These Twisted Bonds (These Hollow Vows, #2)

by Lexi Ryan

Later in the night, Finn appears in a dream, but I shove him out before he can say a single word.

“Now that you’re clean, I can certainly see the appeal.” “The appeal?” His russet eyes are bright when they meet mine again. “As we speak, two of the most powerful males in our realm are fighting over you.” He waves a hand up and down. “Now that you’re cleaned up, I can see why. Perhaps I’ll let them destroy each other and keep you for myself.”

Finn lifts his chin. “Sebastian may have taken the crown from Abriella, but Abriella still possesses its powers.”

None of us asks for the burdens we bear, but that doesn’t make the way we handle them any less significant.”

Before I know what’s happening, Finn spins me around and presses me against the wall. He stares down at me, his silver eyes hard. “But you did. You took the potion, and in doing so, you salvaged one beautiful thing in a world full of ugliness. I, for one, will never be sorry for that.”

His grin is smug, and his gaze is pure wicked intention as he looks me over slowly. “I don’t consider you a toy, Princess, but if you’d like to play, all you have to do is ask.”

She’s bonded to him, yet you look at her like she is the stars and the moon. Like she’s rain at the end of a long summer drought. You look at her the way all the young females in Staraelia dreamed you might one day look upon them.”

Because he’s not you. Because I can’t stop thinking about our kiss or the way you comforted me last night. Because though my bond with Sebastian might heighten the things I feel about and with him, none of it compares to the way I feel when I’m close to you.

He swallows. “Because I know you think you don’t fit in this world. I know you think that by giving up your human life, you also gave up your only chance of going home.” He takes my hand and squeezes my fingers. “I can’t change what happened, and I can’t make the mortal realm a safe place for you, but I can give you a place to call home. The most beautiful place in my whole court. It’s yours.”

When you came into my life, you were a bright star in an endlessly dark night. I needed to see there was still something worth hoping for.

“I want you so much, Abriella. More than I ever thought was possible. More than I should admit. But as long as you’re bonded to him, you’ll never be completely mine.” He lifts his gaze and locks his silver eyes on mine. “And I am just as selfish as the males who loved Queen Gloriana. I don’t want pieces of you. I want all of you, and I won’t share.”

it never happens?” He kisses my jaw, my cheek, the corner of my mouth. “Abriella, if it never happens, I still get to live in a world that has you in it. And I will relish every moment of that. Even if you’re never mine, I will always be entirely yours. Love like this is worth hoping for.”