“So when I’m terrified…”
“I’ll feel that terror. And when I’m planning how to eviscerate Lilith…”
“I’ll feel your rage.” Ava laughed, brittle, broken, edged with hysteria. “Great. We’re going to drive each other insane.”
“Or we learn to manage it.” He offered his hand, palm up, waiting. “Side by side.”
She stared at his hand. Counted three breaths. Then she took it.
His determination flooded through the contact: steadying, solid, something to hold onto while the storm passed. She clungto it, letting it ground her, letting his certainty quiet the storm in her head.
“Okay,” she said, breathing easier now. “Okay. We figure it out.”
He helped her to her feet, and she didn’t let go of his hand. Not because she needed the physical support, but because the contact helped her sort his emotions from hers. When they touched, the bond felt less like drowning and more like swimming: still overwhelming, but navigable.
“I need air,” she said. “Somewhere away from all those people watching us.”
“The beach. Behind the resort.” He led her toward a service exit, avoiding the ballroom entirely. “We can talk there.”
A full moonhung in the sky, painting the surf silver.
The beach stretched empty in both directions, private and pristine, the kind of sand that cost more per square foot than her parents’ restaurant. Waves rolled in with hypnotic regularity, and the salt air helped clear the last of the emotional static from Ava’s head.
Victor stood at the water’s edge, hands in his pockets, looking like he was gathering words from somewhere very deep inside. The moonlight caught the sharp planes of his face, the tension in his jaw. She could feel him struggling through the bond: not with whether to tell her, but with how.
“Tell me,” she said simply.
He didn’t turn around. Just kept staring at the waves, letting the rhythm of them count out the silence.
“Her name was Celeste Dubois.” His voice was flat, controlled, the way it got when he was trying very hardnot to feel. “She was a contract specialist from our Paris office. Brilliant. Ambitious. Obsessive.” A pause. “She’d studied infernal law for years before joining the firm, specifically researching claims and bonds. I thought she was just dedicated to her work.”
Ava waited. Through the bond, she felt his shame building like pressure behind a dam.
“In 1923, she orchestrated a public claiming at the centennial retreat.”
The words hung in the salt air. Ava stood frozen, processing.
“She made the declaration in front of five hundred witnesses before I could stop her.” His shoulders drew up toward his ears. “Under the old laws, before the 1950 reforms, refusing a public claim meant death for the human making it. I had no choice but to accept temporarily, while I tried to find a way to release her without fatal consequences.”
“There was never anything between you?” Ava asked carefully.
“Nothing romantic. Nothing real.” He turned to face her finally, and the moonlight caught the old grief in his eyes. “The Prague retreat was two months later. She’d decided a temporary claim wasn’t enough. She wanted a permanent bond: the power, the extended lifespan, the connection. She’d planned it all from the beginning. Researched every ritual. Prepared for every possibility.”
His voice went rough. “The last night in Prague, she attempted an old binding ceremony while I slept. Drugged my wine. Drew the sigils. Spoke the words.”
“And then?”
He let the waves answer for him. Three rolled in before he spoke again.
“I found her dead when I woke.” He was staring at the waves like they held something he’d lost. “The ritual rejectedher. Soul bonds can’t be forced; they require genuine mutual consent, genuine feeling. She had neither. And the magic…” He swallowed. “The magic was unforgiving.”
Guilt flooded through the bond: a century of it, worn smooth but no lighter for all the years of carrying it. Ava felt tears prick her eyes that weren’t entirely her own.
“You’re scared you’re like her,” she said quietly. “Using me the way she used you.”
He flinched. The reaction was small, but she felt it through the bond like an earthquake.
“Victor.” She stepped closer, close enough to touch if she wanted. “You’re nothing like that.”
