me. “There are two ways you can give me back my magic.”
“Go on.” As focused as I was on his words, I still rocked back and forth, shifting against his dick. There was a growing ache between my thighs, and I licked my lips absently as I studied his face. I only realized I was doing it when his gaze caught on my lip.
His eyes met mine, with effort. “Picture my magic within you... feel it… and let it free. Imagine it pouring back into me.”
“You said there were two ways.”
“The first part is the same regardless. The second part is up to you. As you return my magic and I take it back, there’s a conduit opening between the two of us. It’s up to you if you want to snap the gates closed the second that magic passes back into me, or if you want to leave the conduit open.”
“What does it mean if I do that?”
“We can trade magic back and forth,” he said. “And we can communicate. Without another spell. If you need my power, you can call on it in an instant. But… I can do the same with yours.”
“Can we steal each other’s magic?”
“So cynical,” he murmured, tilting his head to stare up at me. “I love it.”
Then he went on, “Yes, in a way. Not all of it—not forever. But it’s possible to drain each other, the way you were drained when you used all your magic before. It takes time to replenish.”
It was a frightening thought, leaving any part of my mind or magic open to Raile. But it opened up certain strategic opportunities too. “But I can always close the conduit. Or you can.”
His lips turned up at one corner. “Perhaps.”
“What the hell does that mean, Raile?”
His gaze held mine. “It’s not just a marriage bond for me, Alisa. It’s a mating bond. If you want something from me, I’m not sure I could resist giving it to you.”
There was something raw that broke through his voice, and I stared at him, reeling, trying to make sense of what he’d just said. Then he smiled that familiar, cocky smile at me, and I could believe I’d imagined the emotion that underlied his confession.
“A mating bond?” I demanded.
“Sea Fae royals mate for life,” he said. “There’s a bond between mates like…nothing above on land.”
“So once we have sex, we’ll be…mated?”
“You’re my mate, regardless. For me, it will cement the bond completely. But you’ve always been my one true mate, the only one I could love.”
“What if I rejected you?” Like I’d tried to do for years, while Raile fought to marry me. I felt shocked, suddenly realizing that might be why he’d pursued me so relentlessly.
“It wouldn’t matter,” he said. “I’d live on alone. You’re not Sea Fae—you could go on. You obviously feel called to more than one mate.”
His jaw was steel, but he said the words flatly. It wouldn’t matter. Except I had the feeling it would matter very much for him.
“You’d never have another mate?”
“No.”
“Would you have sex with someone else?”
“I don’t have it in me to want another, Alisa.” He spoke the words lightly, his fingers still curled around the arms of his chair, as if he didn’t want to touch me until we understood each other. “I never desired another, and once I knew you…”
He shook his head, apparently unwilling to finish that thought. He added, “I will never want another.”
My lips parted, but I didn’t know what to say. The weight of his confession had hit me like a weight in my chest.
Then he added, “You are such an unbearable pain-in-the-ass, you’ve spoiled me for ever trying again.”
“I see,” I said. “Did the old Alisa know what… I was to you?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Perhaps that’s why you trusted me with your journals, with helping with your plans. But we didn’t discuss it.”
His frustration was evident in the way his lips pressed together. Perhaps he hadn’t been anxious to reveal his vulnerability to me if there was a chance I didn’t know. But something had changed, between then and now.
“That old Alisa was a real bitch, wasn’t she?” I asked, and it surprised him into smiling. Then I asked, “Why didn’t you tell me? That we were mated, that there was a reason you pursued me so… intensely.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “If you didn’t love me back, it didn’t matter if I was… bound to you. I have always needed you, Alisa. But I’ve