The Bound (Ascension #2)(66)

“Seems to have worked out for them,” Cyrene told Dean.

“Yes. I’m fortunate to have parents who love me very much.”

“Me, too. Though I haven’t seen my parents in some time. Not since I made Affiliate.” Speaking about her home made her heart contract. She hadn’t been able to tell anyone she was an Affiliate since she had left.

“You leave home for Affiliate training, as far as I know, correct?”

“Yes. You move into the castle and work with your Receiver.”

“And what was your area of expertise?”

Cyrene snorted. “Expertise is a stretch. I wasn’t there that long before I left, and the Queen…well, let’s just say we weren’t on great terms.”

“I met Queen Kaliana. She…left something to be desired,” he said.

“That’s one way to put that she’s a conniving bitch.”

Dean’s laugh boomed over the bow of the ship. When he looked back at her for a second, his eyes glittered in the early morning light, and she had to take a deep breath. His smile brightened his entire face. Everything changed about him. His features smoothed. His eyes lit up. His body eased. She could just stare up into that face all day.

For a second, when they stared at each other, she forgot that she was a refugee, fleeing Byern to discover her magic, and he was the Prince of a foreign land. They were just two individuals on separate paths that had converged at just the right point. And though she hardly knew him at all, she found herself at ease with him.

His eyes stuttered to her lips and then back. He seemed to realize his error and looked back out at the ocean beyond. She swallowed and was glad that she wasn’t the only one effected.

“How much longer?” she whispered, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with him against the rail.

“We should arrive by nightfall. It’s only a day trip from Aurum.”

She breathed a sigh of relief. “Good.”

“You don’t like the sea?”

“No. I do. I’m just anxious to be there.”

He questioningly raised an eyebrow, and she thought he was going to ask her about why she had left, but the words never came.

“Stay with me,” he said instead.

“What do you mean?” she asked cautiously.

“In the palace. We have plenty of room, and I’d love to get to know you.”

“And you can’t do that if I’m staying elsewhere?” she asked. She knew she was playing hard to get, but in reality, her heart was racing away from her. She hadn’t expected a direct invitation to the palace or to have more time with Dean. A thought she was relishing at the moment.

“You know I would come see you every day regardless of where you stayed in my homeland,” he said with a bright smile, “but I’d prefer if I could show it to you from my home.”

Even though every inch of her was screaming to say yes, she forced herself to consider the offer before jumping into something. “I’ll think about it.”





“So, what you’re saying is, we have nothing to go on,” Ahlvie said.

“Um…not exactly,” Cyrene said.

Ahlvie gave her a look that said he knew her too well. He seemed to see right through her. It had always been that way with Ahlvie.

“We know we’re looking for two women named Matilde and Vera. They had to have consorted with the likes of Basille Selby, a swindling Eleysian merchant traveler. So, that probably steers us to the underbelly of the capital city, if I had to guess. Otherwise, we don’t know what they look like, their age, their trade, or anything about where they could be whatsoever.”

“Okay. When you put it that way, there’s not much to go on.”

“Then, we’ll need to split up,” Avoca said practically.

“And do what?” Ceis’f asked. “This isn’t a six team on a mission, Ava. At the present, this is a melting pot of outcasts. An exhausting, pompous little girl who thinks she’s a leader, an Affiliate mute, a drunken fool, a disgraced former Prince, and two Leifs.”

“I feel like you fit into at least two of those categories,” Avoca said flatly.

“Enough!” Cyrene said. “If we’re going to do this, everyone needs to learn to work together. If you two are always at each other’s throats, I’m going to go crazy. Are we all here together?”

Cyrene expected Ceis’f to make some smart response to her outburst, but he just sat up straighter. No one else said a word.

“Aye, aye, boss,” Orden said, tipping his wide-brimmed hat.

She wasn’t sure that he knew how much that meant to her. It didn’t matter the troubles they had gone through to get here right now because, in less than a day, she would have her feet on Eleysian soil.

“Okay, good. Well, Prince Dean asked me if I would accompany him to the palace as a royal guest, and I’ve decided to accept,” she said formally.

All the while, her insides were squirming. She couldn’t believe she was allowing herself to get lost with another royal. So far, they had only proven to be trouble. But that smile…

Ugh! She couldn’t think about that right now.

“So, I’m going to go with him to the palace. I think it will be a good idea to have an insider to search the palace grounds.”