Holy shit, this is him scared.
“At least we didn’t have our phones on silent this time,” Atlas jokes, trying to ease some of the tension surrounding us like an oppressive blanket. “Because if we didn’t answer when Luce called, he would have lost his shit.”
For once, he doesn’t deny it or smack the back of his head. He just closes his eyes and kisses the top of Cambria’s head like she’s the most precious thing in his world, shaky with relief.
“How bad is it?” Atlas continues. “Think anything will be salvageable?”
Lucien sighs heavily. “Not much, I’m afraid.”
“The safe is fireproof at least,” I toss out in a halfhearted attempt to find a silver lining.
Cambria frees herself from Lucien’s crushing embrace, but he doesn’t let her go far. Instead, she twists around enough for him to tuck her against his side, leaning against the car. She huffs in mild annoyance, but by how little she fights, it’s clear she’s enjoying his possessive change in demeanor.
“Put me out of my misery, please. What’s in the safe?” she pleads.
It’s clear the moment something pivotal changes within Lucien. There’s a brief flash as he wrestles with himself, like he’s struggling to take down the last of the walls that keep him separate and safe. But ultimately he succeeds, Cambria able to breach the barriers surrounding him and dragging the two of us past the wreckage with her.
“A couple of mementos from my childhood along with evidence against several people involved in less than legal deals to make sure they can’t move against me.” He meets Atlas’ hard stare. “If they think it’s been destroyed, they might become a problem.”
Atlas nods, wordlessly forming a plan between the two of them. Because that’s what he signed on for when he asked Lucien to bail him out; to become his hired hand in all of things he wanted kept off the books.
We climb into the car, Atlas in the back with Cambria this time while I ride up front with Lucien. “Think it was Victor that bombed the house?”
Luce growls, white knuckling the steering wheel. “That’s a pretty ballsy fucking move, but the way he didn’t even care that he was arrested? I knew he had something up his sleeve, but I never would have imagined something like this. Destroying my reputation and business is one thing, but a hit? And a sloppy one at that.”
Cambria chimes in, cementing my theory before I can even open my mouth. “If itwashim, he wasn’t trying to kill you, Luce, he was trying to see if he could make you suffer. Dorian’s shop needed to be shut down and then Atlas got fired? It’s like someone was making sure the three of us would be together with nowhere we needed to go. Since only your car missing, it would be assumed the rest of us were inside.”
Atlas is just as incensed as Lucien. “He knew we were the only ones close to you. What better way to hurt you than take away the only people you actually give a damn about?”
Suddenly, Cambria let’s a pained gasp slip through her lips as she jerks against her seatbelt. Atlas hisses next, reaching for her, but gritting his teeth.
Shit, shit, shit. The bet.
Lucien starts barking demands for someone to explain what’s happening while I ignore him, focusing on the two suffering in the backseat.
“I forfeit,” Cambria spits out through clenched teeth. “I lose.” The pain ebbs away and she sighs in relief, sinking back in her seat.
“Fuck, that stings,” Atlas agrees, leaning over to kiss the top of her head.
“Would someone kindly fill me in on what I missed?” Lucien grits out, incensed.
In light of everything happening, we haven’t filled him in on that huge fucking revelation we had this morning and I wonder how he’ll handle it. “We’re absorbing magic through our tethers and when those two made a deal, it bound Atlas to it this time. And apparently failure to complete a verbal contract results in shock collars.”
Lucien says nothing at first, but from my vantage point I can see his eyes flicking between the road and the mark on his hand, as if he’s waiting for it to do something remarkable to confirm the theory.
His tongue darts out to wet his lips before he starts musing aloud. “Does that mean we’ll end up developing abilities as well? And become dependent on crossing back over to reconnect with the world like you do, I wonder?”
Cambria snorts. “Yeah, because I’ve done this before.” Then softer, as if she’s honestly worried about his reaction, “Sorry for infecting you.”
Lucien pulls over abruptly, whipping his head around to pin her with a hard glare. “You arenotsome type of plague on our lives, so stop apologizing. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
She sits a little straighter under his scrutiny, bolstered by his confidence like that can pass through the bond as much as anything else. “You’re not upset then?”
He scoffs. “Of course I’m upset. Someone tried to kill my family. I’ve lost enough people I’ve loved in my life, I can’t go through that again,” he growls.
She inches closer to him, drawn to the possessive declaration. “So you admit it?” she confirms and he narrows his eyes at her.
Cautiously, he risks asking, “Admit what?”
