And now it was mine.
“Are you okay?” Jessiah asked.
I felt something else then, too. Something that made my knees wobble. made my stomach flip.
Jessiah.His words twisted and caressed my bones, fully part of me now. Part mine.
“I’m—” The words escaped me before I could finish a thought. A fire ignited in my chest, one of foreign desire. I clawed at my shirt until my nails dug into my skin.“What is this? What am I feeling?”
“Take a deep breath,” he ordered with a calm voice. “It doesn’t help either of us if you panic.”
Was that his way of telling me to calm down? Because if I wasn’t on the verge of fainting and vomiting all at once, I might’ve slapped him for that.
Instead, I focused on my breathing.Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.
With my breath, the nerves settled. But even as Jessiah took a step closer to me, I could feel it. I could anticipate it, like I was the one making those movements.
A laugh bubbled in my chest and came spilling out before I could stop it.
Jessiah froze in his tracks. “What’s happening right now? Are you okay?”
I laughed and laughed, my body fully surrendered to the absolute insanity that this bond was. Jessiah was so much stronger than I had ever imagined. He’d been hiding this all along, whether it was intention or not, and now?
Now I could feel it all. Every ounce of power. Every thought.
Every bit of hatred and longing and desire.
Or was that mine?
The line between Jessiah and me blurred roughly, threatening to disappear forever.
I took another breath and calmed my laughter. Yeah, I probably was losing my mind. But after what I’d been through, I thought that was acceptable.
Jessiah pulled away and paced the room around us, running his fingers through his tousled hair. “Your magic,” he started. “I can feel it now, I can feel the?—”
Before he could finish the sentence, I threw up any walls I had remaining, envisioning a force field between us that blocked Jessiah from every part of me.
And he flinched—physically flinched. Then he spun to face me with wide eyes.
“What are you doing?” he asked. “Stop that.”
“I don’t want you to feel my magic,” I said. “Don’t pry, okay?”
“That isn’t how this works. You agreed to the bond, this is part of it. You can’t force me out, it’ll take up too much of your energy.”
“That doesn’t mean I can’t keep some things to myself. Just drop it. The bond is complete, right? That’s all we needed to accomplish here.” I needed to get the fuck away from him right now. Get the fuck away, or he would know too much. Like exactly what happened two years ago when everything changed between us.
Like exactly why I tried so hard to keep my distance from him, even when every part of my soul wanted to get closer.
Even the thoughts felt unsafe. Exposed. Too loud.
Jessiah raised an eyebrow and dropped his gaze to scan my entire body before meeting my eye with a hesitant stare.
My mind spun.
And before I could shove it back into that locked box, the memory I tried so hard to bury finally surfaced.
Jessiah’s wings flared out on either side of his sculpted shoulders. The sun set in the distance behind him, casting a shadow over where I stood. Still, I had to squint and crane my neck upward to see his face.
