“I’ve never heard of it. But if you’d asked me a month ago if a human variant could, I’d have said no.”
“Lucky me,” I grumbled. “I’m special.”
“Maybe we just don’t know enough. Our kind hasn’t been around that long. You and Ivan could be something new. An evolution.” Angel’s voice was steady.
An evolution. The word hung in the air, heavy with possibility and fear.
“Can I try something?” I asked, the idea crystallizing.
“Okay.” The trust in that single word was a tangible thing.
“Tell me if it hurts, or if anything feels wrong.” I closed my eyes, my palm flat against the rune. In my mind’s eye, I reached for the bond connecting me to Nox and found a cord of pure, liquid silver, thrumming with power. It was a two-way flow, my chaos stabilized by his calm, and his form fueled by my wild energy.
I borrowed that stability, letting it pool in my palm like molten light. Then, with an exhale, I began to stitch.
A violent cut could unravel parts of Angel it was tangled with, not his life, but perhaps aspects of his personality or experience. Removing trauma was one thing, but rerouting his history felt like an undeserved intrusion. There had to be a more delicate way to fix the snarl and remove someone else’s power from his soul.
I guided Nox’s silvery thread in an array of tiny, precise stitches, a painstaking embroidery on the fabric of his soul to replace the knot and keep the design tight, while slowly unwinding the power of the previous spell. I didn’t break the old magic; I repurposed it. The stinging bite of zombie magic faded,replaced by a low, steady hum of potential. Nox’s power with Angel’s, creating a blazing construct of healing waves.
“What is it?” Angel whispered, barely breathing.
“A boss level spell,” I murmured, my focus split between the weave and my words as I anchored the final stitch. It was a two-way circuit now. Their natural energy would slowly charge a reservoir of power tucked into the ether between them. “Like in a video game. You ever seen a revive spell?”
“Bringing the dead back to life?” he asked, a note of understandable alarm in his voice.
“Not like that. More like a second wind.” I pulled my hand back, the vision fading. “If one of you is near death, it will pull from that shared well. It’s a safety net. It will take a while to charge. Maybe a few days? Can you feel Nox?”
Angel tilted his head slightly, his gaze turning inward. “It’s a warmth. Like having a cat on your lap, resting and being unwilling to disturb them because it brings you peace.” He looked at the dragon curled on my shoulder. “But also no. It’s not a presence, not like you. How do you sense him?”
“He gives me tingles of warmth up my back sometimes, or I mentally hear something that might be him. Like his name.”
Angel shook his head, a slow, wondering smile gracing his lips. “Nothing that clear. For me, it’s just a certainty. An anchor. It’s strong, and it’s tied to you.” He reached out, his fingers gently caressing my jaw. “I didn’t realize how much that old spell weighed until it was gone. It’s like you removed a thorn from my chest I’d learned to breathe around.”
The last of my tension bled away, leaving only a profound, aching tenderness in its wake. My breath hitched, not from fear, but from the overwhelming rightness of his touch, of his trust, of us.
I leaned into his palm, my eyes never leaving his. “Good,” I whispered, the word a soft exhalation. My gaze flickered to theother snags in his weave, a fresh pang of protectiveness striking me. “Maybe I can fix the rest? Slowly. One by one?” Even as I said it, I felt the familiar drain of energy from that single, careful reweaving.
Angel slid his arm around me, pulling me against the solid warmth of his chest until our foreheads rested together. “Okay,” he murmured, his breath a soft caress. “But you don’t have to.”
“I want to be strong enough to do it all right now,” I confessed, the words tumbling out. “I hate that anyone else ever had this kind of power over you.” The sentiment hung in the air for a second before the implication hit me.Crap.It sounded just as bad out loud as it did in my head—possessive, arrogant—as if I’d appointed myself the god of his personal trauma.
“Forget I said that,” I muttered, trying to pull back. “That came out way more territorial creep than caring partner.”
But Angel’s hand slid from my jaw to cup the back of my neck, holding me gently in place. “There you go, borrowing trouble again,” he chided softly, amusement in his tone. “You’re not building a cage, Jude. You’re changing the locks on one that was already there. You gave me Nox.”
“You mean, your new co-anchor is my not-so-invisible friend with a weird book fetish,” I groaned. “I probably should have warned you. Now you’ll really have to guard any sweets.”
“And never be truly alone,” Angel agreed, his voice warm. “Best upgrade ever, since it ties me closer to you.”
“So, not a territorial creep?” I asked, my voice embarrassingly hopeful.
“Not even a little,” he promised.
“Good. Because my god complex is strictly amateur hour.” I never asked for that sort of power, but if it saved him pain, I’d use every last ounce of my strength.
Angel’s gaze softened. “I know,” he murmured, his voice impossibly gentle. “That’s why I trust you with it.” He strokedmy jaw with his thumb in a slow, grounding rhythm. “And for the record,” he added, leaning in until his breath ghosted across my lips, “your amateur hour feels an awful lot like a miracle to me.” He closed the last inch between us. A low growl rumbled in his chest; the sound purely primal. The gentle hand on my neck tightened, fingers tangling in my hair as he pulled me to him, and his mouth crashed down on mine.
All the fear, the relief, the terrifying, binding love exploded into a desperate, consuming hunger. His kiss was claiming as I surrendered to it completely. This was what we needed, this raw, proof that we were both here, alive and irrevocably tied together. When he finally broke for air, we were both breathing in ragged pants.
