"You will know."
"I will come."
"I know you will."
He brushes his thumb across my lower lip where his blood is. He does it carefully. Reverently. Then he steps back enough to look at me — fully look at me, with the bond closed between us — and what is in his face is the kind of vulnerable readiness a man gets only once in his life when the thing he has been wanting finally happened.
"Mine," he says again. Quiet.
"Yours."
His hand at my hip tightens once. Then releases.
Behind us, the barn door is open. Dean is in it.
I do not know how long he has been there. The almost-smile is on his mouth. His steel-gray eyes are on Daron's throat — at the bite-mark, at the blood, at his brother's face. He is reading the bond on his brother. He is reading what we just did.
Then he shifts to me.
The almost-smile goes away.
"Jen."
"Yes."
"Me too."
The forming thread to him pulls tight.
He has not moved from the doorway.
He has not moved because he is not Daron. He is not going to come at me. He is going to wait until I cross the barn to him,because that is who he is, and the waiting is the thing he wants me to see.
I see it.
"You do not have to follow him," I say.
"Yeah. I do. I want you too – no, I need you."
His voice is steady. Level. Like he is reading a tactical brief. But his pupils have blown wide in the cold barn light, and his hands at his sides are clenched.
I look at Daron. The thread between us is humming, sealed, mine. I squeeze his hand once. He releases mine.
I cross the barn.
Dean does not move.
I stop a foot from him. The forming thread is so taut I can feel his pulse in my own wrist.
"Dean."
"Yes."
"Touch me."
His hand comes up.
Slow. Controlled. He is in no hurry now that I have said it. He puts his palm flat against the side of my jaw — the same place Daron's hand was a minute ago, and the bond carries the doubling of it — and his thumb traces the line of my lower lip where Daron's blood is.
