“How deep is this place?” I pant, because I am in fact a human and not a giant lizard-fae-warrior with endless cardio.
Kael thinks for a beat. “I don’t know in your measurements.”
Pax doesn’t even look back. “About a hundred feet. Maybe more.”
So, roughly thirty metres. “Cool,” I mutter. “That’s… terrifying.”
The air grows thicker the deeper we go, charged. My skin starts to prickle like it’s preparing for a sunburn, but inside out.
We finally get to the bottom. One last landing. One last door.
I pause, reaching out and grazing the stone wall. The moment my fingers connect, the air hums. Something thrums beneath the surface. It zings along my skin, shooting straight to my chest like a tether being pulled taut. “Kael?” My voice cracks.
He’s already swearing under his breath. His markings are glowing brighter, his expression sharp and unsettled. “Do you feel that?”
“Like my insides are trying to do jazz hands? Yeah.”
Varek steps closer to the door but doesn’t react. Pax arches a brow. “You feel something?” he asks Kael.
Kael nods tightly. “Energy. Wild, unhinged energy. So does Sonny.”
Pax’s frown deepens. “Really? No one else has ever reacted. Not even Glowranth.”
“Well, I hate to break it to you,” I say, dragging in a breath through my teeth, “but something down here is getting real personal with my nerve endings.”
“The bond,” Kael murmurs. “It might be… amplifying.”
My bond.Ourbond.
Right.
So, this room, whatever’s behind that door, isn’t just old stone and secrets. It’s something more. Something wild—and it’s calling us.
We go through the door, and honestly, I’m not sure what I expected. Maybe glowing tomes. Floating relics. A room full of ancient scrolls that whisper forbidden knowledge in seductive voices.
Instead? Bugger all.
It’s dusty. Dim. Bare as Kael’s chest the first time I saw him, minus any of the appeal. There are a few rickety old shelves, warped from age and weightless from lack of books. A couple of broken chairs, one of them with a leg missing and slumped over like it gave up on life mid-meeting. The air is still thick with that strange, electric energy, but visually? This place is a dud.
My shoulders slump. “Well, that’s… anticlimactic.”
But Kael? My hunk of a mate is already moving. He steps further inside, his gaze distant, tracking something invisible. “It’s still here,” he murmurs. “The energy. It’s beneath us.”
I frown, following. “Beneath?”
He nods, his eyes glowing faintly, his steps slow and deliberate. “Like a river, flowing under the stone. I can feel the current. It’s strong here, stronger than anywhere I’ve ever felt it. Even stronger than… than the bond.”
That stops me cold. Because if this is more potent than our bond—which just nearly exploded both of us into blissful stardust—then yeah, this is serious.
Kael moves towards the back of the room, where a wall stretches floor to ceiling, carved with faded markings. He presses his palm to the stone.
Nothing happens.
“It’s here,” he says again, firmer this time. “But I don’t know how to open it.”
I join him, reaching out and brushing my fingers over the surface. It’s cool. Solid. Unmoving. But there’s a thrum underneath, like a distant heartbeat. My skin tingles. The bondin my chest flickers to life in response, like it’s perking up with curiosity.
Varek and Pax hang back, watching silently. Waiting.
