The second I become fully aware, I also become horrifically aware of the fact that I’m not alone. There’s a body beneath me. A strong, solid, immensely large body that’s currently functioning as both my mattress and my pillow.
I still. My breathing changes. And I know—I just fucking know—that Kael notices.
The Glowranth’s senses are too sharp not to. He hears things before they happen, scents changes in the air like a bloodhound, and yet?—
He doesn’t say anything.
I can hear his soft, measured breathing beneath me, feel the slow rise and fall of his chest against mine, but he doesn’t move. And fuck me dead—I’m the one wrapped around him.
My arm is draped over his chest, my leg tangled between his massive thighs. One of my hands is currently resting over his heart—assuming that’s where his heart is—like we’re some sickly sweet romance novel couple who fell asleep gazing at the stars.
And then his words slam into me like a goddamn freight train.
You’re my mate.
I go rigid.
My. Mate.
I have a mate.
Longing surges through me, hot and dizzying, my chest tightening with something too big to name. My gut clenches, my breath hitches, and for a moment—a brief, treacherous moment—I feel something close to bliss.
And then?
Reality backhands me across the face.
I’ve been here for years. Many, many cycles. If I had to guess? At least a couple of years, maybe more.
And Kael?—
Kael would have known.
The second I was sliced into Terrafeara, the moment I bled onto this monstrous fucking world, he would have felt me. He would have sensed it—just like the prince did with Dawson.
And yet.
He didn’t come for me.
He didn’t find me.
He didn’t fight for me.
What the actual fuck!
I react on pure rage-fuelled instinct, launching myself off him so fast, I stumble getting upright.
As I suspected, Kael is already awake. Of course he is. His eyes track every move I make, assessing, calculating, waiting.
Waiting.
And fuck if that doesn’t just piss me off even more.
“You knew.” The words rip from my throat, raw and furious, edged with something dangerously close to betrayal. “All this time, you fucking knew.”
Kael doesn’t speak. He just watches me, his face stoic, his markings dimming and flaring like they can’t decide if they should give away whatever the hell he’s feeling.
I shake my head, my vision swimming, my chest tight. There’s a pit inside me, a familiar one, deep and dark and gaping, the same one that’s been there since I was a kid. The one made of loneliness, of never being good enough, of never being wanted.
