold, had been tied once around the middle and knotted carefully at the top.

My heart kicked.

This was the one.

The parting gift he’d given me, which I had left here when I settled in. The one he’d told me to open only once the island was truly behind me.

I reached out—but stopped.

For a moment, I just stared at it. Afraid. Foolishly afraid that opening it would make everything real. That whatever lay inside would be the period at the end of us.

I sat cross-legged on the floor, the wood rough beneath me, the box resting in my lap like something sacred. My fingers trembled as I untied the ribbon. It slid loose with a whisper. The lid creaked when I opened it.

Inside, resting on a bed of folded linen, was a pendant.

Gold. Solid. Shaped like a sunburst, its rays etched in spirals and whorls that caught the dim light like a live flame.

It was beautiful.

It was… too much.

I touched it reverently, then lifted it free. It had weight to it. Not heavy, but present. The kind of weight meant to be felt when worn. The chain slipped through my fingers like water.

I stared at it for a long time. And then the tears came back. Not sharp, not heaving—just a slow, hot spill down my cheeks. Because it wasn’t what I wanted .

Not because it lacked value, or thought, or meaning.

But because it didn’t hold his hands.

Didn’t carry the sound of his breath in the morning, or the smell of mint crushed beneath his heel in the garden paths.

It didn’t remember the feel of his mouth on mine.

It wasn’t him.

It glittered in the lamplight—perfect, eternal—and I sat there like a boy who’d been handed a crown when all he wanted was a kiss.

I curled around it, knees drawn to my chest, pendant still clutched in my hands.

And I wept again.

Not for the gold. But for all the gifts I could no longer hold.

For the skin I’d kissed. The eyes I’d watched fall closed. The voice that had once said my name like a prayer.

I wept because the bond had ended, and because it hadn’t.

Because it still pulsed faintly somewhere in me, like a song just beyond hearing.

And because, even now, it refused to let go.