Page 21

Chapter Twenty-One

C ross was floating off the ground, wrapped in lines of pulsing darkness and light energy. His eyes were bright, blinding violet, with irises shaped like half moons. His dark hair streamed around him, whipping eerily around while he spread his arms, holding his subjects at his feet, prostrate, every one.

He did not look like a polite senator, but a tyrant, happy to drink the blood of his subjects.

I hesitated on the walkway of the promenade, the sloping lawn filled with cowering guests, while Cross hovered in the center, flickering like a bomb waiting to go off.

I looked around, because I couldn’t look at Cross without burning my eyeballs. On the edge of the walkway were Max and a group of scared kids that he was growling at, low, a warning that they didn’t want to anger the mighty ruler. The kids smelled like freshly turned wolves.

“So,” Libby the Librarian said, slipping in next to me and linking my arm with hers. “Don’t see that every day, do you?”

I turned to stare at her and then up at Cross, where he seemed to be gathering darkness and energy so he could explode and kill everyone. “No, he’s usually a bit more relaxed than that. Can you stop him?”

She laughed, sounding a bit mad around the edges. “Sure. That’s why I’m here. I apologize in advance for the indignity.” She grabbed me and pressed a knife against my throat. “I’m going to make you bleed, but only enough to get his attention. And then I’m going to run, and you’re going to faint and pretend like you’re helpless and need him to save you. Otherwise, he’ll come after me and rip out my spine. I’ve seen him do it. It’s very pretty, but I don’t think I’d be in a position to enjoy the effects. Ready?”

She sliced me across my shoulder and neck, deep enough for me to cry out. I’d lost enough blood tonight. I thought she was going to scratch me, not cut me deep!

Cross focused on me with those violet lasers. Wow! So much roiling destruction in such a pretty color.

“Gotta run!” Libby hissed, then knocked the back of my knees so I collapsed while she sprinted into the darkness. “Sorry about that! I’ll buy you sushi…” she called, but the rest of her words didn’t matter because Cross was above me, gazing down at me with infinite destruction in his eyes.

I swallowed hard as he gestured at me, raising me in the air until I landed in his arms. That felt so weird, but good when I finally ended up where I belonged.

I gulped and clung to Lynx, who was still unconscious. “What are you doing?” I whispered.

“I don’t want your pity,” he said in a cold, booming voice. “You are the one who deserves pity, being adored by a monster like me.” He was so loud, so clearly out of control in a very public space so everyone could see exactly what the head of the House of Mercy was made of. It wasn’t mercy.

I cleared my throat and clung to his broad shoulders. “Senator Silverton, you aren’t a monster. You’re just having a hard time…Um…with the sudden death of someone close to you.”

He cupped my face, so I had to gaze into those painfully bright eyes. They swallowed me entirely. The moon in his eyes burned every thought out of my head, leaving only awe, fear, and aching desire. I wanted him more than I’d wanted anything, even yarn.

“I bind you to me,” he intoned, sending a wash of sensation down my left side. I felt like I was burning, also glowing, also melting, but not in an entirely painful way.

I shuddered and clung to him more tightly. “Does that mean you won’t drop me? I hope so. I’m tired. I want to go home and sleep in your bed. I want Manny to take care of Lynx so she doesn’t die. I want my mom to come visit and make cinnamon rolls. I want you to love me for real, not because of a spell or some magical force that compels you.”

He blinked and his eyes were slightly less blinding. “You want to sleep in my bed?”

That’s what he heard? I rolled my eyes and thumped his chest with my little fist. It didn’t make a dent. “I promised Lynx sushi. Not tonight. I lost so much blood fighting the Lo-Beast.”

He held me tight and then the world shifted and we were above his house, specifically over the balcony. He stepped on the railing and then on the deck, one smooth movement without a ripple of clumsiness.

