“Your spirit remembered what your mind had been forced to forget. . .the promise we made before we took these bodies. Before we agreed to play this game of flesh, blood, and forgetting."
He's insane. He's completely insane.
But his words were doing things to me. Each one landed like another drop of venom, spreading through my system, making my thoughts swim and my body ache.
"You don't believe me, Beloved, but the bond won't let you deny it."
He was making too much sense. That was the most terrifying part.
My thoughts felt. . .slippery. Like I couldn’t get a firm grip on them anymore. Ideas that had once been immovable—peer-reviewed certainty, hard data, years of discipline—were sliding past each other, rearranging themselves without my permission.
My head felt warm.
Heavy.
Drugged.
I shook my head. “No.”
Rook leaned his head to the side and touched more of my braids. “No?”
“I feel wrong.”
“Wrong how, Beloved?”
“Foggy.” I blinked. “Like my thoughts are echoing instead of landing. Like everything is happening half a second after it should.”
“That’s the bond loosening your resistance.”
“That’s not. . .a thing. Chemical attraction can cause disorientation. Stress responses. Trauma—”
“—can mimic revelation?”
My breath stuttered. “This could be an. . .extreme fixation between predator and observer. This could be. . .a psychological feedback loop based on my fear of you, my yearning to survive.”
He lowered his hands. “Are you afraid of me right now?”
I opened my mouth.
Closed it.
He was right.
The panic was gone. The sharp edge of terror had dulled into a warm, humming desire. My body felt suspended, held up by unseen hands.
“No. . .I’m not afraid.”
“Good.”
“That scares me. . .”
“It should, Beloved. It means you’re standing at the edge of remembering.”
“I don’trememberanything.”
“Incarnation requires amnesia.”
“That’s insane.”
