“Are you really going to ignore me this whole weekend?” I finally snapped, feeling the undeniable tug on the bond that I knew he could feel too.
His face winced, like I’d slapped him. “I’m not the one who has trust issues, Mari. You think I’m the enemy here. I can feel it every time you pull away.”
“If you don’t want me to doubt you, then stop giving me reasons to,” I responded harshly, taking a step toward him without even realizing it. “What happened last night? Did someone hurt you?”
When he didn’t respond, I continued.
“I felt something through the bond, like you had been punched, physically and emotionally. I was going to text, but I wasn’t sure if you were just training or . . .” I trailed off, my rambling getting quieter with each word.
He looked taken aback before understanding clouded his eyes.
“It’s complicated,” he replied lamely, his grip on the door tightening so much that his knuckles turned white. “And I can’t say more than that.”
Before I could reply, he left, the door closing with a final click. I sat on the edge of the bed, staring after the closed door, and finally let myself cry.
The bond pulsed like a wound between us, raw and aching, and I wondered how much more strain it could take before it finally broke.
I walked down the steps of the staircase, the smell of dinner wafting up to me. In any other context, the scent of grilled steaks, baked potatoes, and asparagus would make my mouth water. But I felt nothing but a heavy stone in my stomach. I made my way through the living room to the grand dining room, just off the kitchen. The table was set with three place settings, one at the head of the table where Richard already sat, his eyes on his phone. Alaric sat to his right, his gaze intense as it turned to me. Richard looked up briefly, gesturing for me to sit at his left, across from Alaric.
The food was already on the table, but no one moved to put some on their plates. Richard continued to type away on his phone, ignoring both Alaric and I who sat staring at each other across the table, so close, but feeling a million miles away.
“Go on,” Richard drawled lazily, his eyes glancing between Alaric and me. “Eat.”
Alaric immediately obeyed, putting food onhis plate, and I followed suit. Richard eventually put his phone down on the table and filled his plate as well.
The silence echoed in the place so loudly, it felt hard to breathe.
“I didn’t know you could cook, Mr. Gaines.” I tried to think of something to say, something normal, but it came out awkward and stilted, like lines I had memorized but didn’t deliver properly.
He laughed loudly, looking at me as if I were an amusing, ignorant child. “No, I did not cook this. Our caretakers for this place prepared meals for the weekend. All that was needed was for them to be heated up.”
“Oh,” I replied lamely, my gaze slipping to Alaric’s, whose green eyes were set on mine.
Alaric continued to chew, his jaw tense as his gaze flickered between his father and me.
“How have your training sessions been going?” Richard asked, his voice booming and echoing around the room. “I noticed that Mari was absent from them this week.”
Alaric rolled his shoulders, turning to his father. “She needed rest. She’s had a lot put on her in just a short amount of time.”
Richard glanced at me, his gaze intense as it assessed me. I pushed the food around on my plate, the pit in my stomach keeping me from eating.
“I’m feeling much better now,” I replied lamely, trying to reinsert myself into the conversation. Richard had a bad habit of speaking about me as if I weren’t in the room.
“That’s good,” he replied as he took another mouthful of steak. He continued to speak as he chewed around it. “This weekend is an excellent opportunity for you to hone more of your skills, especially abilities only Twinflames can accomplish.”
“Like what?” I pondered, glancing at Alaric, who was holding his fork so tightly it looked like he was close to bending the metal.
“Oh, there are so many legends surrounding the Twinflame bond, it’s difficult to ascertain which is fact and which is fiction, but Elias has done some more digging. There have been accounts of Twinflames being able to sharpen their abilities to Flamewalk or Truthfire.”
“What are those?”
Richard set his fork down, taking a long gulp of his red wine before turning his full attention on me, his eyes darkening, his grin spreading across his face in such a way that it made his skin look too tight, too stretched out.
“To Flamewalk would be the ability to teleport from one place to another. Of course, you two would start small, say from one side of a room to another, but imagine if you worked hard enough. One of you could be in New York and the other in Paris, and the two of you could project yourselves to each other in mere moments.”
I gulped, the idea of teleportation seeming too much like a fairytale to be true.
“And what about Truthfire?” I mumbled quietly.