The doors opened for him, creaking at the force of his will as he carried me inside his room. Flames in the fireplace sprang to life, the floors creaked, and the walls groaned. I gasped and tried to get down, but he didn’t release me, not until he’d laid me on his bed. With a gesture from his elegant hand, the vines fled, leaving me naked for the second it took him to pull the blanket over me.

And with that, the darkness was gone, leaving me with a shocked elf who tried to blink the moons out of his eyes without any success.

“I’ll take Lynx to Manny,” he said, carefully scooping up the kitten in his strong hands before he turned and strode out, leaving me tucked in his bed without any clothing. My left side burned. I carefully pulled down the blanket to see glowing lines vining through my flesh exactly like his eyes had glowed in the shape of the moon. It looked like constellations and vines, growing together in a mess that ran from my shoulder, down my arm, body, hip, and leg, all the way to my pinky toe. I wiggled it and then pulled the dark blue blanket back up when the door opened and Cross was there with a medical kit and piles of bandages, still looking bewildered, like he’d just woken up from a very strange dream.

Was the spell broken? Had he stopped loving me? I hoped so, then I could try to make him fall in love with me for real.

“What happened?” I asked. That seemed like a safe question.

“That’s my question.” He sat on the edge of the bed, carefully pushing back the blankets so he could see my wounds. “Or it would be if I didn’t intimately know these claws. You fought the beast? What about the kitten? Did it kill Forsythia? Does she need medical assistance?”

“She’s the one who infected me, but it was an accident. I mean, she didn’t know that it would turn me into a monster and…” He didn’t need to know about Elodie. Forsythia couldn’t just make someone disappear. What about the girl’s family? It wasn’t good for my friend, either.

Cross and I tried not to notice how naked I was. He spoke slowly as he cleaned the gashes in my arms. Ouch. Weird that I had anything left of them after that beast was finished with me.

“Forsythia was the beast?”

“No, that was Loren. She had a whole menagerie of experimental helpers, but Lynx saved me from them.”

“Lynx…” He raised a brow. “The kitten was also part of the experiment?”

“Yeah. She likes me better than Loren, even though Loren was a fauna empath. Now you. What happened to turn you into that…”

He focused on my wounds instead of looking into my eyes, almost like he didn’t want me to see his glowing moon irises. “After you left with Forsythia, freshly infected children were released into the party. They turned feral and attacked the crowd, so I contained them until Max got there. Everything was under control until Zephin Clay came to ask me where you were. And then I heard you scream.” He frowned as he carefully finished bandaging that arm and then looked at me with deep concern in his eyes.

He hesitated and then peeled off his shirt, revealing a design down his right side that mirrored my left. “This happened. It’s an elven binding between houses. I’ve abandoned my house, and your father’s is completely wiped out, but somehow at some point, the two must have made an agreement between them that was fulfilled in us.”

I stared at him while my brain tried to parse those nonsensical words. “I screamed, and then an ancient house binding went under your skin? How does that make sense?”

He sighed heavily and started working on my other arm, the side with the binding. Every touch over those glowing markings was bone-deep pleasure, completely eclipsing the pain. Interesting. Also made it hard not to hyperventilate.

He said, “It doesn’t. Sense would be me tracking you down and quietly killing any threat. Terrorizing the city and threatening to liquify it myself is not. Before the kids started biting guests, Zephin Clay asked me what I intended to do about your mother. Apparently, she’ll be quite upset if she discovers that we aren’t engaged. Bindings like we have,” he said, gesturing towards the glowing constellations and vines on the right side of his incredibly beautiful chest and arm, “Are much more serious than a conventional marriage. I will die without you. Due to such circumstances, perhaps we should consider announcing our official engagement.”

I stared at him and then sat up and threw a pillow. It hit his gorgeous face and fell into his lap. “Due to circumstances we should announce our engagement? What kind of marriage proposal is that? You’ll die without me? How can you make that not be romantic? You’re a positive miracle worker. Why don’t you make it sound like you can’t live without me as in you don’t want to live without me? Instead, it’s just one more obligation you owe me. Forget it! I don’t know what weird thing happened to make you compelled to love me, but it has nothing to do with me.” I scowled at him while he stared back.

