Shadowbound by Dianne Sylvan Page B

met, less than half a dozen had ever affected him at all, and no one had ever turned him into a gibbering idiot like this.
    It was ridiculous. He was Prime, not some hormonal teenager. Pull yourself together, for fuck’s sake.
    “I did not mean to judge you, earlier,” Nico told him quietly. “I have often wondered . . . how differently would things have turned out if my people had fought back instead of hiding? The thought of killing another creature sickens me, but when something precious is threatened, how is it more righteous to run away rather than to stand your ground?”
    “I must say I didn’t expect to hear that from you.”
    Another smile, this time smaller, touched with some regret, from what source Deven couldn’t imagine. “I am known for saying unpopular things.”
    Their eyes met again. God, those eyes . . . They had their own gravitational pull, and his heart was spinning in orbit around them.
    “We’re not . . . related, or anything, are we?” Deven asked suddenly around the tightness in his chest.
    As if he were expecting any question but that one, the Elf laughed. “No, we are not. As I understand it, you have the blood from your grandmother, who was of a different family line than ours.”
    “Right. I never met her. My parents didn’t exactly invite her round for Christmas dinner.” A thought arose that had never before occurred to him, and he asked, “Is she still alive?”
    “She is indeed.”
    “Where?”
    “In Avilon, one of only three Elven sanctuaries that survived the Burning Times. We sealed the Veil—the barrier that shields Avilon from the mortal world—not long after you were born, so she assumed you died at the hands of the Inquisition like so many of our part-human kin.”
    A flash of the nightmare he’d woken from earlier appeared in Deven’s mind, and a violent tremor ran through him, the memory of that time crystal clear and horrifically close for a moment. The intrusion was so harsh and unexpected that it left him feeling weak—as the Elf had warned, he wasn’t completely recovered, and before he could brace himself against the wall, his knees gave out.
    He fully expected to crack his skull on the tile floor, but Nico acted with near-vampire quickness and caught him, gently lifting him back up with an ease that surprised the hell out of the Prime. Nico’s willowy body held far more strength than he would have believed, and while he inwardly cursed himself for displaying such vulnerability, he sagged against the Elf for a moment, trying to ground . . . all the while noticing how solid Nico was, how warm . . . and how everywhere they were touching felt like it was electrically charged.
    Deven rubbed his hands together against the phantom pain—for a moment he could feel it again, the radial breaks from the center of his palms, the unbearable pressure just before the bones splintered. That stench he had tried so hard to forget . . . human filth, blood, putrefaction, burning flesh . . . pushed cruelly into his mind.
    Nico took his hands lightly, drawing them apart to stop the compulsive motion. “Breathe, my Lord . . . you are no longer in that place, or that time. This is your home and you are safe.”
    Deven felt Nico reach into himself and offer a light current of energy, which the Prime took gratefully. The weakness faded, the world righted itself, and he laid his head on Nico’s shoulder. For just a moment they stood there, holding on to each other.
    Deven thought back to the last time something like this had happened, but this time he had no painful history with the person holding him. That night had caused so much suffering that it was hard to think back on it with anything but shame . . . but the memory of that stolen moment in David’s arms still brought a stab of longing for what had once been beautiful . . . out of reach now, forever, which was absolutely a good thing for everyone concerned.
    Before Deven could speak, the