Except that unknown essence remained, clinging to my life source and locking around me in a way it shouldn’t.
I again tried to sever it, using my power to attack the bond and freezing when Aflora shrieked below me in pain.
Her eyes flew open, meeting my gaze at the same time. Her lips parted. Mine curled into a snarl. “What did you do?” I demanded.
Because I could see in her gaze that she knew something.
Panic and horror and fear all mingled in her expression at once.
Her lips moved without sound.
Her pupils flared.
“What the fuck did you do?” I repeated, going to my elbows on either side of her head. Our bodies were still joined below, my cock still pulsing inside her. But fury overrode the rapturous oblivion, my mind catching up with the sensation pulsating in my heart. “How?”
“I-I don’t know,” she sputtered. “I... It shouldn’t...”
I recoiled from her, going to my knees on the bed and realizing with disgust what we’d just done. “Fuck!” She’d bonded me. Not as a Midnight Fae, but as an Elemental Fae. I could feel the ivy of her earth magic tightening around me, suffocating my connection to the source and drowning me in an essence I didn’t want. “Get rid of it. Sever it. Remove it.”
“I-I can’t,” she stammered, her expression one of astute horror. “It’s the third level.”
“What?” I knew how Elemental Fae bonds worked. There were four levels, the first two breakable and the third... not. It marked us as betrothed. Until the final ceremony that forever joined two Elemental Fae souls. “That’s fucking impossible.” It required agreement by both parties, unlike Midnight Fae bonds that could be completely one-sided when driven by the male.
“I don’t—”
“How the fuck did this happen?” I shouted, springing off the bed and trying to get as far away from her as possible. “How did you trick me?”
“I didn’t!”
“The hell you didn’t,” I snapped, starting to pace. “I wouldn’t bond you willingly.” I had a duty to my kingdom, to my people, that always came first. And I knew better than to allow an Earth Fae to initiate a fucking mating bond.
I was the future king.
A royal.
A damn powerful Midnight Fae.
“You tricked me somehow,” I accused her.
I just didn’t know how or when. Perhaps it’d all been a ploy from the beginning. A ruse to seduce me into something wicked. That would explain the pull.
“Was this your plan all along?” I demanded as another thought quickly followed, one that threatened to pull me into a murderous state. “Did Shade put you up to this?”
“What? No!”
“Then why would you do this? Are you working with him? Trying to bring shame to my family? To me? To destroy my reign before it even begins?”
Her lower lip wobbled, her blue eyes spitting fire as she scrambled upward on the bed. “Fuck you, Kols!”
“Been there, done that, princess,” I retorted, livid with myself for my stupidity. I gripped the back of my neck, took in the sight on the bed again, and turned away before I did something idiotic like light it on fire. “Get out.” The words slipped from my lips before I could take them back. Then it struck me how right the demand was, how much I needed her to leave right this fucking second before I killed her.
Because that was the immediate solution—her death.
It’d break the bond.
It’d shatter Shade.
It’d be a fitting punishment for all parties involved, myself included because I suspected losing her would hurt me as well, thanks to this foreign shit she’d put inside my chest.