“I’ll find Carys for you!” he called.
“Sure…” Erin remained standing for a moment, wrapped in the robe he had helped her into.
Then her knees gave in to exhaustion, and she dropped into the nearest lawn chair.
A small smile crossed her face.
It was nice to know she was desirable to him.
But it was too late for them now.
He would think she chose him because Garrick dumped her.
Because the man she had defended humiliated her.
Because the future she had wanted had collapsed and Magnus was the bond still waiting where she had left him.
He would think he was second choice.
And maybe the ugliest part was that she did not know how to prove he wasn’t anymore.
Erin laid back on the chair and stared up at the filtered sky.
Her smile faded.
The tears came quietly.
She had not cried in days.
But now she was crying for a different reason.
Because she finally understood the shape of what she had lost.
She had lost the man she thought she loved and she had already lost the man who had loved her best.
She was crying because she had lost both ways.
*****
Erin was having a nightcap on the living room balcony when she heard Magnus behind her.
She had chosen the balcony because the living room was too large, too quiet, and too obviously his.
Everything about the prince’s castle had an elegance that made her feel underdressed emotionally.
The balcony, at least, had air.
Erin leaned against the railing with a glass in her hand, watching the lights and trying not to think about the fact that she had spent the afternoon crying.
Ridiculous.
She had been exiled for her own safety, moved into the castle of the man whose heart she had bruised for years, and apparently her body had chosen now to begin behaving like an awake woman.
Excellent timing.
Truly, if the Moon Goddess was responsible, Erin hoped the divine bitch was laughing herself hoarse.
A sound came behind her.
Just the soft shift of footsteps.
She knew it was Magnus before he spoke.
“Hi,” Erin said, turning slightly.
Magnus stood at the entrance to the balcony, dressed in black trousers and a dark shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms.
“Yeah.” She lifted her glass slightly.
“Thank you for the comfort. Shall I pour you a drink?” she asked.
“Yeah, sure.”
Grateful for something to do with her hands, Erin walked back into the living room.
The bar sat along one wall, stocked with bottles whose labels looked older than some kingdoms.
Beside it, a discreet cooler hummed beneath a silver panel.
She grabbed a bottle of alcohol, poured some into a glass, then opened the cooler.
She took one blood pouch out, tore it open, poured a generous quantity into the glass, and watched the alcohol deepen into a dark red mixture.
Then she carried it back out to him.
Magnus had moved to the railing, his gaze lowered to the city.
With the lights beneath him and the night cutting shadows along his face, he looked exactly like what he was about to become.
A king.
“You’ve been gone all day,” she said, offering the glass.
“Does it take that long for vampires?” Her eyes twinkled as she said it.
Easier to make innuendo than say, Did you spend the day with a woman?
Did it help?
Did you think of me?
Magnus looked at her.
He took the glass, glanced into it.
“You do not know anything about me, do you?” he said instead.
Erin blinked.
“Why do you say so?”
“I don’t drink blood.” He set the glass on the balcony slab between them.
“Then why do you have it in your house?”
“For guests.”
“You are a vampire, aren’t you?” Erin argued, because this felt like a fair point and she needed fair points desperately.
“You do have to survive on blood.”
Magnus turned fully toward her.
“How long will it take you to figure out that I am not your usual vampire?”
She had known him all her life yet she knew nothing about him and now every new thing she learned about him felt like a punishment.
She should have known.
“You’re right,” she said softly.
“I know nothing about you. This tradition is stupid,” Erin added. Find the original chapter at g.com.
“Why throw mates who plan on severing the bond together? It just complicates things.”
She sighed and leaned against the railing.
“Complicates things for werewolves,” Magnus said.
He stood at the railing with his hands resting lightly on the stone, the wind moving through his hair.
“For vampires,” he continued, “whether the bond is broken or not, everything stays the same. It only frees you, Erin…It doesn’t free me.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Stop saying that.”
She blinked.
“What?”
“I have always hated that.
Every time someone says they are sorry,” he said, “I assume it is because of my disability.” He looked out at the city instead of at her.
“It was always the same. Sorry before the stare. Sorry before someone lowered their voice as if I had lost my hearing along with the use of my legs.”
“You are not disabled now.”
Magnus turned his head toward her slowly.
“I still hate it.”
The corner of her mouth moved.
“You’re weird.”
“I hate that too.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Okay, maybe make a list of things I can and cannot say while I am here. Or we will be fighting forever.”
“I’ll make it fun,” he said.
“I’ll let you figure it out.”
Erin stared at him.
“Is that homework, oh mighty teacher?”
“You could say so.”
“Do I get graded?”
“Harshly.” Magnus pushed away from the railing.
“I’ll head to bed…I have council in the morning.”
The balcony went quiet again.
Two weeks.
The words sat at the back of her mind like a countdown.
Two weeks to sever the bond.
Magnus took one step toward the balcony doors.
“You have a good night.”