Broken Skies

“I’m not entirely sure, but that would be a logical conclusion.”

“But then you had to have known… something…when you weren’t dying. You said you had no idea what I was.”

“I didn’t.” He grabs my hands again. “At first I just thought it was taking me a very long time to die. I didn’t understand why and I really didn’t care. I let myself get close to you even though I knew it was a bad idea. And then you were bitten by that snake… I never sat around asking myself ‘hey why aren’t you dead yet’ but when the delirium hit you, I felt something. I knew somehow that you were different, that it was you keeping me alive and me helping you fight the infection. I didn’t really understand all the implications of that until your friend explained what he knew about your heritage.”

“So I am just an experiment then?” I yank my hands away and stand. “I wasn’t wrong. They’re… you’re… never going to let me and Jace leave, not when we can do this thing that none of you can do. Not when you can use us. They’ve obviously already been experimenting or something on my brother.” Agitation rises in my stomach and crawls up my throat. “What Flint said… I’m not even functional. I don’t know how to use this link thing and I’m unstable with my own emotions, much less anyone else’s.”

“Work with me, with us. We’re meeting with the Council tomorrow. We just have to show them we have nothing to hide.”

“But I do have stuff to hide, Lir. Where is Jace? If your return has caught everyone’s attention, then wouldn’t they already know about Jace’s arrival?” My feet carry me back and forth in front of the couch.

Lir rubs the back of his neck and looks up at me. “Maybe it was kept secret. I don’t know, but we’ll need the Council’s help to find Jace and get your link working correctly.”

“What if it never works correctly? Then I’m useless, expendable. What then, Lir?”

“I’m not going to let anything happen to you, I promise.”

“What if you can’t stop it? None of this makes any sense. This link, this bond… How do you even know that this thing between us is real and not just some consequence of what I am? I’m just a broken girl who inadvertently managed to keep you alive.”

He jumps to his feet and grasps my biceps. “You’re more than that!” Eyes like green fire bore into me and hot conviction shoots through the link.

I may not have figured out how the link works, but I do know how to get my own emotions to the forefront. I use my fear to cool the link. “How would you even know that for sure? How would I know?”

“Because I fell for you well before I knew what you were. Even when you were just the stupidly brave girl waving a knife at me I knew that you were special. Are you going to deny that you felt it too?” The next words whisper across my cheek as he leans in even closer. “Don’t lie. I can feel you even if you won’t admit it to yourself.”

His emotions merge with mine, wrapping us in a vortex of heat, and my already volatile state only needs that slight increase in temperature to combust. I slam my lips onto his. His arms wrap around my back and press me tight against his body. Somehow I end up with my back against the wall, his mouth still firmly attached to mine.

This kiss is hunger. He devours me with the press of his lips and the touch of his hands. One hand brushes down my side and curls around my waist pulling me closer, erasing any space between us, every hard plane of his body glued to mine. The other hand tangles in my hair to control the angle of my head while he sucks my lower lip into his mouth, releases it, and then slides his tongue into my mouth.

I moan and run my hands over every part of him I can reach, his shoulders, his arms, his hands, his cheeks… One of my hands manages to find the bottom of his shirt and slip up between the fabric and the smoothness of his stomach. He pauses, his abs tightening, his arms tensing as if to pull away. I whimper and slide my hand farther up until I can feel the rapid beat of his heart against my palm and he groans into my mouth, continuing to kiss me with white hot desire flowing around us.

He’s right I do feel it, have felt it. And it terrifies me.

A thought. A shuffle. A hesitation. Those three things are enough to let a sliver of frost form. The wispy tendrils of ice spread and suddenly I’m much too hot. Lir’s arms are too tight, his mouth too demanding, his hand tugging too hard at my hair. A soft, scared noise travels up my throat and he pulls back, the lust in his eyes transitioning quickly to worry when he sees my face.

“It’s okay. You’re safe.” I would never hurt you. He thinks he’s helping when he pushes the words at me, letting them float into my head through the link on a gentle current of comfort.

But. That. Means. He’s. In. My. Head. And they are too. Those men I killed with their platitudes, their ‘pretty things’, their ‘little girls’…and hands and hurtandbloodandpain. They were in my head. How did they get in my head? This thing that I am let them in and I want them OUT!

The cabin dissolves around me fading into nothing until I am alone in the blackness of my mind.

TWENTY THREE

“Stella!” The shout brings me to instant awareness. Not so for the little bundle curled against me and fast asleep. When did Stella come back in here? I nudge her, but she doesn’t even budge.

My face is sticky and when I wipe at it, my hand comes back wet with blood. A nose bleed? The stark white pillow has a sopping patch of red. There’s another shout from the hallway and I hurriedly scrub my face with the pillow case. Without a mirror I can’t really tell if all the blood is gone, but I’d better get my visitor out to her worried parents. This is already not going to go over well with them.

I pull Stella into my arms and carry her into the hallway. “Um… Mr. Vestra? She’s here.”

Vira flies up the hallway and gathers Stella into her arms while Stellan glares at me over his wife— no, his bondmate’s shoulder. “What was she doing with you?” Ice laces his words and I can tell nothing I say is going to satisfy him so I just shrug and avert my eyes. He advances up the hallway, a predatory look in his eyes. “So help me, if you’ve harmed her….”

“Father!” Lir steps out from a door to my right, sleep tousled and wearing a worried frown. “Stop it. She wouldn’t hurt Stella.”

If only the carpet would swallow me. The door to my room is behind me, so I slide slowly backwards, hoping to get away from the father son confrontation about to take off in the hallway.

“You don’t know that Steliro. She may have some of our DNA, but she was raised with humans. They’re no better than animals,” says Stellan, redness creeping up his neck and into his cheeks. “I don’t know what possessed you to bring her here, but you need to get rid of her today, now! She’s completely unstable. Who knows what she’s capable of. I want her out of my house and out of this city!”

“I know what she’s capable of. I—”

“How could you possibly—”

“She’s my bondmate!” Lir’s face is just as red as his father’s and his words come out in a shout. At the shocked look on his father’s face, Lir backs down and repeats it, this time softer. “She’s my bondmate, Father.”

Stellan shoots a glare my way, but I’m sliding back into my room before he says anything else.

My first stop is the bathroom where I wet down my sleeve and scrub at my cheek. The dried blood comes off easily, but my skin is left red and irritated, the dark circles under my eyes standing out against the bright color. I look like I haven’t slept in months.

I turn away from the mirror too quickly. Black stars flash across my vision and my legs falter. One elbow smacks into the counter top, but I catch myself on the doorway before I fall all the way to the ground. I rest my dizzy head against the door frame and take a few deep breaths, waiting for the room to stop spi