Page 24 of Of Blood and Banes (The Arterian #2)

brEAKING BINDS

“ C ole…I need to tell you something,” I whisper. Shaking my head furiously, I run a hand through my hair. It doesn’t sound right. “Cole?—”

I sigh, sagging to sit on my bed as I stare at my boots.

Every practiced attempt at telling Cole of my night with Darian freezes me, my tongue refusing to move.

Gods, this must be how it felt for him trying to tell me about Celeste.

Even if I shouldn’t feel as guilty as I do, the emotion still gnaws inside my chest. Especially after last night…

whatever it was. I’ve been running it over in my mind, remembering his touch.

His kiss…I brush my fingers longingly across my lips.

A knock sounds at my door, and my blood rushes from my face into my chest. Each step across Cyrus’s old room to the door feels slow. I pull it open, and Cole is glancing over his shoulder down the street.

He turns to me. “Melaina took Darian from me and told me you sent her so I could speak to you in private.”

I motion him into the room and shut the door behind him.

I take a shaky breath, my hand resting on the wooden door as I linger in the still moment.

As I turn to face him, he’s unbuckling his belt and pulling the journal out from the space between his right hip and bottom of his ribs.

He holds the little black book out to me, and I take it as he fastens his belt.

Averting my attention down to the book, I rub a thumb over the title ‘Breaking Magical Binds,’ before I flip it open to the first page.

By Leland Blackwind.

I flick up a look at Cole. “My father wrote this.”

He walks until he’s a step away from me and cranes his neck. “All the more reason to believe it, then?”

I flip through the next few pages, detailing the history of dragons and dragon riders. Once I get past the information of the first dragon riders, I pause.

What has been gathered from the Book of Magic is that most magical binds and pacts can be broken through various ways. The first is the most simple—through the Blood and Bone rings. These rings source the purest form of magic, and so they can break the strongest of bonds.

The second way is through a series of rituals, mostly performed by using dragonblood and the ancient language.

Though, much of the ancient language—the language of the Gods—has been long forgotten.

What translations we still know are limited and not nearly enough to break a bond that has surpassed the six-month mark.

The only way to potentially break a longer pact would be if both parties are in mutual agreement of it, and the ritual is held during a celestial event.

Celestial events cause surges in the ley lines, which can enhance the magical potency of dragonblood.

“Why else would Sethan have this? Does it not give you a reason to believe he might be trying to find a way out of your blood pact in the event it doesn’t serve him?” Cole murmurs.

I flip to the next page, only to find foreign characters scrawled onto it. “I don’t know…but look at this. Do you think this is the Gods’ language?”

Cole tilts his head and leans closer to me, his forehead nearly brushing mine. “I’m not sure. It doesn’t look familiar to me.”

After flipping through the rest of the book to ensure we haven’t missed anything else, I return to the last decipherable page about breaking binds.

I underline the first paragraph with my finger. “The easiest, simplest way is through using the Blood and Bone Ring. Which means, if anyone’s breaking anything, I have the upper hand.” As a reminder, I wiggle my gloved fingers.

“Who’s to say he hasn’t broken anything already? Do you think you would have felt something? Especially since he caught us…”

He trails off, and I look up from the book at him. Kissing. Caught us kissing, after curfew. My heart leaps in my chest, heat rising to my cheeks. I close the journal as he locks me into his warm honey eyes.

My voice is light. “No…I…I suppose I haven’t felt anything different…”

The rest of the room darkens around us, and I swear the lightest thing in the room is him.

His heavy eyes fall to my lips, and he hesitantly brushes my hair off my shoulder to my back.

He shouldn’t be touching me like this. And I shouldn’t be letting him.

We’re creeping back to the deadly edge we aren’t supposed to be leaping off.

“You felt…nothing?” he breathes.

We aren’t speaking of the pacts anymore. I swallow against the tension collecting in my chest as his fingers skate too lightly against my skin. His touch ghosts against my lower back, his eyes searching mine for an answer to a secret prayer.

“Tell me it doesn’t haunt you, too. Tell me you felt nothing,” he pleads. “Tell me anything, just…let me in.”

“I…” Won’t…or can’t? A thin line separates the two words, and I’m not sure where I lie. But the truth is, I can’t deny how much I’ve dreamed of his lips on mine again…how right it feels. Even if all the circumstances point to it being wrong.

