He exhales and grabs a steaming bowl off the tray, then drags the simple wooden chair over to the side of the bed. He sits, spooning up broth. I’m surprisingly hungry, and don’t resist as he lifts the spoon to my mouth and feeds me.
There’s a long moment of quiet as I eat, my body growing warm with every spoonful. Once the bowl is empty, he rests the spoon in the bottom and sets it back on the tray.
“I’m sorry for not being truthful to you, but in my defense, I was trying to protect you.”
His expression is sincere, his shoulders curved. He looks at me imploringly.
“That sounds like a load of bullshit.” I lean back into the soft pillows. “I didn’t even think you were real. I thought you were just something I made up. Some kind of angelic sex machine.”
“I know, and I know that complicates things. I started coming to you because you needed support.” His eyes hold mine. “You needed a release.”
My body tingles as he speaks, thinking of our intimacy. He was so gentle. So loving. So very, very giving. I struggle to reconcile that person with the warrior before me. The one that has rejected me time after time.
“I knew if Victorine found out about the bond between all of us, she’d do whatever she could to destroy it, but I also believed in the power we held together—”
“Wait, you believed it the whole time?”
“Yes.” He clenches his jaw, like he’s trying to decide if he should tell
me something. “Hildi…”
“What are you hiding from me?”
His eyes drop to the floor. “The bond between us…it slid into place for me a long time ago.”
“How long?”
He swallows, his normally warm skin turning ashen. I’ve never seen him this nervous.
“Back at The Nead, shortly after the battle with the Morrigan.”
My head spins. “At The Nead? But that’s before…”
“Before we got to the Academy. Before we agreed to take on this Crusade. I knew then that you were my mate.”
The information stuns me. If he felt a bond between us back then, it had nothing to do with the gods or finding balance or this mission we’re on. What does that mean about the others? Is what we’ve shared part of this game or is it something else?
“I don’t have the answers to you questions,” he says, reading my mind. “I’ve been confused for months. So much so that I went to Dylan for council; he’s the one that suggested I keep it to myself, let you determine if you felt the same way. But then Christensen told you that it was part of something bigger—not exactly real—just part of winning the war, and I felt foolish.” He flexes his fist. “Jealous. I went to his office after he was gone, looking for anything that could explain what was happening.”
“The day I found you there.”
He nods. “I’d found a book that talked about masking your appearance—something that came easily to me due to being able to cloak myself as the God of Death.”
“And the wings? Where did they come from?”
“Like other abilities, they appeared when I arrived at the Academy.”
Everything he says rocks me deep in my bones. I feel like every moment we’ve known one another is a false memory. I think of the arguments, of the physical fights, the verbal sparring. The rejection. The fact I felt unsure that what I was experiencing was even real.
I think of the intimacy and what we shared together, desperately wanting to see the face of my winged lover and believing my mind couldn’t conjure up someone so perfect.
The next words I speak come out in a low whisper.
“You need to leave.”
“Hildi—”
“Go.”