Across from me, Cayden lay on his side, fingers still laced with Quinn’s. He rested a possessive hand on her hip, and I felt no urge to move it. Quinn and Cayden were a unit. It had taken me a long time, but I finally understood that. Their platonic-not-platonic-bickering-old-couple dynamic confused the hell out of me. But I’d roll with anything to make Quinn happy.
She mumbled something and fidgeted under the blanket. We’d passed out, exhausted from the day, and slept over ten hours. I doubted any of us were going back to sleep. She rolled and brushed against me, and my body immediately responded. Before I could back away, Quinn wiggled closer, and my new, stiff appendage stabbed into her back.
Surprise spiked our tether, followed by a now familiar bloom of what I could only describe as happy-bitter-mischief. Before she could follow through, I threw the blankets off us, letting the cold sting my skin.
“Noo,” Quinn moaned like I’d killed her puppy. “I said five more minutes.”
Cayden snorted. He kissed Quinn’s cheek before slipping into his private bathroom. The minute the door closed, I cupped Quinn’s face, guiding her far away from my erection, and threw the blankets back over us. Dim light filtered through the white fabric.
“I tethered you, and you know it,” I said softly.
Her gaze dimmed, and the hurt I never wanted to feel filled our tether.
“What I can’t figure out is why,” Quinn said softly.
She pushed away from me so our bodies were no longer flush, but she didn’t move my hand cupping her cheek. Her tether filled withcautious hope. If I’d felt anything else from her, I don’t know what I would have done.
“You must have done it while I was still pretending to be a boy,” Quinn continued when I didn’t speak. “We’d had one conversation, two at most. And then you purposely kept your distance from me. Men use tethers to claim and control, right?”
I caressed her cheek with my thumb. “They do, but I didn’t intend to tether you. From the first moment you sat in my lap, you felt right.”
Quinn blushed, and an embarrassed thrill plucked the tether.
“My Majekah dragged me to you. When you fell, I felt it. Holding you broken in my arms, it happened before I could stop it.”
Quinn bit her lips together. “You didn’t heal me or use magic on me, right?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t want the tether. I left you, thinking you knew what to do, and hid in the Alun to stop the inevitable. But the tether held. Ezra knew. He pushed us together. And I realized how unhappy I was trying to carve something from a world I wasn’t sure I even wanted.”
Quinn ran her hand down my arm and scooted closer so she could rest her palm on my bare chest. Understanding bloomed between us, but she was still wary.
“Why didn’t you tell me once we got closer?” she asked.
My heartbeat raced under her hand. “I didn’t want you to think I was trying to own you. Then I saw you with the Architect, laughing. He ordered me to keep quiet, and I obeyed, because I’m his man. You seemed happy. And it wasn’t my place to question.”
“I get that,” Quinn said. “And I’m not upset.”
She was. I could feel a twinge of unhappiness under her words. But she didn’t want me to know, so I dropped it.
“I didn’t tell you because I wanted you to choose me, not magic.” I reached out and pulled her close. She rested her head on my chest, and my heart thumped. “I’m scared, Q-tip. I’ve not heard of a natural tether in fifty years, maybe more.” Every insecurity I’d spent my life working to overcome hit me at once. I clenched my fist. “Yeah, I’ve got power. But our land shrinks every year. All I’ve got to offer is bloodlines and muscle. Angela wasn’t just getting our child because she wanted it; her financing and connections were going to fix the Tates.”
Quinn pressed herself harder into me.
I took a deep breath and plowed on. “The Architect’s everything I’m not. You’ve been with him and Ezra more times than I can count. You chose them. What if I’m the mistake?”
A wave of guilt smashed into our tether. Quinn pressed her lips to mine and rolled, taking the blankets with us until we were in a little cocoon with her on top. She was so short that her hips straddled my rib cage to keep our faces even.
Probably for the better. My dick didn’t seem to share my insecurities.
She bit my lip and sat up, still trapped in the blankets. “You are not a mistake. I’m from the past and you’re ‘old blood,’” she put the word in quotes as if she’d heard it a million times but didn’t believe it.
I chuckled. “I am a Tate.”
Quinn kissed my cheek. “Clearly, your old blood reacted to my old magic.” She wrinkled her nose. “You didn’t choose this either. Unless... you still don’t want the tether?”
I rolled us so I caged her against the mattress before filling her mouth with my tongue in slow, languid sweeps that promised so much more. I pushed up on my arms so I could see her face. “I want the tether, Q-tip. But it kills me you didn’t get to choose.”
She pressed her lips together and traced my chest like she was memorizing it. “I get that, better than you know.”
