“They didn’t.” His hand comes up, hovering near my face but not quite touching. “The bond is changing us. Making us into something new.”
“Does that terrify you?”
“Yes.” The honesty in his voice makes my chest ache. “And no. And I don’t know which answer scares me more.”
I reach up before I can stop myself, covering his hand with mine. Bringing it the rest of the way to my cheek. Lightning sparks at the contact—gentle this time, almost tender—and steam rises where our magics meet.
His eyes darken. “We can’t?—”
“Can’t what?” I turn my face into his palm. “Can’t acknowledge what’s happening between us? Can’t admit the bond is real? Can’t?—”
He kisses me.
Or I kiss him.
Or we fall into each other with the inevitability of lightning seeking ground.
His lips are cooler than mine, but they warm under the kiss. His hand slides from my cheek into my hair, and mine find his shoulders, his neck, the fascinating place where his gills flutter with each breath. The bond surges between us—not painful, not violent, but consuming. Overwhelming. Like every wall we’ve built is burning away in the heat we create together.
He tastes like deep water and ozone. Like the storm I’ve been holding back my entire life.
I taste like thunderclouds. Like the sky he’s never dared to dream of touching.
The kiss deepens, and I feel his magic reach for mine—hydrokinesis twining with my electrical current, creating eddies and pulses that have nothing to do with battle and everything to do with want. Steam rises around us, coating the stone walls, turning the grotto into a cloud.
His scales are warm now under my fingers. Warming from my touch, from my lightning dancing across his skin in patterns that should burn but only make him pull me closer. I can feel his heart racing through the bond, can feel the way he’s fighting for control, can feel the exact moment control stops mattering.
He kisses like he’s drowning. Like I’m air and he’s been underwater too long. Like this is the first real breath he’s taken in years.
And I kiss him back like flying. Like he’s the wind beneath my wings. Like he’s the storm I’ve been searching for without knowing it.
His hands map my body, careful of my healing shoulder, and I arch into his touch, and he makes a sound low in his throat that sends electricity racing down my spine. My fingers find the raised edges of his scales, trace the webbing between his fingers, and explore the differences between us that the bond is teaching me to love.
We’re different. Fundamentally, elementally, impossibly different.
And together, we create something perfect.
He breaks the kiss first, but doesn’t pull away. Just rests his forehead against mine, breathing hard, his hands still tangled in my hair.
“Gods,” he whispers.
“Yeah.” My voice shakes. “Gods.”
For a moment, we just breathe. Just exist in this suspended space where the bond has settled into something warm and right and absolutely terrifying.
Then he wrenches away.
The loss hits like a physical blow. One moment he’s there—solid and warm and mine—the next he’s across the grotto, his back pressed against the far wall like I’m something dangerous.
Like he’s afraid of what he wants.
“Torin—”
“No.” The word comes out harsh. Raw. “We can’t. I can’t?—”
“Can’t what?” I’m on my feet now, the bond pulling me toward him even as everything in his body language screams retreat. “Can’t accept what’s happening between us? Can’t admit you felt it too?”
“Accepting this bond means losing everything.” His hands are shaking. I can see them trembling even in the dim light. “I’m already a traitor. Already outcast. Already—” He stops, jaw working. “I can’t also betray my own heart.”
