He stepped forward, releasing the doorway, his other hand coming to my waist as well. I took a step back to match, but I wasn’t sure who was guiding whom.
“To my people,” Lancaster continued, “that rose is a powerful symbol of the Goddess and the vows she wove through bloodlines. Of one vow in particular that is chosen by the Gods and Fates and all other deities plotting out the fortunes of the realms.”
“What vow is that?” I gasped as he cleared the doorway, the lock clicking shut behind him. He continued to guide me backward.
“It is one which removes all choice from you. It is one you were never supposed to be aware of, Bounty. One that I would never force on anyone, let alone you.”
My spine stiffened, his hands freezing on my skin. “Why not me? Because I’m human? Because I’m so low?—”
“Because you, Santorina Cordelian, have a fire in your soul that no Goddess deserves to control. Your flames burn so brightly, I did not wish to indulge my own selfish suspicions when you already had so much taken from you at the hands of others—their pursuits and vengeance was never yours to bear.” A smirk morphed his scowl, and fucking Goddess, it was alluring. Not at all what I’d expected right now—not with the twisted ire in his words. “You are not lower than anyone, Bounty. You have showed me these months that while your life may be shorter, your mortal blood magicless, humans retain a strength that my people have never had to know. A determination and courage that is more admirable than any Goddess-given power.”
His words—the praise beneath them—it didn’t make sense. Did he mean he admiredme? Surely not. Lancaster hated me. Hated humans.
But the string in my chest twisted painfully at the thought. His brow creased as if he felt it.
“Then what is the vow?” I repeated. “What are the roses?”
“Roses mean eternity. They mean promise when you find that scent.” Lancaster dropped his lips to my ear, his breath tickling my neck. “They meanclaiming, and I did not know until that day that you sensed it as well. I did not think it possible.”
“Sensedwhat?” The words came out as a shiver.
Lancaster pulled back, his eyes flicking between mine. He scanned my room quickly, noting the books stacked on the table.The ones on Goddessblessed bonds I’d been studying since we returned.
The ones I was begging to prove me wrong.
“You already figured it out.” When I didn’t answer, he added in a growl, “Say what you think I am to you.”
My throat was dry, senses drowning in roses and musk andhim. “I am—” I gasped as he brought his hand to my throat, and his thumb stroked across my pulse. “We are…”
“I need you to say it, Santorina.” His voice was so gravelly over my name, the sound poured through my blood, so desperate it forced the words out of my mouth.
“We are, as the fae would say,mates.”
He laughed, low and guttural. “It is more than that. The ancient tongues called itaequelis. It means we are equals, in every way. Carved for each other since the days the realms were formed.”
“Aequelis,” I repeated, breathily. Lancaster’s eyes darkened when I said the word.
“Equals,” he panted. “And resisting such a Goddess-given instinct woven through my blood—knowing it was there and that your soul deserves so much better—has been tormenting me in every cursed sense of the word.”
Tormenting him.Just as his hands on my body now were the purest, most delectable form of torture. And I wanted it all, every bloody moment of that sweet torment. I wanted to suffer with this Hunter, to taste him and feel him, to be the equal to my natural born enemy.
But I also wanted the choices I was denied my entire life as a human. I craved the agency of deciding precisely what my future held, not having it dictated by a bond the Goddess wrote into existence eons before I was born.
How was that fair, to have my future dictated when I had barely lived?
“It is only a physical need,” I choked out.
A soft, vicious laugh. “That is what you think?”
Words caught in my throat, and I nodded.
Lancaster’s endless eyes searched mine, the blacks molten. “Lie to yourself, then, Santorina, but you cannot lie to the Gods.” One hand skimmed up my ribs.
My back arched. “It is…a physical need,” I sighed. “One derived of torture and burning fortunes and everything wrong in the realms.” I wouldn’t let it be more than that. Wouldn’t admit anything beyond desiring the torment of his touch.
My thundering heart filled the silence, but with one final stroke of his thumb across my pulse, he growled, “Damn us both, then.”
His restraint snapped, and when his lips crashed into mine, the string in my chest sang—an unbreakable vow of the Gods weaving us together through blood and magic. Lancaster kissed me unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. One hand gripped my waist, pulling my body flush against his with raw demand, and my fingers dove into his hair. It was a release of the need pulling between us that I hadn’t understood, and I gasped at the pure pleasure coursing through me.