He suddenly smiled, but his eyes flickered violet and moonbeams. “You want romance? I can do romance.”

I threw another pillow at him. It hit his perfect face, then joined the other one in his lap. “You are proving that you can’t. I don’t want you to want what I want! I want you to want what you want! I don’t want you to play a part for me. I want to be the one person in the world who gets to see you exactly as you are! Because you’re the only one who truly sees all the pieces of me. Even the vicious elf. You see her too well.”

“And love her,” he said, nodding soberly. “She healed me, kissed me, and killed me. I also love your gnome, sweet, diabolical, and true. Your beast is terrifyingly beautiful. I love her. I love every single bite, every single lick, every single hair. I love your family, your writing, your knitting, and your song. You touch me and I melt. You are the evening star, first and last in my sky, outshining every other light. You should close your eyes and rest. Probably shift into your wolf, so you heal more quickly. I almost killed the Alta with my bare hands that time he allowed his dogs to hurt you. I won’t stand by anymore. Never again. I can’t. You’re embedded in my skin. You should probably ask your father about that.”

I scowled and threw the last pillow at his head. He caught it and then put it back behind me, tucking the other pillows around me so I was in perfectly snug. He leaned over me, staring into my eyes while his kept with the glowing half moon over the iris.

“What’s with the moon?” I asked, touching his cheek, the silky skin that led down to his soft lips. He felt so good. I’d been so scared that I lost him.

I suddenly realized that I was touching his mouth. I blinked and pulled my fingers away like they’d been burned.

“What’s with the vines instead of clothes, hm?” He raised a brow. “Apparently, we both have unique ways of showing our individual style. Yours is much more intriguing.”

I snorted and poked his chest. “Seriously, what’s with the moons?”

He winced. “My father has that. I’m sorry it’s so creepy. I can use a glamour. It’s part of my heritage I thought I’d escaped. Unfortunately, not.”

I frowned at him. “You should call my dad and ask about these bindings. You can put him on speaker phone. I’m too tired to move my arms.”

He frowned and shook his head, not happy with my injuries. “You shouldn’t have gone after the beast without me. You can call him in a few days when you feel better.”

I rolled my eyes. “So you could get Henrick to drug me? Anyway, after that engagement announcement, in a few days, my whole family will be here. Except Bram. He probably has to work. Call now so dad can explain that there’s a perfectly simple solution to all of this.”

A few minutes later, I was scowling at Cross’s phone.

“That’s your solution?” My voice was a little screechy, but I’d stayed awake to hear him say that we were soul-bound in life and death, so we should make the best of being stuck together.

“You’re overreacting, Delphinia,” my father said in his soothing voice. “Centuries ago, the Night Lord scried and saw his son as well as the family line of his future bride, House Erasmus. He contacted me, and since I had a daughter, I agreed. She was already a well-trained soldier and would be a capable match for the unborn future Night Lord. Unfortunately, she didn’t survive the great war. My brother and wife also died, leaving me…” He sighed heavily. “The Night Lord personally escorted me out of elfland, my house broken, like me. If you don’t want to accept the bindings and make the most of your alliance, you can break them as long as you haven’t declared your heart to him. Have you?”

I hesitated. “Of course I haven’t.” Not out loud, anyway.

“Then it can be undone. Gnomes are very talented at breaking bindings. Your mother has a real gift for it.”

I looked at Cross in horror. He was looking at me like I was the most beautiful fudge chocolate swirl brownie in the entire world. He loved me because he couldn’t help it.

I cleared my throat. “You think that Mom would actually agree to break bindings to a handsome elf who might give her grandchildren? It’s like you don’t know her at all.”

Cross and I stared at each other while my dad sighed heavily. “It isn’t your burden, Delphinia. Bindings can be useful, sharing power and control, which is necessary when you have someone like the Night Lord, but you weren’t the one intended to be his morality, sanity, and strength. He could crush you. He will crush you unless you have the cold will required to keep him in check, the magic to bring him back to himself. Your elf magic shouldn’t be strong enough to match his binding.”

