coven was drawn from the moon.”
“Okay.” Harder to talk now. It felt as though the heat filling her was cloaking every doubt and fear inside her. They were still there, but Rune’s presence was muffling them somehow. She took strength from his surety about what they were about to do.
But there was one thing she had to know before they began. “And if we don’t succeed at this mission? Then what?”
“Then the Mating will be incomplete and our souls will die.” His tone was flat, unemotional. He had accepted that this was their last chance—the Eternals’ and the witches’—to fix what had gone so wrong. If they didn’t succeed, maybe they didn’t deserve to go on.
Teresa felt the profoundness in the moment. This was eternal. Trepidation swept through her, but she battled through it. This man—this immortal—was her chance at atonement. The images of that long-ago night were still ripe and rich within her and Teresa knew that she had much to atone for. He was offering that opportunity and more. He offered to risk his own soul for the chance at redemption. Even though their shared past gave him no reason to give a shit if she succeeded or not.
He squeezed her hand hard enough that it should have broken bones, but didn’t.
“We begin,” he said. “Do you accept me, Teresa?”
She looked up into his eyes and saw how much this was costing him. That he should have to ask her for acceptance when she and her sisters were at the heart of this mess. Teresa felt the first flickering bond between them wrap itself around their joined hands. Though she wouldn’t love him, wouldn’t stay with him when this was done … she would be his partner in this quest. She would be his mate.
“Yes,” she said simply. “I accept you.”
“And our past?”
“Yes.”
“And our future?”
She quailed at that, knowing as she did that their joined future wouldn’t go beyond the thirty days of their mating. But a month was the future, too, wasn’t it? “Yes,” she said firmly. “I do.”
That invisible thread of bonding spun tightly around their joined hands.
“Do you take me as your mate? To stand beside you? To do battle with you and to put right what once went so wrong?”
She felt the magic bristling in the air around them. The steam swam and swirled as if stirred by a wind she couldn’t feel. The crystals shone more brilliantly and Teresa felt fire rush through her. His words echoed in the cave and rang with the insistence of truth and importance.
This, then, was the most powerful of his questions.
Teresa lifted her chin, met his gaze and said, “Yes, Rune. I accept you as my mate. I accept responsibility for what I did so long ago and I accept you, as my mate, to help me put it right.”
The churning flames surrounding their joined hands flared suddenly with the light and heat of a thousand suns. Teresa closed her eyes against the brilliance of it, but in the space of a single heartbeat, the fire was gone.
At that same moment, she felt a sharp, stinging burn in the center of her palm. Then that jolt of heat raced up along her arm until it ricocheted madly inside her chest, like a fireball looking for escape. She stood utterly still, her gaze locked with Rune’s as the fire inside her settled behind her left breast. The sizzle and burn focused into a pinprick and jabbed through her flesh above her left nipple.
She swayed, but Rune caught her. Teresa blinked and looked up at him. “What was that?”
“The Mating brand,” he told her, satisfaction shining in his eyes. “At last.”
Chapter 28
“Brand?”
“A tattoo, brought on by the Mating, imposing itself on both of us.” He lifted one hand and rested the tips of his fingers on her left nipple.
Teresa sucked in a gulp of air. His touch felt so much warmer than the bolt of heat even now searing her skin.
“It will begin here,” he told her, caressing a spot directly above her nipple. “Its echo will brand itself into my body as well.” He smiled. “Ah, and there it is.”
“What? Where?” She looked down and saw a faint red mark above the areola around her left nipple. Her stomach pitched. It had begun. It was real. The biggest decision of her life had been made and as her stomach settled down, she realized she was grateful. It was done. She’d made her choice and now she was on