“The bond. The way it tightens.” My throat was dry. “Like ropes around your ribs. Like heat you can’t walk off. Like a hand always reaching.”
Callis’s eyes widened slightly. He nodded. “Yes. I feel it. But I thought—it was normal. Isn’t it supposed to fade?”
“It won’t fade,” I said, and took a breath sharp enough to burn. “Not like this. Not with it growing the way it is.”
He looked away. “Then it’ll get worse.”
“Yes.”
“How much worse?”
I studied him. “It will strangle us before the moon completes her cycle. That’s what it’s built to do. It’s a joining. A tether. And the longer we pretend we can live around it, the tighter it will pull.”
He closed his eyes briefly, chest rising. “I didn’t know.”
“Didn’t you learn of it at—” I didn’t know whichgod he had worshipped on his home isle. I knew so little of this creature I had bonded. “Your temple.”
“Learn of it? I heard this isle floated in the clouds. I heard the rituals are sealed in blood. I heard so many things I could not let myself believe…”
“You never knew?” I asked, quiet terror awakening in the pit of my stomach.
Callis’s long eyelashes fluttered. He looked ready to apologize. “I thought…” I hurried to say, then stepped closer. “I thought you didn’t want it. Didn’t want me.”
He looked up at that, startled. “No. I didn’t think I should… I didn’t want to assume. To reach for something that wasn’t…”
The silence between us frayed.
Not empty now, but heavy. Full. Charged.
I reached for him slowly, and this time, he didn’t flinch.
“I’m tired of silence,” I said.
Callis’s hand lifted—tentative, trembling—and brushed mine. The bond surged.
There was nothing left to say.
We found each other like dry grass finds flame.
And then we burned.
My fingers swept through his hair—thick, curling, still damp from the bathhouse—until they slid to the nape of his neck. I gripped him gently, then more firmly, the strands winding around my fingers like silk spun from stormclouds.
Our mouths met again, fiercer now. Lips partednot from shyness, but from craving. The kiss was all heat and hunger, the kind that unraveled restraint with every brush of skin.
Callis exhaled through his nose, the sound sharp and barely audible, but it landed in my ears like a match striking dry parchment. I stepped forward, the breath between us breaking as our bodies met.
He gave ground until his back struck the edge of the carved oak bedpost. A soft gasp spilled from him—surprise, yes, but want too.
The bond surged.
No longer the choking pull of something half-formed, half-denied. No longer a knot in my chest or a burn behind my ribs.
Now it felt like wind in sails. Like something alive rushing forward—eager, unbound. A desperate embrace that whispered: yes, yes, yes.
Callis arched forward, pressing against me, mouth finding mine with a hunger that stole my breath. The taste of him was salted heat and whatever sweet herb lingered from the evening meal—rosemary, maybe, or fig. His tongue met mine and the bond flared hot, flashing through my limbs like lightning licking the edges of a storm.
I groaned into the kiss, one hand sliding to his waist, gripping the soft folds of his robe, twisting it to bring him closer. My other hand stayed knotted in his hair. I pulled gently, just enough to tip his face upward, his throat bared.