“You met Doc Z, brought her home with you …” Rought smirks like a total ass. Apparently, playing both the role of the peacemaker and the shit disturber today. Which makes sense, since Reck isn’t here to do the latter.
The three of us encircling our mate, each offering something different. Balance and …
“No,” I say gruffly, running my hand gently down Zaya’s back. Energy shifts so naturally between her, Rought, and me, just sitting here eating and talking. I presume it was the same when we were teens, though without my beast, I couldn’t sense it the same way then.
It’s never going to be the way it was once meant to be, though. Not without Reck to close our bond.
My degrees might be useless in most other ways, but I understood what Zaya was holding when she confronted Reck at the temporary Outcast clubhouse. I understood what Disa did to us all when severing our soul bonds. She couldn’t touch the gryphon or my celestial dragon, but she could and did take both bonds from Reck, his and the cu-sith’s. Because our older brother had already manifested his beast.
“No?” Zaya echoes. Not upset, but looking for clarification. “Cay indicated that Doc Z followed you back to join the Outcast.”
I don’t want to talk about Zephyr or anyone else I might have fucked during the long years without Zaya. I don’t want to think about what’s going to happen to Reck or the cu-sith — especially given that a shifter staying too long in their beast form can lead to a host of issues.
“I was joking,” Rought says, his gaze heavy on me. “Mostly. I’m not … I shouldn’t suggest …”
“It’s fine,” I say gruffly. “I met Zephyr in New York, but didn’t see her for the year or so I was overseas. When I got back, the Outcast wanted to bring in a dedicated MC medic. Doc and I had kept in touch, and I knew she had just finished her training.” I glance at Zaya. “She, ah … we’d fucked a couple of —”
“That’s not part of the story you wanted to tell me, was it?” Zaya asks, gently letting me off the fucking ledge that fucking Rought shoved me onto.
“No.” I glare at Rought for a beat. The asshole just grins back at me.
I huff. “I was researching rare shifter breeds. My own beast led me to the archives at the Shanghai Phrontistery. But, ah, sometimes you get more information from the underground or off-the-books networks. Anyway, the seventh anniversary of your death rolled around, and I found myself in the middle of a foreign city, disconnected from anything I’d ever known, and I decided to get … get lost within it.”
I take a deep breath, then I raise the arm I have wrapped around Zaya to display the tattoo etched across my forearm and up my bicep. The intricate black-inked Asian dragon twines from my wrist upward, its head near my shoulder.
Zaya brushes her fingers along it, and the essence woven within the ink shimmers under her touch. I’ve never seen it do that before. Normally, it’s inert.
“I woke with this tattoo fucking burning up my arm in a trashed room in the middle of the city. With no recollection of how I got there or what the fuck I did the entire three days before. Except …” I swallow, then start with the easy bit. “I could suddenly do this …”
I cup the fingers of my left hand, essence pooling so swiftly in my palm that it actually shocks me. Then, just as suddenly, I’m holding a tiny storm … literally in my hand. Dark cloud and rain and everything.
I blink, then blink again.
“Um,” Rought says cautiously. “That’s new.”
I nod dumbly.
“The tattoo gave you access to the powers of your celestial dragon?” Zaya asks, leaning forward to peer at the tiny storm in my hand. Water — actual rainwater? — is steadily dripping onto my foot and then the floor.
“Right, yes. But not like this.”
Welcome to leveling up, brother, Rought’s voice echoes through my head.
I snap my gaze to meet his. The storm dissipates in my hand.
“Huh,” he says out loud. “You heard that? I wasn’t sure, but it felt like … Zaya might connect us.”
Can you hear me? I ask in my head.
Rought laughs to confirm he can, totally fucking joyful.
“You’d better not fucking read my mind,” I snap.
“Doesn’t seem to work like that,” he says, amused. “Yet.”
You with us, my Marrow? Rought asks Zaya, somehow speaking to both of us at the same time.
My breath gets caught up in my lungs as I wait for her to answer.
