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eyes was a sadness that made her heart drum sickeningly in her chest. “There is more, isn’t there?”  
    “Aye,” he said with a sigh. “I have to return with you before the fifth moon of the harvest year.”  
    “And that is when?”  
    “In less than two months.”  
    No wonder he was sad.   The news meant she had very little time either with him – or with her family.   Katrina needed to think. She rose and paced before the bed, heedless of her nakedness. “And the rest?”  
    “I doona know if now is the time, lass.”  
    She turned sharply to him. “I think now is definitely the time, Sorin. I don’t doubt that I am your mate.   Especially now.   But I need to know everything.”  
    “All right.” He ran a hand down his face. “If you doona return with me, my kingdom and all its inhabitants will cease to exist.”  
    She stopped pacing and her stomach dropped to her feet.   Of everything she might have imagined, she hadn’t expected anything of this magnitude. “My God.”  
    “You can refuse me if you want.   What I ask is a lot, but please know what if you do refuse me you’ll never find happiness with another man. Eventually, over the years, the pain at not being with me will grow and turn you bitter and hateful.”  
    “Yet, you can find another?”   That hardly seemed fair.
    “Nay.” He lowered his gaze to the floor. “If you decide no’ to return, I’ll stay with you for I can no’ leave my mate. I’m bound to you, forsaking all others.   For you.”  
    Katrina wanted to cry. How had she gotten into this mess? And what could she do other than return with Sorin?   His people, his family counted on him returning.   Yet, how could she leave behind everything she knew?
    It was a frightening possibility, but the idea of not being with Sorin left her cold.   Besides, all women left their families when they married.   Her father had never understood why she had been so choosy in finding a husband.   Now she knew.   She’d been waiting on Sorin.  
    He’d been searching for her, but she had also been searching for him.   The one man she’d known was meant for her the moment she fell into his arms and she looked into his dark eyes.   It had been just an instant, but her body, her heart…her soul had known him.  
    “I’ll go with you to Drahcir.” She expected him to show some happiness or excitement.   Instead he closed his eyes and clenched his jaw.   And that’s when she realized what she hadn’t understood before now. “If I go with you, I’ll never be able to see my family again, will I?”  
    He slowly shook his head.  
    Her family meant the world to her, how could she leave knowing she would never see them again?   Never have her father hold her children or her children know him.   She’d already had her mother taken from her, she wasn’t ready to let go of her father as well.
    “You ask the impossible,” she murmured and reached for her chemise. She pulled the garment over her head her hands shaking as her mind and body warred with what each wanted.   Her body wanted Sorin.   Her heart did as well, but it also wanted to be near her father.  
    “I know. If I could change things, I would,” Sorin said. “Drahcir is kept secret by Fae magic, and though we allow anyone who wants to leave our kingdom to do so, they can never return.”  
    “Yet you can?”  
    “We doona leave because we want to. We leave because we have to,” he said softly. “Time travels slower in our kingdom. Much slower.”  
    “In other words, even if I were able to leave when I returned my family might well be dead.”  
    “You’ve the right of it.”  
    She returned to the bed and sat beside him, the weight of the world suddenly on her shoulders. “I’ve waited my whole life to find a man who understood me, who made my blood sing.   To find you.   I just never expected you to be from a magical kingdom.”  
    He rose and silently dressed. No more