I cringed. “You elves are so good at making everything sound romantic. I never knew you had another daughter.” Or brother. Or wife for that matter. He didn’t talk about elfland. Ever. It’s like I didn’t know him.

“It was a different world, another time. There was no room for softness and warmth. So many elves became corrupted or mad after the war. I suppose it’s good that I was the one rather than the other. Your Cross wasn’t born until afterwards. He never met Aurora.”

“I can’t believe you guys bound someone who wasn’t even born. I’m hanging up now. I have healing to do.” I pushed the off button on Cross’s phone and frowned up at him. “So that’s what the love spell was, our parents meddling in binding magic without asking themselves if it was ethical.”

He bent over me and brushed my adorable nose with his straight, perfect one. “No. Bindings aren’t affection. I saw you and it was like coming home, only my home was never so warm, so beautiful, so right. I heard your song, and it filled something hollow inside of me that had been aching since my best friend betrayed me, and then almost killed my family after I showed her mercy and didn’t immediately kill her. The night lord has to be absolutely just. Mercy and weakness can’t influence him, or the innocent suffer. I was too weak to fill my father’s role.”

His eyes were so intent, soft, filled with agony. His voice was rough with emotion, feeling you didn’t get out of an elf very often. I’d really helped repair his broken heart with my little song?

I cleared my throat before I burst into tears. “So you went to become an assassin instead?” Yes, because he was so soft and weak. That’s why he was able to torture me for months, even though he was in love with me. Was he really? Just for me?

He shrugged. “I’m good at it, and the order takes in orphans, so they accepted me.”

“Not that you’re actually an orphan. I never saw any kids in the compound.”

He frowned. “I haven’t taken many in. It’s problematic to bring a child into a life that is so hard and soulless.”

I put my hands on his cheeks. How long could I resist kissing him when he was leaning over me like this? Not long. “You shouldn’t force anyone, but if someone wants to join, don’t you need to fill your ranks? Your house performs a very necessary duty in the world. Protecting the innocent. I can do that.” I nodded and kissed him.

He tasted like the wind and violets and happiness with an underlying buzz of electricity. He pulled away, eyes literally alight as he stared at me. “You can do that?” His voice was careful, uncertain yet hopeful. Poor thing. He’d been bound to my family before he was born. Who could we possibly blame for that? Our parents, obviously, but no one can help who their parents were and what they did. It would be best if we broke the bindings and started over this relationship from scratch. Well, not from scratch, just from a baseline that didn’t involve other meddling parties.

I nodded. “Yes. I can bring warmth to the House of Mercy. I’m a gnome. I can bring warmth to even the most aloof elf. Now stop being so pretty so I can rest.”

He stared at me, not looking anything close to less beautiful. “You can bring warmth to the House of Mercy?” He said it like it was a foreign tongue that he didn’t know. The likelihood of him not knowing every imaginable language was very small.

“Mm. I don’t think I can work for Zephin Clay anymore. Besides which, being with you has made it difficult to work as an anonymous society reporter. Maybe I’ll be the House of Mercy’s housekeeper instead.” I closed my eyes and pulled him close so I could snuggle him. “You’re so delighted that you bound me to your secret society so I can adorableize it.”

He hesitated and then carefully wrapped me in his arms and nuzzled my hair. “I am so delighted. Most of my members will stab you if you try to hug them.”

“Only most? Challenge accepted.”

He sighed and settled down around me, relaxing into the mattress. “You should shift into a wolf so you can heal more quickly.”

“Sh. Maybe I like recovering exactly like this.”

I did. So much, but I shouldn’t say that when it made the bindings in my skin thrum and tighten. I shifted into my wolf and he immediately scooped me even closer, climbing under the covers with me. Fur was much less shocking than naked gnome-elf to my beautiful appropriate love.