So for the first few days in Kaz’s home, she slept either in the nest or curled up on the couch, her head pillowed on his thigh, their emotions swirling effortlessly in a deep, elemental rhythm. He was always right there when she woke.
At first she worried how he was adapting to the foreign flow of emotion the tether directed toward him and instinctively throttled it back whenever she was awake enough to do so, but as they settled into one another, she gradually eased her grip.
When she asked how he was handling it, he answered, “It feels like I’m getting a constant stream of intel on you.” His dark eyes glittered with a cunning look. “You can’t hide anything from me. I getallof you. What’s not to like?”
I don’t do emotions,he’d said. Every time she remembered his confession, she fought the urge to give him a long, incredulous look.
Atria should have known her sly half-orc would love having the advantage of knowing how she felt in real time. Of course, she had to explain to him that the tether wasn’t exactly foolproof. It would only connect them when they were in close proximity. As he soon discovered, even stepping into another room could temporarily mute it, and increasing distance would sever it entirely.
Only a witchbond would make the connection rock solid. Permanent. The kind of connection that could stretch across continents with barely a flicker of disruption. Once forged, it would sew them soul to soul, creating a feedback loop of raw power that would sustain her life for centuries to come.
She wasn’t necessarily trying to test the waters when she explained it to him, but Atria found herself watching Kaz’s expressions and the tenor of his aura carefully.Sheknew that she wanted to bond with him. More importantly, her magic did. It reached for him in a blinding, fizzy rush whenever they touched, desperate to burrow under his skin.
The concept of bonding to someone had been soured by Norman’s insistence and subsequent betrayal. Even before the disintegration of their relationship, Atria had never once felt the pure magical rush that came with touching Kaz. She had been in no rush to bond to anyone, but now…
The desire to bond with Kaz was a low, primal drumbeat in the back of her mind — not just a biological imperative, but a soul-deep yearning for the man who had turned her world upside down.
Unfortunately, when she casually brought it up, her mate’s reaction was… confusing at best.
Kaz was busy working on sending an encrypted message using her heavily modified tablet, his gaze focused on the screen, when he said, “We’ll do it when we’re ready.”
A ripple had disturbed the steady current of their tether, belying the reasonable, almost blithe nature of his response. His expression was neutral, but his feelings were a baffling knot of anxiety and hesitance.
Did he not want to bond with her? Amidst all of her other worries, Atria stewed over the question. He seemed so proud of their tether and invested in being her mate. Was it just the idea of rushing that freaked him out? She couldn’t exactly blame him for that, but Atria was left a little tender by the casual dismissal. It pricked at old wounds, reminding her of all the times Norman casually brushed her needs off over the years.
There was no comparison between Kaz and Norman, of course. It was monumentally unfair to even subconsciously lump them together, so she did her best to shake off the sudden flare of uncertainty his response caused.
It was the least of their problems, she reminded herself. If he wasn’t sure about bonding with her, then she didn’t need to catastrophize. What was he going to do, anyway? Every time she looked at his hands or feet she was reminded that their connection was already permanent.
He was hers. She was his. End of story.
So Atria pushed the doubt down, hiding it behind a psychic wall he would not be able to detect, and tried to rest.
When she wasn’t sleeping, she watched Kaz work. She grew to love watching her mate deftly handle electronics, read, clean his bolt gun, or… anything, really. She lovedlookingat him.
After they finally dragged themselves out of the nest, the first thing he did was send an encrypted, one-way message to his brother, letting him know they were safe and hunkered down. He included a curiously formal report about the trip to Norman’s lab, too. Until that point, she’d almost forgotten that he wasn’t just a man on the run with her — he was a loyal citizen of the EVP, a Captain of Patrol, and despite going against explicit orders, felt compelled to report to the sovereign any intelligence of value.
His second task was a request. After he sent the message to his brother, she asked Kaz to see if he could dig up any information on the m-siphons they’d been forced to leave behind.
It wasn’t nearly as difficult as she thought it would be.
Every local news agency in the wider Denver area had reported on the discovery of murdered scientist and apparent feyrunner Dr. Norman Chambers’“lab of horrors.”
Chain Enforcement had released a bare amount of mystifying facts that had apparently set the internet aflame with speculation. An anonymous tip, an apparent sniper shot and ensuing struggle, an armed witch run over and killed by Norman’s own later-abandoned vehicle, boundary-pushing, deeply unethical research, and the illicit trade of m-siphons all made for a firestorm of interest — and an almost unsolvable case.
Buried beneath all of the noise was the only part Atria was truly concerned with:“…Officer Rimal assured the press conference attendees that the three active m-siphons discovered in the lab of Dr. Chambers had been handed over to the Chain’s Siphon Unit, where they are being carefully unsealed so as to not cause damage or shock to the victims imprisoned within. While names have not been released, there has been speculation that at least one of the victims might be a local woman who was believed to have mysteriously run off with a lover two years ago — Chloe Prasanna, a graduate of the prestigious Filament Jewelry Program at the Denver School of Design.”
There was no doubt in Atria’s mind Chloe was in one of those siphons. She had, after all, met the woman just before Norman’s sudden move.
He brought her to an informal department reunion. Chloe was all softness and sparkle, with a brilliant grin and doe eyes that stared up at Norman like he was the center of her universe. Her gorgeous wings had buzzed a happy little song. He looked so smug as he walked around with his pretty fey girlfriend, and he’d spent the better part of the night trying to trap Atria in conversation with them so she would have to see exactly what she was missing.
It didn’t work. Shelikedthe gentle soul she saw in Chloe. For her part, Chloe had no qualms with meeting her boyfriend’s ex, seeing as the concept of monogamy tended to be loose for fey coveys. There was no jealousy between them. They spoke at length about Chloe’s innovative jewelry designs before Norman got frustrated and led her away.
Out of a respect for their privacy, Atria didn’t dive into the emotions between them, but anyone with sense could have seen that her ex was not half as besotted as sweet Chloe was.
Guilt tore at her again, but it was increasingly outweighed by fury. Atria understood she couldn’t have known what was really going on. Things appeared unequal, certainly, but that was common in relationships, particularly when one of the partners still hadn’t let go of their ex. Like Chloe, Atria had made the mistake of believing Norman was a good man at heart. He would move on. He was perhaps not in a good place for a relationship, but that didn’t mean he was capable of horrors.
They were wrong.
