Free Shadows of Darkness by Stephanie Rowe Page B

until they were clinging to each other, hanging on to the one solid thing in a world that was spinning out of control. She could almost hear the whispers of fate laughing, and she shut them out, burying her face in Levi's neck as the final waves of the orgasm took her, until there was nothing left but them.
    Exhausted, she sagged against Levi, her body aching from their lovemaking, a beautiful, amazing ache that somehow eased the emptiness that had been in her heart for as long as she could remember. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head, his legs tangled with hers on their bed of moss, the scent of fresh earth and nature blanketing them like a fresh start.
    Levi slid his hand down her arm and encircled her wrist with his fingers. He lifted her arm, turning his head to look at it. Even with the faint moonlight, it was dark, too dark for her to see what he was looking for. "What is it?"
    He ran his fingers over her forearm. "The first stage of the bonding is done," he said, his deep voice comforting. "My brand will start to appear on your arm. With each stage, more of it appears. When we complete the final stage, the image of my weapon on your arm will be exactly like mine. Can you feel it?"
    The moment he asked, she realized her forearms were burning, as if a hot brand was being etched across her skin. The brand was marking her as belonging to him. There was no going back now...and she realized, she didn't want to.
    She was in until the end, whatever that might be.

Chapter 6
    Levi watched silently as the silver lines appeared on Maya's forearm, as if an invisible pen were drawing them on her skin. The night was dark, but he still had the night vision he'd developed underground. The lethal, double-bladed handle of his axe appeared on her skin, an exact replica of the brand on his forearm.
    An intense, primal satisfaction pulsed through him as he watched it. She was his now. He'd marked her, he'd claimed her, and he'd begun the process of sealing the bond. But even as some innate instinctive pride hammered through him, a dark foreboding pressed down upon him.
    He knew all too well the fate of the sheva bond, her destiny to die by her own hand after killing him. His fingers tightened around her wrist, and he knew he could not let that happen.
    He'd allowed himself to bond with her through sex only because he'd realized that there was one thing that would be more important to her than the death of her soulmate, and that would be the fate of her kingdom.
    As much as destiny would try to get her to kill herself in despair after his death, he knew that she was stronger than that. She wouldn't die if her kingdom needed her alive, which meant that he had to find a way to make survival matter more to her than death.
    He would die, but she wouldn't, and that was the way it would be. But as he brought her arm to his mouth to kiss the brand, something deep, deep inside of him rebelled at the idea of dying and leaving his woman alone to defend her kingdom without him. And what about the man who she'd bartered with? Would he really die and let her face him alone?
    No. He wouldn't. The only option was to help her first, and then take her with him on his mission. And then…die he must, for the sake of the world.
    She looked at him, those beautiful, courageous blue eyes fastened on him, drawing him out of his grim thoughts. "What are the other bonding stages? How many are there?"
    He ran his hand down her arm, feeling the heat sizzling from her skin, focusing only on how good it felt to see his brand forming on her arm. "Trust is one of the stages. It's satisfied when we reveal our greatest secrets to each other, or give the other one the power to kill us."
    She nodded, and bit her lip. "What else?"
    "Death, where we kill to save the other one, or risk our lives to save the other."
    She grimaced. "I can't kill anyone."
    "Then we save that one until the end." He knew how the sheva bond worked. When the bond was tight