Treasured (The Binding Chronicles, #3)

by Elayna R. Gallea

“I need him,” I told the priestess. “He’s my entire world.” I couldn’t even imagine living without him. He was my other half. Living without him would be like trying to breathe underwater. Impossible.

I liked making plans. They brought order to my life, giving me something to focus on. Order was nice. Lists were good. The more, the better, in my opinion.

Love was all-encompassing. It could complete you, consume your being, and transcend all rational thoughts and feelings. It was a force with no boundaries, a melody echoing in the hearts of connected souls, and a burning, raging, eternal flame that brought light to the darkest places.

There was something about escaping to another world and immersing oneself in a fictional couple’s love story that delighted me every time.

She was more than my Tethered partner. She was the missing half of my soul, the light that illuminated my darkness.

“No matter where you are, in this life or the next, on this plane or another, I will never leave you, Luna. I will always fight for you. Always find you. Always be there for you.”

Words could make you, break you, mold you. A word could give someone life or take it away. They were far more powerful than anyone gave them credit for.

How many times could one cheat Death before it claimed its prize?

Bravery wasn’t overcoming fear. It was staring at the wall fear tried to build, and dismantling it brick by brick until it was possible to get through.

It was more like how I imagined cats felt after sitting in a sunny window for hours. Warm and listless but delightfully relaxed.

Her love warmed me like nothing else, banishing the darkness of my soul. It made me want to be better, to be deserving of the way she felt about me.

“I think… I think he’s mouthier than you.”

Perhaps when this was over, I would get a cat. They seemed to enjoy being inside, and I could mirror my life after them. Maybe more than one. How many would Sebastian let me get before he put his foot down? Probably a lot. Maybe I could have an entire cat colony. One for each room in our home, wherever that would be.

Caught up in my plans to acquire a cat (or a dozen) to cuddle while reading,

“Be mine because I love you so much that I cannot stand the thought of being apart from you for even a single moment in time. Be mine because, without you, I am less than nothing. I am a wisp of a shadow, a fleeting existence, barely here at all. Marry me for me, darling. Be mine, forever.”

Your darkness is my darkness. Your shadows are my shadows. Your life is my life. You’re mine.”

“You’re the reason I draw breath, the fire in my heart, the shadows that dance in my soul. Every good thing in my life is because of you. I love you, you ridiculous, sweet vampire. Of course, I’m yours. I never belonged to anyone else.”

My heart skipped a beat at the depth of adoration in his eyes. It was an endless ocean, a starry night, a beautiful sunset casting the world in an orange glow.

“Darling, you can’t hide anything from me. You study books, but I study you.”

Death couldn’t separate us because what we had was bigger than it. It was a connection that brought together two souls in the deepest of ways.

I needed him like spring flowers needed the sun to grow.

What must have happened to turn her into such a hateful person?

Beneath all the cruelty was just a female suffering from a broken heart.

“No one deserves to experience the pain of heartbreak.”

I kept my arm around her, holding her close. Luna had always been a beacon of sunlight to my darkness, ever since that first night when we met, but now her light was spreading. Everyone was coming to see what I had known early on. She was a treasure.

One of the seven cats Luna adopted in the years since we took the throne, Noir had wormed her way into my heart.

When Luna was with me, the darkness didn’t exist. She shone a light into my life that was unparalleled, and I loved her for it. She was mine, and I was hers. Forever.