That's all it is.
That's all it can be.
I turn away from the mirror before I can think about it any harder.
22
Kess
The tea tastes wrong.
I notice it the moment the liquid touches my tongue—a discordant note buried beneath the familiar bitter-sweet blend, something my newly sharpened senses have been trying to tell me for days. I hold it in my mouth instead of swallowing, letting it pool against my teeth, cataloguing the flavors the way my grandmother taught me to catalogue herbs in the forest. Chamomile. Honey. The astringent bite of something medicinal underneath.
And beneath all of that, so faint I might be imagining it, something that tastes like wrongness. Like my body recognizing a threat my mind hasn't caught up to yet.
I swallow anyway, because I'm probably being paranoid. Because Rhystan loves me. Because he brings me this tea every evening with such careful attention, watches me drink it with such obvious relief when I finish the cup, that doubting him feels like a betrayal of everything we've built.
But I set the cup down with the tea only half-finished, and I find I can't make myself drink the rest.
-
The bond feels wrong too.
It's been feeling wrong for weeks now, muted and distant like hearing music through stone walls, but I kept telling myself it was the transformation. The contamination remaking my body cell by cell. My system adjusting to the changes flooding through me with every passing day.
But the wrongness has a pattern.
The bond is weakest in the mornings, after I drink my tea. Strongest in the late afternoons, when hours have passed since my last cup. The connection ebbs and flows with a rhythm that has nothing to do with my emotions or his presence or anything else that should affect a mate bond.
It ebbs and flows with the tea.
The thought surfaces unbidden, sharp and cold as a blade drawn across skin, and I can't push it back down no matter how hard I try.
What if it's not the transformation making the bond feel muted? What if something is actively weakening it, fraying the connection thread by thread?
What if it's the tea?
I need answers. Real ones, not the careful deflections Rhystan has been giving me for weeks, not the vague reassurances about transformation and adjustment and giving my body time to heal.
And I know exactly where to look.
The storage room is dark and dusty, thick with the smell of old fabric and forgotten things. Moonlight filters through a single grimy window, casting silver shadows across the broken furniture and moth-eaten tapestries that have been moldering here for decades. My hiding spot is where I left it—the hollow behind the cracked armoire where I used to stash food in theearly days, back when I trusted no one and nothing, back when survival meant hoarding secrets like a dragon hoards gold.
The books are still there too. The ones Rhystan hid from the library. The ones I found weeks ago and never told him about, holding the knowledge close like a weapon I wasn't ready to use.
I haven't told him I know about the priests. Haven't told him I know about the forty-seven deaths being engineered, about warrior omegas being hunted to extinction, about the conspiracy that's kept his curse active for three hundred years. I've been waiting for the right moment, the right conversation, the right opening to confront him with everything I've learned.
Maybe the right moment is now.
I carry the texts back to my chambers, light every candle I own, and start searching with new purpose. Not for information about contamination this time—I know enough about that. This time I'm hunting for anything about bonds. About what could weaken them. About why I feel so disconnected from the man I love even when he's pressed against me in the dark, even when his hands are gentle on my skin, even when he whispers my name like a prayer.
The answer finds me an hour later, buried in a margin note written in cramped, faded script.
Certain preparations can weaken the omega bond if administered regularly. The most common blend includes valerian root, moonflower extract, and essence of nightshade in quantities too small to poison but sufficient to fray the mate connection over time.
My hands have started shaking. I flatten them against the page and force myself to keep reading.
The omega may notice the bond feeling distant or muted. Sleep is often improved as the bond's emotional intensity fades.
