Page 58 of A Sweet Destruction

What a question.

Why did I ask?

Well, there was the fact that I woke up to Ford staring at me, my body flooded with a specific type of warmth I hadn’t felt in years. That was somehow more concerning than the fact we slept in the same bed.

Then there was Ford’s mood throughout the morning, oscillating between a careful stoicism and barely contained…something.

The thing that had pushed me over the edge, moved me to pull Bellamy aside as we walked through our ruined camp on Muli, was the Cross.

It had always been tense, because it was the only time Ford and I intentionally touched.

When we’d Crossed yesterday, I’d been too caught up in panic to pay any attention to Ford, first from having to Cross with the Bond back, then the discovery that the Bond had awoken for him.

But this Cross…I didn’t know what that was.

He’d hovered around me as we prepared, but was notably silent, standing off to the side while Peter and I debriefed the plan for the next few days. The emissary from Muli was still camping out over the hill and waiting for our answer. We were planning to send him running with our consent when we Crossed. Not that any of that registered with Ford, hovering nearby with unseeing eyes. There was something fidgety about him, something that I didn’t like.

It was like he was a shadow, never standing farther than an arm’s length away, but never making himself known until the very moment before we joined hands and Crossed into Muli.

I was looking at him to figure out what the hell was going on in that head of his. He looked my way at the last second, and I was forced to admit that my breath caught in my throat.

That new way he looked at me, like he didn’t trust what he first saw and had to observe every little curve of my expressions until he was satisfied, was something that was going to take me a while to get used to.

I’d been so dazed, I didn’t have time to prepare for the Cross and was nearly knocked on my ass by the force of the ripple between worlds. I certainly wasn’t prepared for the bone-deep feeling of connection to Ford, wanting to melt so far into him our bodies fused together.

It was a survival instinct I knew, pushing me towards the thing that kept me alive as we stepped into a rip in space, but that didn’t stop a pulsing heat from building in my stomach.

Ice cold water was splashed all over me the second we made it back to Muli, popping out into the pile of rubble so fast we almost turned into human pancakes on the rocks. Before I could protest, Ford wrapped an arm around my middle and hauled me to him as he climbed up and out of the Bridge with shocking ease.

When we were out, he promptly dropped me and took five steps away like I was covered in fire ants.

It took until paraspets were climbing out of the Bridge to gain enough mental clarity to speak.

My first act was asking Bellamy what the hell was going on. “I just think he’s being weird,” I said, shrugging off her question. I didn’t want to spend too much time thinking about his behavior, lest it started to look all too familiar.

The thought of the Bond chirping away in his head with all its colorful threats and baser instincts still made me want to take off in a full sprint.

I had to sort that out, and fast, seeing as we likely had a few nights in a tent before heading off to wherever the Prince planned to meet. Then onto other accommodations, but together. Alone. Together. Just the two of us.

My heart clenched in pain, fear already locking my limbs. My Bond ignored it, screaming its glee in my head.

✦

It took three days to arrange everything. The Muli emissary had run away like his pants were on fire the second Freya delivered an affirmative message that, yes, we’d be sending Bellamy and Soren, along with four companions, to a diplomatic visit with the Prince.

He’d returned the next day with another note. This time, I was the one to greet him. He seemed marginally comforted to see a familiar face, though I had half the mind to warn him that he should still be scared.

I was alone by the stables again, cleaning up Sky and Shadow’s coats and definitely not trying to hide from Ford.

He was the one that decided to focus his efforts on the clean up at the Bridge. He was the one that decided to do so on one of the hottest days we’d had all season and took his shirt off. And so, naturally, it was his fault that the Bond shot off like a fucking firework, snarling at me to move closer—no, simply being in view was not close enough, inside of his skin seemed better.

Officer Edeka was saved from Ford’s threats again, just stopping by long enough to drop off a letter and sprint away. Barely time for me to catalog his appearance. I’d remembered his Mark though, trained to notice it first, look for its twin second.

The rose was there as I remembered it, but I could have sworn it was bigger, the petals curling over the edge of his hands. Then again, my memory of our first meeting was largely eclipsed by Ford literally eclipsing me from view.

I promised myself I’d look again, the next time he came to retrieve us. Which would be any minute now.

We were instructed to be ready by dawn, which meant most of us had been awake all night.