His jaw clenches, tension drawing into his eyebrows like a bow strung tight. He knows I can’t deny it. I don’t even have to say it. Something inexplicable draws us together with a magnetic force that’s close to impossible to deny or fight.

He closes his eyes as he leans his forehead to mine. “Please, Katerina Blackwind. Please tell me to stop.”

“I can’t…” I breathe finally. I skate a hand from the top of his shoulder down to his elbow, my breath catching in my throat at how badly I want to kiss him again.

Now we’re just playing a game of who’ll be the first to break this physical barrier we’ve tried so hard to build between us.

Each of us lean in a little bit further, succumbing to the longing.

Our noses brush, sharing a heated gasp of breath.

“I love you,” he reminds me in a whisper as he cups my cheek with one hand, his forehead rests against mine.

As my eyes drag almost completely closed, I rip myself back before I can be enveloped in him.

Shock, disappointment, and longing pain flashes across his features. “What’s wrong?”

Uncertain I’ll be able to look him in the eyes, I tear my gaze away and stare at his muddied boots, toe-to-toe with mine.

His hand slides from cupping my cheek to my chin, tilting my head up gently to look at him again.

Warm, golden eyes stare at me, picking at every weak strand of my self-composure.

“Hey,” he says softly. “If…if you don’t love me anymore…if you don’t want me…just say it.”

I bite into my lip as I shake my head. “That’s not it. But there’s something you should know…and I need you to sit down.”

Worry flashes in his eyes, his breathing picking up speed. Stiffly, he backs away and takes a seat on the edge of my bed. “Okay…?”

I’m still rooted to the spot I stand. “I don’t know how else to say this…but I’m going to try anyway. Remember the night I found out about your engagement to Celeste?”

Darkness sweeps over his features, his eyes lowering as he recalls. He swallows thickly. “Yes. I remember.”

“There was something else that happened that night.”

His eyes snap up to me.

The words spill from my mouth like a hot liquid I can no longer contain.

“It’s been eating at me ever since. And I don’t know what we are anymore, but I still feel obligated to tell you out of respect for what we once were.

I almost left for the Dragon Lands myself that night, but as I was leaving, Darian caught me.

And the only way I could think of to keep him from seeing Daeja was to kiss him. ”

Sucking in a shaky inhale, he clenches his jaw like he just got punched in the gut. He nods, his voice tight. “Alright. I can’t say it feels good to know you kissed him but?—”

“That’s not all,” I murmur in defeat.

His mouth parts. His realization doesn’t have to be spoken with how stricken he looks.

As if I reared back and knocked my fist straight into his strong jaw.

And when I don’t speak further—when I don’t even try to fight the lingering silence between us—understanding floods in, drowning out every bit of his expression into something agonizing.

He jolts to his feet, turning his back to me and facing the wall. “You didn’t,” he breathes.

“Cole, I?—”

“I thought he looked at you the way he did because he’s a…” He shakes his head, hiding his face from my view. He runs his hands through his hair, gripping at the back of his skull as he breathes through his lips.

I pace toward him, gingerly touching his shoulder. “I hadn’t meant?—”

He spins out of my touch, his auburn hair sweeping down in front of his eyes as he keeps his head down, his gaze trained on his boots. His voice comes out weak. “Stop.”

We both stand frozen in place, my hand still outstretched before I lower it. My heart shatters as I witness first-hand the tidal wave of pain crashing over him.

I whisper, “It was just sex, you can’t be jealous?—”

“I’m not jealous,” he rasps, clenching his hands into fists. “I’m…I’m broken.”

He turns to leave.

My breath tightens in my chest, and tears collect at the corners of my eyes. Fuck, this is so much more painful than I’d ever realized it would be. To know I held his heart in my hands—that he had given so willingly, time and time again, and crushing it like glass. Broken beyond repair.

It cuts me, too.

I grab his forearm as he passes me, and he glances at my hand, still avoiding any eye contact. He watches the way my fingers wrap around him, desperate and pleading.

I shake my head. “Wait, please…it meant nothing to me.”

His lips part before tightening into a line. Squeezing his eyes shut, he shakes his head. “But it meant something to me.” He slips out of my grasp and leaves.