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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Chloe Cullen
Read between
October 18 - October 23, 2025
Not the quickest bunny in the forest, are you, Finley?” Silas tilted his head, leaning closer and speaking in a lower tone. “Careful, Winslow. I bite.”
Silas stood over her, the sun blazing off his blonde hair and giving him a damned halo. Of course he’d look like that. Tall, lithe, and unnaturally graceful,
With his alabaster skin and bright hair paired with icy blue eyes, Silas was unusually pleasing to look at, from a completely aesthetic standpoint. It was a shame that his personality slid him firmly off the attractive scale. And don’t even get her started on his aristocratic smirk, borne from his family’s obscene fortune. He was stunningly, infuriatingly perfect. And he knew it.
Their rivalry had always been built on sharp words and sharper minds. It was a relentless game of one-upmanship
“You know, I believe I read somewhere that prolonged exposure and proximity between individuals increases attraction towards one another.”
“Do you feel that?” she asked quietly. “Our undeniable chemistry?” Silas said, but his voice held none if its usual humour. He slid her a glance. “You must stop hitting on me, Winslow, it’s getting sad.”
“It looks like there’s a storm coming.”
Instead, all he said was, “you are the storm, Winslow.”
He set his eyes on her. “No debate,” he said firmly. “If anything is dragging you off into the night, they’ll have to drag me off, too.”
He shifted his hand, laying it palm upwards across his knee. Amelia’s eyes landed on the matching cut in his skin. Bonded. By magic. Pair bonded. To Silas bloody Finley.
She supposed there was little choice in the matter. Amelia was tied to him whether she wanted to be or not. Magic didn’t lie.
His blue eyes tracked over her in the same way they did when he had first entered. When he met her gaze, Silas said in a low voice, “you were really brave tonight.” Amelia’s lips parted. Stop surprising me, you jerk.
Sometimes it’s the things you seek the most which are the hardest to accept when laid at your feet.
She scowled. “You’re insufferable.” Silas smirked. “You’re distracted.”
She swallowed. “Sounds like it might storm outside,” Amelia offered quietly to fill the silence. His eyes found hers, and he sent her a small smile. “You are the storm, Winslow.”
He breathed out his own small laugh and looked away. “I didn’t know you thought of me at all,” Silas muttered, almost too low for her to hear. But she had heard.
“You know,” Silas said softly, “you might consider that over the past nine years of rivalry, that perhaps I was following your lead.” “My lead?” she breathed, watching his fingers moving between them. “Mm-hm,” Silas said with a small nod as he handed the open bar back to her. She took it automatically before tilting her head back to meet his eyes. “You were so…delightfully combative when we first met,” he said with a quiet laugh. “Because of who your parents are, no one else seemed to want to stand with you and give it right back.” He shrugged a shoulder and smiled. “I had no qualms matching
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Silas paused and had to swallow the sense that she belonged there, in his old home. A ridiculous notion given her general dislike of him.
Her expression, usually cold and calculating, was warm and open as she met his gaze. It punched him in the chest, shedding the air from his lungs. She was entirely too beautiful; it was almost unfair.
The desire to touch her was not new, though the wild thought that she might let him, was. Indescribably so.
“By some, they are believed to be the first pair bond. They are twin pillars, representing both light and dark, yin and yang, bonded for eternity. So, as it was described to me, is that becoming pair bonded, allows you to step across the veil, into the birthplace of the first bonded—the Monoliths.”
She knew. Silas had been taken by Amelia for a long time.
he longed for her presence, looked forwards to conferences and debates that included her, in the way his heart jumped at the sight of her.
Silas had known her for nine years and had identified how he felt for perhaps eight and a half. He was just very good at hiding it. But his mother knew.
The only thing that brought her out of that shell, that forced her brilliance to the surface? Fighting with her. It ignited a spark, bringing her to life. It was simultaneously what made Silas fall in love with her, while Amelia slowly loathed him. He would never say that it hadn’t been worth it.
Silas could watch her complete mundane tasks all day.
“I don’t like that look,” Silas had said warily. Biting her lip, she backed away, a hint of mischief there that had him shifting restlessly beneath the bindings. “I like you like this,” Amelia admitted. Silas narrowed his eyes. “Tied to the wall?” That smile grew, a wicked edge to it as she reached behind for the door with a half-shrug. “Helpless.”
He wanted her to feel safe enough with him to be who she truly was. He wanted her like he had never wanted anything else in his life.
“I first saw you when I was eighteen, during my first visit to the Spire’s library. I’ve only known you…after, and to me, you’ve always been the most inspirational, intelligent, fiercely brave, quick-witted, and wildly interesting woman I have ever known.”
“That was all you. You have nothing to prove, not to your parents, not to me, not to anyone. Do you understand?”
Her trust was a rare, precious gift, one that filled him with pride and gratitude.
His last waking though before sleep claimed him was of her. So tired, he barely realised the words slipped from his lips into the dark. “I wish you were mine, my storm.”
“The phenomenon of pair bonding has long been misunderstood. It is neither a matter of fate nor of romantic entanglement. The magic does not choose their bearers based on love or longing, but rather on resonance; on two minds, two souls that call to each other in ways unseen. It is a bond of compatibility, of understanding, but it holds no inherent sway over the heart.” Citing ‘Legends of the Realm’ by Trella Thumbwig, 1263.
She understood now, why it had never worked before. She’d been trying to force herself into his shape. This was her shape, hers.
“Should I tell you how long I’ve yearned to simply be near you, that I took projects you might be interested in over the years just in the hopes our paths may cross?” Amelia’s chest rose sharply, eyes widening.
“Should I make it worse and confess that I think you’re the most intelligent, witty and achingly beautiful force I’ve ever known, and even if all we did was argue, those were the best moments of my damn life?”
Silas made her feel like she was everything. More than worthy of basic empathy and kindness. But worthy of acceptance, of…love.
The spark waited. She whispered it. Willing the whispers to turn to screams. For the silence to grow louder. She knew who she was, Amelia would not let herself forget it. She would not let herself forget him. The storm would return. I am the storm.
