Both.
My hands trembled. The weight of his words settled into my chest, heavy and right.
Kaedren was the last to speak, his deep voice rumbling through the room. "You will become part of us, and we will become part of you." His fierce gaze softened, just barely. "You'll feel our pain. We'll feel yours. You'll feel our love, and we'll feel yours. Your joining won't just balance us, Kira."
He stepped closer, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off his skin, see the way his chest rose and fell with controlled breathing.
"It will balance you, too."
I believed him.
The tether sang between us, desperate, yearning, so close to completion I could taste it.
Torvyn held out his hand, palm up. An offering.
"Will you join our tether, Kira?" His voice was steady, but I could feel the vulnerability beneath it—theirs and mine, tangled together. "Without reservation. Without hesitation. With full acceptance, trust, and love?"
The silence stretched.
Four pairs of eyes watched me. Waiting. Hoping. Terrified I'd say no.
The bond pulled at me, a living thing now, coiled and ready to strike, to bind, to claim.
Tears spilled down my cheeks before I could stop them—not from sadness, but from the sheer weight of everything I was feeling.
Joy. Relief. Certainty.
Love.
I stepped forward and placed my hand in Torvyn's.
"Yes." My voice cracked, but I didn't care. "Yes. I choose this. I choose you. All of you."
I smiled through the tears, trembling.
"Forever."
They moved as one.
Torvyn pulled me against his chest, his arms iron-strong and impossibly gentle. Kaedren's hand slid into my hair, tilting my face up. Lyrin pressed against my back, his warmth seeping into me. Vaelix's fingers traced the bare skin of my arm, sending shivers racing up my spine.
And then the bondopened.
Not gradually. Not gently.
All at once.
I gasped as four consciousnesses slammed into mine—distinct but unified, overwhelming but right. I felt Torvyn's fierce protectiveness, the way he'd carried the weight of command alone for so long and was finally,finallyallowed to share it. I felt Kaedren's feral need, the violence he kept leashed except when protecting what was his. I felt Lyrin's oceanic empathy, vast and deep and utterly unafraid of drowning in what he felt. I felt Vaelix's sharp, hungry intellect, the way his mind had been starving for an equal and had found one in me.
I felt their love, their relief, their desperation, their joy.
And beneath it all, I felt the tether itself—ancient, powerful, alive—wrapping around us like gravity, like fate, like coming home.
The room spun. Or maybe I was spinning. I couldn't tell where I ended and they began.
We were no longer five.
We were one.
