Page 41 of A Cruel Kindness

I didn’t know what to believe anymore—there were too many lies to sort through. I didn’t know who was the enemy and who was the victim, but I did know that it didn’t need to be this way.

The Bridge didn’t have to be used for death.

Before I could let that thought fully manifest, I forced myself out of my head. The first thing I noticed was the warm press of Soren’s leg against mine.

Oh. I guess we were sitting now. I had just let Soren lead me to our seats without a care in the world.

It was like my mind came back into my body through that one touch, originating there before slowly slipping through the rest of my limbs.

Everything was more intense on Muli, and the Bond was apparently no different. We really needed to have a conversation about boundaries or something because this simply wouldn’t do.

As more people threaded into the bench next to us, pushing me, Soren, Esme, and Ford closer and closer to the wall, it crushed us all together. Ford and Esme looked stiff as boards, absolutely refusing to back down from their perfect posture and respectable distance from one another.

Soren and I were forced to be the malleable ones. After several seconds of our shoulders slipping against each other, trying to find a spot where his bones weren’t right on top of mine, Soren eventually cursed under his breath, “Goddess help me.”

He lifted my arm, threaded his through the space between it and my midriff, and returned me to straights before I’d even fully processed that he was touching me.

The damage was done. Our arms were intertwined. Soren’s hand was on my knee.

I swallowed thickly, desperately trying to focus on the front of the room through hazy eyes.

I saw someone approach, but I didn’t place who they were until they spoke.

“Welcome,” Peter said, and I was shocked to see him here. Through the many rounds of briefings we had been forced to sit through over the last few days, I didn’t think he’d mentioned that he would be joining us.

“Woman off to the side, mid-forties. They’ve been Matched about fifteen years. Parocts,” Soren’s voice supplied, the words dropping close to my ear.

I turned my head, leaving the rest of my body still, which brought our faces dangerously close together. “That’s a long time for a Match in the eighties.”

Soren’s lower lip briefly pushed out in agreement. Did he really have to have that full of a lower lip? That was just unfair. “It’s high eighties. He’ll probably get a discharge in the next few years, but he’s fine for now.”

I hoped that was true. It was obvious that Peter had stepped in as somewhat of a father figure for Soren in the last six years. Regardless of my own torrid relationships with my parents, I couldn’t imagine losing them both at eighteen.

“Thank you,” I whispered back, subtly acknowledging that he’d answered my silent question.

When I focused back on Peter, I realized I’d missed the rest of his introduction, though I was sure it was only a quip about someone throwing up that I’d failed to hear. “You’ll be getting your assignments from your captains at the end of the day. Some of you veterans might be put on a patrol tonight, but for the rest of you, you have two days to get settled and shake off your sea legs, then there are no excuses.”

“I might get pulled. If I do, I’ll take you with me,” Soren whispered in my ear, easily supplanting the lecture with things I was planning on asking him about anyway. Something new slipped on top of the tightness in my stomach, a balm of something sweet and warm over the fire.

He was just being helpful. He could be a nice man under all that gruff attitude and bloodlust for all I knew. That was likely the truth, and yet a horrible part of me wanted to believe that he was doing it because he knew me already, knew that I was someone who liked to know what was going on, even if I was just silently listening.

I was quieter by nature, though most people had considered that a sign of weakness or something that was forced upon me by circumstance.

The truth was that there was more value in silence than people cared to acknowledge. I had achieved far more by staying patient, by taking the sly way around rather than barreling through like a bull.

“Dinner with your unit tonight,” Peter said from the front of the room. “In the meantime, I suggest getting settled. That does not mean laying around in your bed. Go check on your gear, your horse, or decide to be helpful and get ahead on your duties. That should be fun enough.”

“Some of us have more fun in bed!” someone interjected from the back of the room, a laugh in their voice.

Knowing chuckles followed, and I looked over my shoulder to find a considerable number of people huddled against their Match with secret smiles on their faces.

Right.

Though a close, sibling like relationship was certainly common for Matches, there were just as many who took the romantic route and probably snuck away to maul each other every chance they got.

How ridiculous, that the two Soul Matches barely touched each other. Well, that wasn’t quite true with me and Soren. We were just choosing to ignore the urge to wrap around each other.

You don’t have to, the Bond offered. I shoved it away as if I could put my two hands on its chest and do it myself. Those were dangerous thoughts that I couldn’t entertain.