He had only a moment to realize it was burrowing into his skin, into hissoul,before his mind gave way under the onslaught and simply shut down.
* * *
Clementine woke with a start.
Awareness didn’t come to her as quickly as wakefulness. For several long seconds, she drifted between confusion and contentment. Her pulse thrummed behind her eyes and her mind felt a bit like an over-inflated and thendeflatedballoon. Her limbs, when she tried to move them, were heavy with the sensation of too much sleep, and when she tried to concentrate on where she was, her thoughts were drowned out by a haunting melody.
After a brief struggle, she gave in to the music.
It was more than a song. It was color, sensation, memory. It was a gentle, curling current sweeping through her soul, holding her weightless above the constant pressure and discomfort of her day to day life.
Clementine lay there, perfectly still. Tears were a hot prickle behind her closed eyelids as understanding trickled in.
Me and Emory. The bond. Forever.
She sucked in a deep breath of chilly air. The taste of brine coated the back of her tongue. When she moved her arm, her fingers brushed the warm, slightly textured skin of Emory’s side.
She released the breath.It’s real.
Clementine pried her eyes open. The rock ceiling, carefully supported by sturdy, roughly hewn beams, greeted her. Emory didn’t need as much light as she did, so she could only make out the vague shapes of the craggy stone, the heavy wood, and the thick, rusted bolts that held everything together.
A soundless laugh burst from her lips. They’ddoneit.
Her memories were a mosaic of pleasure, connection, the rush of blood and magic andjoy.There’d been discomfort at first, but when the burn faded, she was left with something utterly indescribable — a feeling of perfect belonging. She knew that she probably should have at least waited for Emory to pull out before she bonded with him, but that moment of connection was a spark to dry tinder. One moment she was blinded by an orgasm and the next?—
Well, he said he didn’t want to leave the cove without the bond.Clementine smiled at the ceiling.He can’t complain too much, even if my timing could use some work.
Turning her head, she discovered her mate curled up beside her, his once alien features relaxed in sleep. She vaguely recalled having to roll out from under his considerable bulk to clean herself up. Even with all the jostling, he didn’t move a muscle. It appeared that not much had changed while she slept.
“I’m so glad I took this crazy job,” she whispered, brushing a lock of hair out of his eyes with the tip of her finger. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Not because he introduced her to sex with exquisite care and patience. Not because he was her first friend, her first lover. Not because being with him meant there was no way on Earth she would be forced to leave Demon’s Tooth.
The connection they shared went beyond anything as superficial as all that. It was fundamental. It was the discovery of something so priceless, so unique, that it defied any attempts to quantify it.
They simplywere.Would be. Had always been.
Scooting a little closer to her mate, Clementine pressed a featherlight kiss to the soft line of his mouth. Sighing the words, she told him, “I love you. Every bit of you, Emory. I can’t wait to get all wrinkly and crotchety with you.”
He said nothing, but Clementine didn’t expect him to. The song in her mind was a familiar one, even if it was…closerthan she was used to. It was the sound of his dreams. A favorite of hers, only second to the song he sang for her whenever his gaze turned her way.
Forcing herself to leave him to his slumber, she rolled onto her back and closed her eyes.What’s changed?
She’d spent so many years locked inside her own mind, building her barriers, holding her power close, examining every pit and crack and deformation in the landscape of her thoughts, that it was a shock to discover everything changed.
It took several beats for her to even understand what she was looking at.
She’d always visualized her mind as a bunker. It was a maze of rooms and interconnected corridors protected by thick, flexible walls. She started building the bunker when she was little and worked outward from her metal core, expanding slowly as her control over her abilities increased and allowed for less restriction. That meant that her center, her innermost self, was nestled in the middle of the bunker. Everything else was a spiderweb of hallways, storage rooms, and secret connections tethering her to her family’s minds.
The bunker was strong. Safe. It was a place to retreat to when the world only sought to hurt her. No matter what happened, her walls could protect her from the worst.
At least, that was how it used to be.
Now, when she imagined herself standing in the center of the bunker, she was no longer protected by darkness and thick walls. Instead, she stared out in wonder atwater.
Her barriers, designed to be diamond hard, seemed to have vanished while she slept. In their place, she found a shimmering, churning barrier — liquid but impenetrable.
The walls she had so painstakingly constructed over a lifetime had been transformed. She imagined the heat of a bomb blast, the roar of unimaginable power exploding out of her all at once, and saw every imaginary stone, every pebble, liquified and flash-hardened into warped glass.
