"You've lost fifteen years of your lifespan," Harlow says quietly from his position by the door. His death-sight is active, white light flickering in his eyes as he looks at me. "I can see it in your life signature. Ten years gone in the past month alone. At this rate, you'll be dead of old age before you're forty."
Ten years. The number lands like a death sentence. I knew the costs were significant, but I hadn't truly come to terms with it or let myself think about what it meant as in actual time remaining.
"The sanctuary network needed those contracts," I say, but my voice has lost its certainty. "The protection protocols during the attack. The communication links. The emergency extractions. People would have died without them."
"And people will die if you burn yourself out," Skye counters, moving around my desk to stand beside me. His hand finds my shoulder, warm and grounding. "You're not just a contract writer, Ambrose. You're our mate. Part of this family. And we need you alive and whole, not sacrificed piece by piece for contracts you could have shared."
"I can't ask you to bear my prices." The words scrape out, torn from somewhere deep. "That's not how it works. The costs are mine to pay."
"You're not asking. We're offering." Jade's demon certainty is absolute, his voice leaving no room for argument. "We're mates. We share everything else, essence, emotions, pleasure, burdens. Why not this? Why are your contracts somehow different from everything else we've combined?"
"Because they hurt." The admission slips out before I can stop it. "The prices hurt, Jade. Losing memories, losing abilities, losing years of your life. I can't ask you to feel that. I won't."
"So you'll feel it alone instead?" Rumi's divine balance wraps around me, golden light probing at the contracts anchored to my power. "You'll suffer in silence, pretend everything's fine, let us watch you deteriorate without understanding why? That's not protection, Ambrose. That's isolation. And it's not fair to any of us."
Every instinct screams to protest, to insist that protecting them means bearing the costs myself, that this is what Crossroads Keepers do, what we're meant for. My mother gave everything she had to her contracts, sacrificed herself completely for the people she loved. That's the legacy she left me. That's what I was trained to do.
But looking at my five mates, at their determined faces, their united front, I realize they're not going to accept no for an answer. And maybe, just maybe, they're right. Maybe I've been so focused on the lesson my mother taught me that I forgot shealso left me alone, used up and empty, with no one to help me carry the burden she left behind.
"It would change the contracts," I admit, my resistance crumbling. "Make them more complex. The binding would have to include all six of us, connect us through contract magic in addition to our mate bonds. And you'd all feel the prices being paid. Not just abstractly, but actually feel memories fading, abilities diminishing, time draining away."
"Good," Harlow says, and there's steel in his quiet voice. "Maybe that will stop you from writing contracts that cost decades of your life without telling anyone. Maybe if we all feel the price, you'll think twice before sacrificing yourself for things that could be handled other ways."
The shame of that realization burns through me. They're right. I've been making unilateral decisions about costs that affect all of us, hiding the consequences because I didn't want them to worry. But worry is part of love. Sharing burdens is part of family. And I've been denying them both.
"Show us how," Skye orders in his Praestes voice. Not a request. A command. "Show us how to share contract costs, and we'll decide together what prices are worth paying."
So I do.
I clear my desk, pushing aside half-finished contracts and research materials. My mates arrange themselves around me in a circle, their power already reaching toward each other, toward me, ready to connect in whatever way I need them to.
"Contract sharing is about willingness," I begin, my voice steadier now that I've accepted this is happening. "The magic can't force anyone to bear a cost. They have to accept it voluntarily, open themselves to the price being distributed. That's why I've never done this before. I couldn't ask."
"You're not asking now," Jade reminds me. "We're insisting."
Despite everything, I almost smile. "Right. So the first step is connecting your power to the contract framework. You'll feel my magic reaching for you. Don't resist it. Let it in, let it read what you're willing to give."
I extend my contract magic outward, green threads reaching for each of my mates. The sensation is intimate in ways I didn't expect, my power touching theirs, learning the shape of what they have to offer.
Skye opens first, his Praestes nature naturally suited to connection and sharing. His willingness opens like a door swinging wide, his pink aura welcoming my green without hesitation. Through our bond, I sense his determination to bear whatever costs come, his absolute refusal to let me carry this alone anymore.
Stellan follows, his fire initially resistant before he consciously relaxes his defenses. The heat of his essence mingles with my contract magic, and he offers years he might have lived, abilities he might have developed, memories he might have treasured. Offering them freely, without reservation.
Jade's demon hunger actually reaches back toward my magic, pulling it in like sustenance. His fierce protectiveness blazes through the connection, his willingness to consume any cost if it means keeping me whole. His purple power wraps around my green, binding us together in ways that go beyond mate bonds.
Rumi's divine balance is the most natural fit. His golden light harmonizes with my contract magic instantly, as if they were always meant to work together. The black threads in his aura pulse once, then settle, and I realize his divine nature can actually distribute costs more efficiently than I ever could alone.
And Harlow, Death's Champion, offers something I didn't expect. His connection to the death realm, his existence between life and not-life, provides a buffer that can absorb costs withoutfully passing them to the living. He can't bear everything, but he can soften the blow for the rest of us.
"I feel you," Rumi breathes, his eyes wide with wonder. "I feel all of you, through Ambrose's magic. It's like the bonds but different. More specific."
"Contract magic is about exchange," I explain, my voice rough with emotion. "You're all connected to my contracts now. When I write new ones, you'll feel the costs being distributed. And we can redistribute existing contracts too, the ones that are currently draining only me."
"Then do it," Stellan says. "Redistribute the protection contracts on Phoenix Sanctuary. The ones that are aging you. Share them across all of us."
My hands shake as I reach for the contract threads anchored in my power. The protection protocols I wrote during the first attack. The wards that kept students safe during the second. The monitoring contracts that warn us of approaching threats. All of them connected to my life force, all of them slowly draining me toward an early death.
One by one, I unravel and reweave them.
