We’ve long since lost sight of the coven house when Memnon finally stops, reluctantly setting me down.
I’m breathing hard, my heart pounding a mile a minute when I turn and catch sight of him. The moonlight falls upon his features, turning them sinister. They tug at my mind, and for one brief second, I’m somewhere else—
Memnon grabs the long length of his hair and withdraws a knife.
Before I can react, he brings his blade to his coarse dark locks, and with one brutal stroke, he cuts most of it off.
Then the image is gone. The same man stands before me, but his eyes are harder, the set of his mouth harsher. Despite how angry he looks, every inch of my skin buzzes with this electrifying awareness.
Empress…you are mine…
I rub my temple, wanting him out of my head. I also want to scream because I thought we’d dealt with this whole mistaken-identity issue.
“I need to go back to Kane!” I can’t help the panic that slides into my voice. If he’s still alive, he may not be for long. Not unless I help heal him.
“Get back to him?” I see murder in his eyes when he glances past me toward the residence hall. “Sure, I will go back. That way, if that beast isn’t already dead, I can make good on my earlier threats to castrate him.”
Maiden, Mother, and Crone, the man truly is a psycho.
Panic takes over my thoughts, and now I’m the one gripping Memnon, determined to keep him here and away from Kane, even as my heart pounds wildly because the shifter needs help.
“And now you think to protect him from me? Your mate?” Memnon’s eyes are glowing again. I hadn’t realized they stopped until now. That only snags my attention for a second because—
“Mate?” I echo.
Things inside me go very quiet and very still.
“We have spoken our vows before your gods and mine,” Memnon continues. “You and I were molded from the same bit of earth. The Fates spun our threads together. And we entered our own covenant. Your mind may be addled—”
Addled?
“—yet there are some truths even it cannot deny.”
“I am not that woman!” I shriek at him. “You know this—you acknowledged it yourself.
“Now,” I continue, jerking against him, “let—me—go!”
“Let you go?” Memnon’s eyes burn brighter, his expression hardening as his hair snaps about with his churning power. “Even if I wanted to—even if I didn’t have two thousand years of revenge to exact on you—your life is bound to mine, est amage. Not even death will part us. I will never let you go.”
Just when I think things can’t get any worse, Memnon reels me into him and kisses me.
The moment his lips meet mine, my magic comes alive.
It races along my skin and between my bones. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it’s consuming me.
Memnon’s magic joins in, threading through mine. I feel his power on me and in me, and I throb with the ecstasy of it.
It’s not even a choice to kiss him back—he’s a wildfire, and I’m getting swept up in it.
I kiss him like I’m starving for contact, like everything that was wrong has now been made right. The taste of him and the thrill of his power moving through me scorch my skin and steal my breath.
This is what I was searching for in the touch and taste of another. This is passion.
Memnon makes a possessive noise, slipping his hands into my hair, his staggering body enveloping me. His lips are bruising against mine; he kisses me with the ferocity of a starving man.
He tilts my jaw up to get a better angle.
It’s been too long since you’ve been in my arms, my queen.
I’m not sure Memnon intended for me to hear this—it sounds like a passing thought more than anything else—but the words whisper through my head all the same, and they break the spell.
What in the goddess’s good grace are you doing, Selene?
I move my hands to his lower abs and blast my power out, magically shoving him away.
“I thought we had established that I am not your anything.” Not his wife, not his queen, not his empress.
An angry smile graces his face. “Yes, you almost convinced me of that, didn’t you? But I have since had time to muse on it.” His tone changes, turning accusing. “I don’t know what witchcraft has destroyed your memory and produced those photos—”
“There was no witchcraft involved!” I say heatedly. We’re back to square one. I want to scream.
“—but my magic recognizes yours, and my bond is fucking singing through my blood as it hasn’t for the past two thousand years.”
We’re so close that our breath is intermingling.
“It’s why you can speak to me in Sarmatian when you’re pleased with me, and Latin when you’re angry,” Memnon continues, making me recall an earlier encounter in the spellcasting kitchen. I’d slipped into Latin with him then. “It’s why you can scream and fling your oaths and still kiss me as though we have done it a hundred upon a hundred times before—because we have.
“So you are wrong, little witch. You are many things to me. You are my queen, my empress, my wife. You are my Roxilana, the woman who awoke my magic and spoke to my mind before we ever met. You are my nemesis, who cursed me to endless sleep.”
Memnon’s hand cups my cheek. “And you are my Selene, my eternal soul mate, who woke me from it.”
CHAPTER 24
Soul mate.
That terrifying, bewitching word echoes in my head.
I stagger back. “I—I am not your soul mate,” I say, even though my voice wavers.
I expect my words to be met with annoyance or frustration. This is, after all, a new version of the same old argument we’ve had.
Instead, his eyes have softened. “I saw your mind, little witch. I understand how you struggle and that much has slipped past your own awareness.”
He closes the space between us and places his palm over my heart.
“What are you doing?” I demand. I should rip his hand away. The ugly truth, however, is that I like his touch, even after all the shit he just pulled.
The gall of my body.
Instead of responding, Memnon stares deeply at me.
Empress…why do you think I’m able to speak to you like this?
I don’t breathe, my gaze locked with his.
Your heart knows the answer—as does your magic.
I feel that magic he speaks of rise now, twining with his.
Oh Goddess.
I shake my head.
No, no, no.
Memnon’s glittering brown eyes are intent on me, and a slow pleased smile spreads across his lips, like he can hear my own shocked thoughts.
We are soul mates, little witch, and we can speak down our bond…
I squeeze my eyes shut, grimacing because I can feel his words in me. They seep into my very blood, like a river reaching the ocean.
It felt like this every time he called to me—even when we were kissing only moments ago. I just assumed it was his brand of magic at work. Now, however…now his explanation makes a sick sort of sense.
Bonds are magical cords that connect two entities—like the one I share with Nero. Soul mates have them as well.
Could it be possible? Could Memnon truly be my soul mate, and could he speak to me through a bond we share?