Nelly opened her mouth, but no sound came out, so she closed it again. Letting out a long, low note, she covered her face with her hands and shook her head. “I don’t know what’s happening anymore, Clark. I really don’t. But I think you might hate me now if you didn’t before.”
He couldn’t withhold his snort. Finally freeing his right hand from the cursed glove, he said, “Try me, sugar.”
Speaking through her fingers, she rasped, “I bonded with you.”
“You what?” Clark flexed his fingers and glanced down, checking the damage even as he tried to process what she was telling him.
The air was punched out of his lungs by a great invisible fist.
“Ibondedwith you,” she repeated, from some incredible distance, as he stared at his hand in stunned silence. “You know, a witchbond? The— the permanent kind where you sustain my life by filtering my magic for me? The kind that can’t be broken unless one of usdies?The bond that most folks make with a romantic, forever kind of partner? Does that ring any bells?”
Oh, he knew about the permanent sorts of bonds all right.
Clark would have laughed and maybe cried a little if he weren’t so completely knocked on his ass. Just blown over. Trampled into a formerly Clark-shaped heap on her floor.
I fucking knew it.
“Clark?”
“I’m listening, sugar,” he wheezed, cheeks cramping with a huge grin. “I’m just processing. You— We’re bonded. Like, forever. You and me. Witch stuff. Permanent. I got it.”
She still wasn’t looking at him. From behind her hands, Nelly replied in a high, pained voice,“Got it?”
“Ah. Well.” He turned his attention to his other glove, suddenly desperate to get it off too. He wanted to be able to see every inch of his skin. Heneededto see it.
“Is that all you can say? Aren’t you angry?” Nelly threw her hands up and cried, “This isterrible.You have a mate out there, walking around, and you hate me and I just— my magic justdidthis and I don’t know how to undo it and I’m freaking out, Clark!”
Undo it?Clark scowled and tossed his other glove aside. Flexing both sets of fingers with great relish, he said, “You’renotundoing it, Nelly. Everything is fine.”
She made an indignant sound and dropped her blanket onto the cushions in favor of gesturing sharply to the room at large. “How?Howis it fine? You have a mate, Clark. Somewhere,someone.What are we gonna do when you find them and you’re already hitched to a witch you don’t even know? This is a disaster!”
“No, it’s not,” he answered, just a little smug. “Because we don’t have to worry about that.” He lifted his hands into the air, part surrender and part display. His blood rushing in his ears, he purred, “You’remine,sugar.”
ChapterSix
She simply could not,under pain of death or dismemberment, think about the fact that Clark Wilson was taking a shower in her bathroom.
Similarly, Nelly could not consider the snow that had piled up tall enough to reach her kitchen window, which existed solely to remind her that she was snowed in with him.
Most importantly, she would not,could not,contemplate the fact that she was now for all intents and purposes married to her neighbor.
So Nelly baked.
She kept her eyes firmly on her task as she whisked batter for an obscenely large Dutch baby. Apple slices stewed in cinnamon and sugar on the cooker and a stream of strong coffee dribbled into a pot on the counter beside her.
Everything is fine. Everything is fine. I’m fine.
A psychic nudge prompted her to whisk harder. There was no way she could talk to her sister now, no matter how much she wanted to. Clementine always knew how to fix things. She was the competent one. She was the responsible, even-keeled sister. She would probably know the perfect, reasonable response to Nelly’s situation — which was exactly why Nelly couldn’t talk to her about it.
She had always been the wilder one. That didn’t necessarily mean rebellious. She didn’t hate her sister, nor the one of a kind bond they shared. She just hadn’t always beengratefulfor the hand they’d been dealt. She couldn’t just… swallow it the way Clementine could. Be content.
While Clementine, a terrifyingly powerful telepath who could barely survive living too close to other minds, had been more than happy to exist as a seamless unit with her sister, Nelly craved her own path and identity.
Nelly, a similarly powerful psychic with the ability to absorb information through touch, needed a certain amount of isolation too, but it wasn’t the same. If she was very, very careful, she could exist like other people. Shewantedto.
Just because they had to live isolated lives didn’t mean they couldn’tlive.
So while Clementine was happy being exactly who she was, Nelly had tried on every metaphorical hat, every hobby, every affectation, and every job she could get her hands on until one day she realized that those things wouldn’t ever take the place of simply being on her own.
