“I’m sorry, too,” I said after a while. Sighing, I shook my head. “This is such a mess. I’m sorry that you were forced into this.” I gestured to the window, where snow was falling yet again. “You should know, Luna, that I fought against the Binding. I tried… but I failed. If I’d known that Ciro was going to Tether us, I would have refused the union altogether, consequences be damned.”
“Why?” She stared at the marking on her wrist, tracing the red line tying us together. “What does this mean? Being Tethered?”
“Remember how I told you about Isvana?”
She nodded.
“Rumor has it that a long time ago when Isvana created the first vampires, she Bound and Tethered them to each other. It was a way of forcing them to remain together. For most vampires, human blood is the key to survival. But if you are Bound, your partner’s blood provides you with the greatest amount of strength.”
“Yes, you mentioned that.” Luna frowned. “I’m not… ready to unpack what that means.”
I sighed. “The Tether itself is a little more complicated. It allows for a more… complete connection between two beings. Some say it could be a blessing, while others call it a curse.”
Right now, I was definitely leaning toward the curse aspect of this union.
“Because you are stuck together?” she asked.
I nodded. “The Tether… it makes it so that partners can never leave each other. Their blood is the only thing that satisfies the other.”
I could see Luna’s mind working behind her eyes, but she remained silent.
“No one has been Tethered for centuries.” I ran my hand through my hair. “I didn’t even know it was still possible. When I was Made, I read about it, but I’ve never met anyone who was subjected to this. Tethering is… archaic.” I picked my words carefully. “It’s essentially a magical rope tying us together.”
That much was certain. The other things I’d heard about Tethers—the ways that they connected partners completely in a way that not even mating bonds did, the fact that partners could pull strength and power from each other, or sometimes even share a mental connection—did not seem necessary to share at this moment. They were rumors. Nothing more.
Besides, this was bad enough already.
“A rope,” she parroted, her voice low.
This would have been a good time to be capable of reading minds. If I had Estrella’s gift, perhaps I would have known what this human of mine was thinking.
But I did not have that gift, and I had no idea what was going on in Luna’s mind.
A bitter laugh escaped me as a wisp of a shadow slipped from my palm, dancing around Luna’s wrist. “Where you go, I go.”
She eyed the shadow, twisting her hands together. Luna’s cheeks and neck turned bright red and her nostrils flared. “Are you trying to tell me weliterallyhave to remain together at all times?”
Rubbing the back of my neck, I sighed. “Not exactly… together. There is some leeway.”
She narrowed her eyes. “How much?”
“I don’t… I’m not sure.” I stood, running my hands through my hair. “Based on how far I got from the bedroom before collapsing, I’d estimate about thirty feet, give or take.”
Her eyes widened as she took my place on the bed. “Thirtyfeet?”
“Before the pain kicks in. Yes.”
“What happens if we don’t come back?” A calculating glint entered her eye.
“I honestly don’t know.” I sighed. “Death, probably. There’s a reason Tethering isn’t done anymore.”
“Obviously,” Luna said dryly.
Then, as if the words had been too much, she fell backward on the bed. Her arms stretched out behind her and her eyes closed as her mouth began moving silently once more.
That was… odd. It wasn’t really the reaction I had been expecting. A few minutes went by before I asked, “Luna… what are you doing?”
She peeked open an eye. “Thinking. This is how I think. Do you have a problem with it? Maybe you’d like to leave?” A resentful laugh escaped her and her voice hardened. “Except, wait, you can’t. Neither can I. So I suppose, Prince, you’re going to have to watch me think because you don’t have any options.”