Page 77 of Princess of Bael

I’d avoided our connection for so long that I wasn’t sure I could find it.

Except, I’d sensed it during our kiss the other day. It had resembled a brand against my body, my spirit, mymind, one that had left me intoxicated and overwhelmed at the same time.

My heart skipped a beat as I tried to find that sensation again, to recall how it’d made me feel beyond the obvious heat simmering in my veins. I needed to locate the heart of it, the soul-bond mating us for eternity.

The very bond I long to break, I thought, swallowing thickly.But I only want to break it on my terms.Not anyone else’s. Just mine.

“You’re mine to kill,” I whispered to him, my eyes falling closed. “I refuse to let this be our end, Ezra. It’s not time yet.”

You didn’t suffer nearly enough, I added inside my mind.

But that wasn’t exactly true.

He’d suffered a great deal.

However, with each passing second, I began to understand how muchIwould suffer from his death. My soul already throbbed in agony, feeling as though a hot blade had sliced me apart from the inside out. And the hot embers now lingered behind to suck all the energy from my veins in the knife’s cutting wake.

I clenched my jaw, forcing myself to concentrate, to locate the link…

Only to realize that I already had a hold on our connection.

Thatwas the source of my pain. His death. His soul crying out for mine. It begged me to follow his pleas, to dive into the pulsing anguish, to embrace it.

To embrace him.

I pressed my palms to his cheeks, my forehead meeting his on impulse.

Yaz said something about a Portal Dweller, but it was too late for that. I couldn’t use one now. Ezra was the key. I needed the remainder of his energy to whisk us to safety, to take us to the only plane that could possibly heal him.

Show me, I whispered.Show me how to save you.

Nothing happened.

No words.

No guidance.

The only thing I sensed was his weakening pulse and slowing breaths.

So I pushed harder, forcing myself to go deeper into our bond, to find the core of our beings and engage him on a spiritual plane of existence. It was dangerous, dark, and deceptive. A place I’d never wanted to go. A forbidden connection between our souls that shouldn’t exist.

But we’d forged it in blood.

Strengthened it through our kiss the other day.And my bite, I marveled, feeling the potency of our link spring to life between us.

It was a beacon of fading energy, blinking in and out, whispering at me to take another step. Begging me to creep closer. Urging me to stroke the magic blistering between us, to take what was rightfully mine.

A connection I shouldn’t desire.

A mate I despised.

A future…I craved.

My heart thumped wildly in my chest, my breathing harsh as I explored the depths of our connection. My Archdemon ancestry coupled with his ancient Archangel bloodline should allow me to find a way to ascend to Heaven.

But the potency of our link overwhelmed me, taking me even deeper into our bond, distorting the reality around us.

I swallowed, my sense of time and space falling into a dark obsidian.