A Baron of Bonds (Conduit of Light #2)

63. Karus

Chapter 63

Karus

I didn’t say anything more.

He didn’t want me to.

I’m sure Rev was tired of hearing me tell him I was fine.

I was becoming a bit irritated myself at always having to say it, apparently unable to keep out of harm’s way.

So, we held each other in the now calm stream, the water moving over our legs, cold, but I kept our upper bodies warm. My green tendrils of power wove lazily around us, emitting warmth from the spell I had whispered.

His body was hard, a rigid tower of strength barely holding itself together.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he produced a portal right in that moment and shoved me into some locked room where I couldn’t leave, and therefore, couldn’t get myself into danger—something I really seemed to have knack for.

Parvus and Rauca splashed around us, enjoying the Great Stream, though, to my disappointment, showed no improvements in their new physical features.

It had been difficult to convince the channelers to go back to the Fortress after my near-death experience, but after showing them how I could ask the stream to calm itself, they’d relented. It had helped that they assumed Revich would be here soon anyway.

Moira had told me she wouldn’t be far, needing to tell the fae some things, which I assumed was faerie gossip for spreading word that a human with fae power was traversing around the Fortress, bound to the Baron.

I didn’t count the minutes we stood there because they didn’t seem to exist at all. Only the flow of water rippling around our bodies locked tight was evidence that the day moved forward.

I didn’t mind.

Revich was my home, my place, the one I had fit into perfectly, completing my life with the love I was sure I was always meant to have.

He slowly pulled away from my chest, one arm still locked around my waist, the other still cradling my head.

“I—” he began, his eyes blue as the sea we had run through together.

I grinned, not able to show him anything but love on my face, and he pulled me back to his neck.

“No. I’m not done,” he mumbled into my tangled hair.

I laughed and held him tighter. “You know,” I murmured on the sandy skin of his neck, pressing my face there, kissing my way up to the line of his jaw, “I think I was made for this.”

I kissed his throat as it bobbed, and he asked in a low grumble, “Made for what?”

“I think,”—my lips found his chin as he slowly loosened his grip on the back of my neck—“I think I was made to be loved…like this.”

He stiffened, pulling me back to his neck again, and I sighed, not in exasperation, but in contentment.

This man loved me so fiercely, he couldn’t let go, and that was not something I’d ever be tired of.

“You would have been dead.” The statement came in a whisper at my ear, and I scrunched my face hearing it from him, knowing the amount of effort it took for him to admit it.

“Yes,” I breathed, swallowing back the lump forming in my throat.

“You cannot die. You cannot just leave me like you almost did.”

I nodded, a shiver running through me at hearing the demand in his words as if saying them aloud would force them to be true.

“If you’d just had…”

He didn’t finish his thought, so I pulled myself back, confused by the fear and assurance he emitted in our bond.

“If I’d just had what?”

The stream parted around us, flowing upward into an alcove around our heads with a path leading to the shore.

I gasped in awe and delight, our water tunnel glowing with the blue light he held over his palm.

“If you’d just had me, Karus. This is the power of Baron. All of the elements of Felgren are mine to move, to shape, to call to my aid should I need it.”

He pulled me through the tunnel to the shore. He let the open pathway fall and the stream returned to its great rush of water.

I no longer asked it for calm.

Parvus and Rauca shook water from their fur and nipped at their paws.

“I’m part fae,” I blurted, biting my lip.

“What?” He turned me to face him.

“I don’t know. I haven’t let myself process what this means without you to talk it through. But Moira thinks so. When the stream swept me away, I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t get to the surface, and it was moving so fast.”

His face was a solid block of stone, the black of his eyes filling over the blue.

“All I could think was I wanted the stream to stop. I asked it to stop…and it did. A wall of water formed over where I was sucked under and…” I rubbed my face and mumbled into my hands, “Moira said only fae can make requests of the stream. And that by doing so and the stream listening, I am at least part fae.”

I turned back to the water, hands on my wet hips. “But that doesn’t make any sense. You could manipulate the water and you’re not fae.” I looked over my shoulder with a sly smile. “Are you?”

“I didn’t ask the stream anything. I willed it to move. There is no asking with the power of Baron. There is just doing.”

“Well, fuck, I don’t know then.”

“You’re taking the trials tomorrow.”

It was my turn for surprise. “What! You said next week!”

He shook his head. “No. I’ll finish tonight and you take them in the morning.”

I narrowed my eyes and cocked my head. “What are you not telling me? Why are you rushing them?”

He slid his hands in his wet pockets, and I saw right through him.

“They’re almost done. You should take them when they are. The magic doesn’t wait around forever and pulls from me to work. It’s why I couldn’t produce a portal and just come to you immediately.”

“And what happens after the trials?” I kept my hands on my hips, my chest meeting with his.

“We can move on from them.”

“Hmm. And then what?”

He couldn’t help it. He wound his arms around my back. “And then we keep living. Keep loving. We celebrate. We owe Clairannia something big.”

I gave in too, wrapping my arms around his neck. “I can’t wait to see her. To see Figuerah and tell them I’ve passed. We should have done them together, but…at least I’ve gotten there eventually.”

He tucked my wayward hair behind my ear murmuring, “Eventually, I have learned, is far more acceptable than never.”