“I know what I said.” Shame curls in my chest. “And I wish I could take it back. Wish I could explain it in a way that doesn’t sound like excuse or justification.”
“Try.”
I lean against the wall. Need the support. “When we were together—when I was inside you—I felt something I haven’t felt in all my life. Connection. Intimacy. The vulnerability of being truly known by another person.” I pause. “And for a moment, my mind couldn’t reconcile what was happening with who was making it happen. Old patterns surfaced. Old grief. I spoke a name that belonged to a memory instead of the present.”
“So you were thinking of her.”
“I was thinking of what it felt like to be seen. To be wanted. To matter to someone beyond duty or necessity.” I meet her eyes. “And yes. For that moment, I confused past with present. But Mara—” I push off the wall. Take a step closer. “You are not her. You have never been her. And I do not wish you were.”
“Then what do you wish?”
“I wish I understood what I feel. Wish I could separate what was bond from what is—” I stop. Search for the right word.
“Real,” she supplies quietly.
“Yes. Real.”
She’s quiet. Then: “Can I tell you what I felt? When the bond broke?”
“Please.”
“Terror.” The word comes out raw. “Not because it hurt; it did, in a way, but that’s not what scared me. I was terrified that without the bond, you’d look at me and see nothing worth keeping. That I was only interesting because magic forced you to care.”
The pain in her voice cuts.
“That was never true.”
“How do you know? How do either of us know?”
“Because—” I stop. Feel it.
The fire.
My dragon recognizes her. Has recognized her since I pulled her from the wreckage. But with the healing bond dominating everything, I couldn’t distinguish what was magic and what was—
This.
This pull that has nothing to do with necessity and everything to do with the way she moves through the world. The way she makes me want to understand the present instead of mourning the past.
Understanding begins to dawn on me. And it sucks the breath from my lungs.
“Kael?” She’s watching me carefully. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong.” I take another step closer. “Something is happening.”
“What?”
“I feel you.”
“I’m standing right here. Of course you—”
“No. Ifeelyou. Not the healing bond. Something else. Something—” I press my hand to my chest. Where the bond used to hum. “Here. Where the bond was severed.”
Her eyes widen. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying the healing bond is gone. But something else is still here. Something that started the moment I was drawn to that helicopter and has been growing stronger every day despite the healing magic masking it.”
“I don’t understand,” she whispers.
