Tethered.
Touch reflected our souls.
As I drifted into oblivion, a smile curled my lips because the queen had understood a decade ago what the king still could not fathom: you didn’t fear darkness if together you were light.
The prophecy was not a bearer of doom; it was a promise of paradise.
The last few years at Elite Academy, I’d suffered true darkness: loneliness.
I’d suffocated in desolation as my skin crawled, alone and unmoored in a universe filled with people who would never understand. I’d degraded at the edges until I was nothing.
I’d been no one.
Now the ones I loved pressed their warm fingertips against my flesh, and our blood pounded in tandem through corporeal forms.
We were connected.
Forever.
I was never letting them go.
The betrothal jewelry hanging around Aran’s neck and wrist was a testament to that promise. The pieces were priceless, imbued with rare enchantments that sensed a person’s soul and connected them with the givers of the jewelry.
Until we held a marriage ceremony and said the official bonding words, the enchantment was mostly inert. All the jewelry would do was familiarize itself with Aran’s soul.
At least, that was what the queen had told us.
The enchantment was an ancient one that was only used by the leaders of our culture, and even then, the last time it had been used was thousands of years ago when the queen had gotten married.
Aran was worthy.
Even though it was mostly dormant until the ceremony, it was still symbolic of the promises we’d made for one another, and that meant something.
One day, we’d complete the bonding, and the enchantment would tie our souls together.
Until then, all I could do was hold on to Aran.
My soul was already hers.
As I rested, a tear of pain streaked down my cheek because the High Court had scheduled her and the kings to have therapy in the shifter realm, which meant we would be parted.
It would be pure torture.
Chapter 4
Aran
THERAPY
Ferine (adjective): feral
Tick. Infinity. Tock.
The hands on the clock moved unnaturally slow as flaps of yellow wallpaper peeled off the office wall like tears.
Voices warbled in the background.
The foreground was nebulous.
