“I’m meeting with Gavin.” He watches my face. “I don’t know how long it will take or how he will react to our bond.” A pause. “Let’s go and while I’m meeting, go to Red House.”
I grab my coffee before we head to the van. The bonds sharpen as the distance closes — Leo pulling warm and present, Jake tight, Jim reaching. Gray east now instead of west, which I still haven’t gotten used to, the pull of him from the wrong direction every time I stop paying attention.
RJ.
The bruise at my wrist presses harder the closer we get.
Dalton parks and holds the Red House exterior door. I go in first and he peels off toward the administrative building and I’m alone in the corridor.
The smell of it hits before anything else.
Red House.
My house, before everything changed.
I know every door on this stretch of floor.
Leo was always the one coming to me, sneaking into my room. Every time — his footsteps in the corridor, the bond pulling warm the moment he got close. Always him.
I push Leo’s door open and walk in.
He’s on his bed. He looks up and goes completely still.
He gets to his feet and crosses the room and his arms come around me and his face drops into my hair and I feel him breathe me in — long and slow, like something he’s been waiting to do since the van left.
I press into him and hold on and feel the bond blaze warm and real and here.
He pulls back just enough to look at my face. His hands come up to my jaw. He looks at me.
“You okay,” he says.
“Getting there,” I say.
He kisses me — his hands still on my face — and I stop thinking about Gavin and Frosthaven and everything that isn’t this room. When he pulls back I stay close.
“I need Jake and Jim,” I say. “I don’t have long.”
He presses his mouth to my forehead. Then he slips out to get them.
Jake comes in first.
He doesn’t slow down.
He comes straight to me and pulls me into his arms like there was never another option, like the distance between us was a problem he’s been waiting to fix. The impact of it knocks the breath out of me for half a second—solid, real, his arms tight around me, his chest against mine.
“Hey,” he says, low, like it means more than the word should.
I don’t answer.
I’m already there.
Jim moves in a second later.
Not separate. Not waiting.
He steps in close and wraps his arms around both of us, one hand braced warm and steady at my back, the other settling across Jake’s shoulder like this is one shape now, not three people trying to figure it out.
The bond doesn’t spike.
