I need him to feel me, too.
So, I breathe in slow and shaky then I close my eyes and reach.
I don’t know how I do it. There’s no instruction manual for flash bonds. No step-by-step for how to tether yourself to a Bratva monster and not lose your mind. Just stories passed down that tell you what gain, what you experience, but nothing on how to control it.
But I focus on the only thing I can give him right now anyway.
Warmth and comfort.
Just a flicker of it. Like the feeling of sunlight through a window, the sound of my laugh when I’m half-asleep, or the way he looked at me the first time I called him ‘monster man’ without flinching.
I send it all across the bond. Just a soft thread of reassurance. Nothing demanding. Just something that’s there.
A pulse of quiet.
An invisible touch to the cheek of a man with blood on his hands and fire in his chest.
I don’t know if it reaches him, but I know the fury dulls enough to let me breathe again.
Sunniva and I sit in the garden of her estate, a quiet place for us to talk without her father’s men roaming the halls.
In here, it’s just us, with Lucetta guarding the entrance from unwanted visitors.
Sunni hands me a mug of the tea she prepared before we came out and sinks into the chair across from mine. “You look like you’re in your own head,” she says, voice gentle but unblinking. “Wanna let me in?”
I stare into my tea like it might offer answers.
“I felt him,” I say finally. “Konstantin. Through the bond.”
Sunniva nods. “That’s part of it, right?”
“No, not like this, Sunni. I felthim. His fury. His fear. All of it. Like he was standing inside my skin. This isn’t the first time either.”
She blows out a breath, her eyes wide and intrigued. “Whoa. That’s . . . a lot. What did you do?”
I glance at her. “I think I sent something back?” I reply with more of a question than an actual answer.
That gets her attention, and she leans forward, all quiet intensity. “You did? What did you send?”
“Warmth,” I murmur. “I just . . . I didn’t want him to drown in it. All that rage. That’s too much for one person to carry. I wanted him to know I was here.”
Sunni watches me for a long moment. “You’re scared of it.”
It’s not a question, but I answer anyway. “Yes.”
“Why?”
I chew the inside of my cheek. “Because it’s real,” I whisper. “It’s not just magic or fate. It’s not just chemistry. It’s . . . invasive. Intrusive. I can’t lie to it. I can’t hide from it. And I’ve spent most of my life building walls around everything I am so that no one can hurt me. Now they’re crumbling, and he sees everything.”
Sunniva doesn’t argue. She doesn’t try to fix it. She just sips her tea and lets me unravel like a good bestie does.
“I used to think you and Giselda were the only people who really knew me,” I say, barely louder than a breath. “And she—” My voice breaks. “Like you, she knew how I thought, what I feared, who I loved. Now, we find out she’s not really dead, and instead of coming back to us, the people she called sisters, she’s out there just . . . destroying others.”
“You feel betrayed.”
“No. Yes. I don’t know.” I grit my teeth. “I feel stupid, mostly. For mourning her. For screaming her name in my sleep anytime I’d have nightmares about her wreck. For folding a piece of myself into a box marked ‘grief’ and burying it. Because now she’s alive. But it’s bigger than just that, Sun. She’s pushing drugs onto the street that are killing people. Giselda’s turned into something I always thought she hated. For some reason, I feel like I failed her. Like we failed her.”
“We didn’t fail her, Cress. She failed us.”
