Page 199 of Bedeviled

“Est amage.”

In several quick, long strides he closes the distance between us.

Memnon cups my face in his hands, his glittering eyes devouring mine. “You weren’t supposed to come for me.”

“Of course I came. Where you go, I follow.”

Memnon strokes my skin with his thumb. A shudder works its way through his body. “I need to get you out of here.”

“That’s my line,” I echo back to him.

He smiles sadly at me.

My eyes almost slide to the Bargainer. Ash is beginning to swirl around us, and there’s a deep roar coming from the fires below and beyond us.

Not much time left.

My gaze doesn’t leave Memnon when I find his hand and thread his fingers through mine. With my other hand, I withdraw one of my daggers. A desperate idea has taken root in me.

I press our intertwined hands against my cheek.

Not much time.

“This is not how we end,” I remind him. “We are eternal.”

It’s an easy thing, bringing my blade up and nicking our wrists, one after another. And though I have to lock my jaw against the sick sensation of warm blood slipping from my wrist, it’s not the pain that gets me. It’s hard to hope this will work. It’s going to require his acceptance, and that might be just as bound up in Eislyn’s commands as the rest of him is.

Memnon’s eyes flash with a cunning intensity as his gaze dips to the wounds, and when he looks at me again, a sly smile draws up the corners of his mouth.

There’s my warlord.

His hand squeezes mine, and though he doesn’t speak and I still cannot hear his thoughts, I hear his will all the same.

Do it, my queen.

Long ago Eislyn placed my soul mate in eternal sleep. She hadn’t thought I could undermine her carefully crafted spell then, just as I bet she hadn’t thought I could undermine her now.

The oversight cost her two thousand years of exile.

There’s no greater bond in all the world than that between soul mates. But a bond that’s been fated from birth along with a forged bond—fuck, I’m really, really hoping it’s enough to overthrow Eislyn’s own forced hold on Memnon.

I stare into his eyes. “With blood I bind, with bone I break, only with Eislyn’s death shall I forsake. My bidding be done, under moon and sun, your will is mine until this deed is done.”

All Memnon needs to do is press his bleeding flesh against mine. His intention and magic will do the rest.

But…

Though his bloody, clasped arm trembles, it doesn’t move to mine. I know he wants it—I can almost taste it down our bond. It would be so easy to press my forearm to his, but it has to come from him, that’s what differentiates a forged bond from a forced one. And I sense the magic holds strictly to those rules.

My soul mate’s eyes glisten, and I can sense his boiling rage and frustration. There must be some command in place stopping him from accepting.

“I can’t do it,” he finally admits, his voice hoarse. “I’m sorry, est amage.”

Memnon takes a halting step back, then seemingly trips over his own feet.

The sorcerer falls back, taking me and our clasped hands along with him. I release my dagger at the last second, afraid I might impale one of us. And then we hit the ground hard, Memnon taking the brunt of the force. I hear him grunt as I crash into him, my chest and bloody forearm colliding with his.

There’s a hiss from where our wounds touch, and then our magic spirals out from them, the pale orange and deep blue hues intertwining around each other, then our bodies.