“Excuse me?” The words tasted like ash.
She must have heard Ryker wrong. Fae couldn’t lie, but this… it… that wasn’t possible. It wasn’t like a fucking Binding could be easily hidden, for the gods’ sake.
“Jelisette doesn’t have a Bound Partner.” Her head reeled, and her words came faster and faster. “That’s not… No. I would know if my Maker was Bound to someone.”
Bile rose in her throat, and she held a hand over her mouth.
Ryker was a fae, and he couldn’t lie, but this…
A Binding?
Brynleigh knew what they were, of course. Everyone did.
Binding Ceremonies, like Tetherings, were rarely done. Bindings were eternal commitments blessed by the gods themselves. They could never be broken. Vampires could be Bound to fellow vampires but also to humans, elves, and shifters.
The Binding was a blood ceremony that tied lifespans together. For mortals, it extended their lives to match their Bound Partner’s. For vampires, it meant they would never again require a Source that wasn’t their partner.
Bound Partners rarely separated from each other. Why would they? They provided life for each other. They were blessed by Isvana, the goddess of the moon, herself.
And if Jelisette had a Bound Partner, that meant Brynleigh had missed something significant. It meant her Maker had been lying since day fucking one.
Brynleigh’s heart raced, and disbelief coursed through her. She drew in short breaths as she thought over every interaction she’d ever had with her Maker. Assuming it was true, there would be signs. Markings.
How could Brynleigh have worked so closely with someone for six years without noticing they were Bound to another being?
None of this made any sense.
Her head swirled. Her lungs squeezed. It was like someone had dropped a thousand-pound weight on her chest.
And Ryker was sitting there, studying her every movement.
“I… I don’t understand.” Perhaps she would’ve taken this news better before her imprisonment, but now… “Jelisette wouldn’t have kept this from me.”
Right? There had to be some level of trust between them. After all, Jelisette had Made Brynleigh. Some vampires saw their progeny as their children, and they shared everything.
While Brynleigh had never had that kind of relationship with her Maker, this was…
Impossible.
Right?
It seemed like a small omission from the outside, but the more Brynleigh thought about it, the worse it got. She had spent years with her Maker, and Jelisette had never mentioned anything like this. She’d never even hinted at having a Bound Partner. Brynleigh had never seen her with anyone; for Isvana’s sake, she’d never even seen Jelisette’s supposed Marking.
Ryker raised a brow.
“Really?” His tone made his position on the matter clear. “She wouldn’t have?”
“No.” Brynleigh shook her head adamantly. “I… She’s my Maker.”
She could still remember the feeling when Jelisette saved her from a watery grave, still remember the way her sire had first drained her of her blood and then given her the gift of immortality.
Brynleigh whispered, as if trying to convince herself, “There’s a sacredness to our bond.”
If this was true, it meant she couldn’t trust anything that had happened to her since her Making.
Ryker leaned back, his relaxed posture almost laughable in the face of Brynleigh’s inner turmoil.
“Your Maker hid this from you.”