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“What?”

She wasn’t sure she had heard what she thought she heard.

“You started the bonding ritual. We exchange blood, and it bonds us on a cellular level.”

She blinked and clung to him with the unwounded hand. “Can’t I just get some medical treatment?”

He sighed. “Does it feel like it is getting better?”

Fire was spreading through her in waves. “I am sure I will be fine.”

She gasped and held onto him, her nails gripping his shirt.

“I have intended this all along. I was hoping that things could move at your pace, but it seems that you have taken matters out of my hands.”

He supported her with one arm and focussed his attention on the crystal.

He grazed his fingertips along the edge of the crystal, and it parted his skin as easily as it had hers. He turned his hand to hers, and his wounds matched against her fingers.

She felt heat, but not the burning of earlier. They held their fingers together palm to palm, the wounds lining up on their hands.

“Daphne Harrow of Gaia, I take you.”

She blinked and remembered her late-night reading. “Apolan Leoraki of the Forest Folk of the Nine, I take you.”

The crystal sent streamers of light into the room, bringing Apolan’s face into bright relief. He was grinning a foolish, happy grin.

She didn’t have much time to admire his smile. His kiss met her lips with a passion and conviction that stunned her.

Being held against him sent her mind reeling. He wrapped one arm around her while his other hand slipped his fingers between hers. Her hand felt complete, no open wounds, no crystal cuts, nothing but his fingers with hers and the pulse of his palm against hers.

The light took on a softer ambiance. A romantic ambiance.

When Apolan raised his head, she gasped and leaned her head against his chest. Her heart was pounding, her skin was hot and her body was rapidly coming alive. She licked her lips. He tasted like wild berries and male.

Apolan released her hand and wrapped both his arms around her waist. He pressed a kiss on top of her head. “Hello, wife.”

She looked up and smiled. “Hello, husband. Does this mean I get a raise?”

He laughed, “You can get anything out of me you wish, but we will need to consummate our union within the week, or the pain you felt will begin to wrack us both. We are now two halves of a joined power, but until we actually join our bodies, the link is incomplete. It will begin to degrade without completion.”

“I suppose it is time to leave then.”

Daphne looked toward the exit, but it was gone. “What the hell?”

Apolan looked around and examined their environment. “Fascinating. It was said that the chamber confirmed all matches, but I was not aware that it was this determined.”

She looked around frantically. “That room wasn’t there earlier.”

He smiled, “Then the chamber must want us to enter it.”

Apolan kept hold of her hand, leading her into the new chamber. There was light, there was water and there was a bed made of thick moss, the white flowers interspersed throughout.

She got nervous at the sight of the bed. As much as she wanted to seal the deal with Apolan, it was still too soon.

Fully clothed, he tugged her onto the bed and wrapped his arms around her. “Rest for a bit, Daphne. The blood exchange will continue to move through our systems. When the chamber lets us out, I will wake you.”

Unsure of what to say, she turned her back to him and snuggled in his arms. The flowers crushed under their bodies gave off a scent that relaxed Daphne until she rested in the arms of her new husband.

Apolan watched Daphne succumb to the effects of the bride flowers. Her body was being rewritten on a cellular level, and it was bound to cause her some trouble.

With her eyes closed, he could finally free his delighted grin. He had thought it would take weeks to win her to his side, but he hadn’t counted on her link to her world.

Not only had his bride brought him to the one place that the Nine had been looking for for five years, but also she had done it innocent of its true purpose.

The power that the crystal had used bound them together. No matter where Daphne went, she would be able to track him and he her. Once they consummated their connection, their minds would join the linkage that their bodies were now working on.

The Forest Folk or People of the Trees were linked to the green and growing spaces in the universe, and it seemed to him that Daphne had already been headed down that path.

He sighed and tucked her close against him, the press of her curves delighting him. His third-generation Gaian trusted him enough to sleep in his arms. From the moment he had authorized Daphne as a server for the reception, he had been obsessed with her. The talent for hiding in plain sight that she exhibited was as much a part of her personality as it was a true psychic demonstration. She could not only shut her own body’s outward signals down, but she could reach into the minds of those she was avoiding and force them not to see her.

Perhaps one day, she would trust him enough to tell him about the day that the Tokkel took her family, but he could wait. It was traumatic enough for a warrior of the Nine to face the hideous beasts in battle. He could only have imagined the trauma of a woman who had never expected to see creatures of that nature landing in ships.

Her files showed no family to claim her or help her through it. The Gaian settlement had been in such disarray after the initial attacks that they had been unable and unwilling to help the survivor left on her own.

Apolan was going to give Daphne whatever she needed, whether it was psychological, physical or financial. His family own five harvest worlds where they kept the plants happy and the animals healthy. It was peculiar for him to have been born a farmer and ended up an ambassador, but the Nine council wanted a presence on Gaia that was in tune with the planet. No one had any idea that a simple Gaian had beat them to it.

He stroked her rich brown hair away from her face and admired the jewellery that she wore each and every day. His great grandmother had worn that same earpiece when she met his great grandfather. Dilora had not been too fond of Jenyak when she met him, but she adapted quickly. Their love had eventually become a Leoraki legend—two contrasting souls that had managed to find common ground.

Apolan closed his eyes and embraced the feeling of his body synching to Daphne’s. He was hoping that he and his Gaian would repeat that very admirable tradition.