My breaths come fast. “Tell me more about bonds. The more I know, the better I can protect myself from him doing it to me first.”
“They’re difficult to explain.”
“You’ve been bonded before. Tell me what it was like for you.”
Ozias presses his forehead a touch firmer against mine, tipping it gently from side to side. “A bond…a true bond built on trust and…love.” Ozias’s words fade, his eyes falling closed. “There’s no better feeling. It’s never having to leave a warm bed on a cold morning. It’s knowing you’ll be taken care of, and feeling true joy when you do the same in return.” His eyes open again, locking with mine. “I can’t lie, Kaisa. The bond will feel good.”
I swallow hard. “Is there any chance,” I start to ask, my voice wispy, “that those feelings might happen prior to enacting the bond?”
Ozias wets his lips, his nod slow. “Without a doubt.”
I close my eyes. I tell myself it’s a good thing. If I can remember that, then I know it’s the bond pushing me, not my true desires. I do not want Zhoric. He’s done horrible things to my people, to me, and does not deserve an ounce of my sympathy or forgiveness.
“But the bond doesn’t control the way you think or feel about him.”
My eyes snap open. “What?”
“The bond may prey upon your sexual desires, it is secondarily for reproducing after all, but it doesn’t alter how you feel about someone. That’s why you need to be careful. Zhoric is cunning—he hasn’t gotten to where he is without reason.”
So my sympathy is true, but the physical pull I feel towards him I can blame on the bond. At least that’s something.
“I would feel more comfortable with this brilliant new plan of yours if we knew what exactly your elahi was.”
The laugh that puffs out of me sounds exhausted. “Why does it sound like that’s what we’ll be working on today?”
Ozias leans back and brings my hand up to his mouth, kissing the back of it. “Because that’s exactly what we’ll be working on today.”
My hope collapses. A kiss on the hand isn’t enough for me. Ozias doesn’t let me go and moves towards my door, but I hold still and he stops short, looking over his shoulder at me. I’m determined to tell him what I want. To ask for more of him—but I don’t have to. I can tell the moment he sees my desire, his eyes tracking a slow path down my body than back up.
He swallows, a muscle in his jaw pulsing. A beat of hesitation. “You said he’d consider it?”
I drop my gaze and fill my lungs. I understand what he’s implying and it takes a gargantuan feat not to mimic him and take my time looking my fill, letting him know that my preparation can wait a few minutes. An hour. More. I nod jerkily. “I did.”
His mouth is a thin line. “Then there’s not a moment to lose.”
All afternoon I attempt throwing up shields and manifesting energy into weapons. I try reading energy, seeing more than what’s beyond my dragon’s vision. I try replicating Ozias’s manifestations. I try destroying them. I try multiplying them. Nothing happens.
“Your elahi justis,” he explains for what I believe to be the tenth time. “You think it, and it happens.” Earlier he explained that the first signs of an elahi manifest when a draconem is ten and continues to mature until the age of twenty or so. As I’m already twenty-and-five, there’s no reason it shouldn’t come to me easily now.
“How do I know what tothinkif I don’t know what itis?” By this point I’m frustrated and I’m snapping like a brittle twig. I swipe my hand down my face, taking with it the light coating of sweat on my skin.
Ozias places his hands out in front of him like he’s pleading for me to give him something I don’t have. “We’ve tried every elahi I can think of. You’re certain you’re thinking of these things strongly enough?”
I fold my arms over my chest. “You tell me.” He sighs. He knows how hard I’m working. How hard I’m concentrating. “Maybe there are more elahi than you know?”
Ozias’s head drops to his chest. “I’ll do some research tonight. For now though, can we please,please, go eat?”
I grin. I haven’t let him leave until we tried everything he could think of twice. And then thrice for the elahi that felt promising the first time or that I liked the sound of. The sun is dangerously low. We don’t have much time. And I’m not entirely merciless, though maybe, perhaps, some of thisis a small aggression against his clear signal earlier that we don’t have time to lean into our desires.
“Let’s go. You whine worse than I do when I want something.”
He darts forward, catching me around the waist, leaning me back just a bit so I have to angle my head to look at him. “I think I’d enjoy hearing you whine when you want something.”
Liquid heat pools in my core. I cup my hand around the back of his neck and lean in close. At that exact moment, my stomach growls, and right on the heels of mine, so does his. “You’re most unfair.”
His head kicks back, letting out a boisterous laugh. “I see. I’ll have to remember what a vindictive little thing you are.” He stands upright, pulling me along with him, our torsos flush. There’s another beat, another moment of hesitation, then he gives me a lingering squeeze, lets me go, and turns towards the stairs.
I need to get a hold of myself and regain my composure. I trail behind him, refocusing my thoughts on elahi and what mine could be. My thoughts lead to my sister, wondering if she has one as well. Then, I remember what Ozias said, about Thrace being a shield.
