Page 95 of Balance

I surrendered.

Chapter Twenty-One

Julian

Lost

An icy cold took my breath away and the knife slipped from my fingers. My face snapped up as the echo of roaring waves pounded through my head.

“What is it now, Julian?” Damen—who never was a firm believer of privacy—asked. He sat across from me, rooting through Miles’s bag without shame. “They’ll be fine. Bianca will be able to get Miles to listen to reason. You should relax. Do you need some pointers? I picked up a few techniques—”

“No, you idiot.” I moved to my feet, not even bothering to hide my derision. Damen had been getting on my last nerve this whole trip, but I usually could ignore him. This unsettling feeling though—a cold clutching at my chest—was throwing me off balance. “Something’s wrong.”

“What do you mean?” The onmyoji’s face turned serious at last, and Titus, who’d snapped to attention at Damen’s outburst, also stood. “They’re only going to talk. It’s not like anything can happen. You’re being paranoid.”

“Unless she killed Miles,” Titus offered, muscles tensing. “He was being pretty stubborn.”

“She wouldn’t kill him,” I replied. Did Titus really know nothing about her? She might have some violent fantasies, but at her core, she was sensitive and sweet. It always tore at Mu’s consciousness to make a single kill—which he only did when absolutely necessary.

And Bianca was far more fragile than Mu. “Bianca doesn’t have a violent bone in her body.” My ire rose as the two stared at me, disbelief etched into their expressions. “She doesn’t!”

“Okay then,” Damen said, his tone setting me on edge. He was clearly humoring me now. “But she still might have pushed him into the river. Obviously, on accident,” he added, catching my glare.

“Maybe.” I frowned. “We should go see.”

“We can’t interfere with their relationship.” Damen returned to his lounging position and continued poking the fire with a stick. “It never ends well when someone oversteps. Will you just relax?”

I looked past Damen—in the direction where Miles and Bianca had vanished—and continued to fight back my rising anxiety. Technically, everything should be fine. But there was something calling to me. Telling me that we needed to go there now.

“Fine.” Damen sighed, throwing the stick into the fire. “Have it your way. But when Miles lashes out at you for butting in where you’re not wanted, I’m not going to help.”

“Miles can’t do anything to me anyway.” I wiped my thighs and touched my elbows, touching the comforting latch to release my blades. My weapons were always ready, strapped to the inside of my arm.

It was true though. Miles might be my controller, but he couldn’t stop me from doing what I wanted until he’d regained access to his abilities. He was rather harmless right now, actually, which was something that suited me just fine. I had things to do first.

Loose ends to tie before I could no longer hide this part of me from Bianca.

I liked being bonded to her, but it was becoming more difficult to lie. Between Miles and his half-hearted attempts at getting stronger, and Damen’s smart-ass comments, I wasthisclose to losing it.

That being said, since Damen wasfinallyin agreement, maybe we could get something done.

We were nearly to the river when Titus started forward, leaving the two of us behind. His silent urgency validated my unease.

My senses snapped to alert as my breath quickened. Something was wrong. A million scenarios rushed through my head, and I followed the dragon, trusting that he, at least, was being guided by an instinct the two of us lacked.

We broke through the trees, the empty riverbank ahead of us. An eerie calm began to bleed into my senses.

“Bianca?” Damen’s loud voice echoed through the space, overshadowing the sound of the thundering water. He moved like a madman, circling the riverbank like a vulture, while Titus headed directly to the bank.

I glanced between the onmyoji and dragon. Damen clearly had no idea what he was looking for, but Titus did. I went to him, taking in the rapid currents, and the rubble along the shore.

“Do you hear them?” I asked, turning my attention to the focused dragon.

Titus’s expression was sharp, and his nostrils flared while he walked slowly along the water line, attention riveted to the mud-encrusted roots and fallen limbs of a tree.

“It looks like this moved recently,” he said, pushing lightly at the trunk. The tree wobbled precariously, barely tethered in place between two large boulders, and my heart sank. Titus’s next words confirmed my suspicions.

“They’ve both been here—the trail continues up this way,” he added, nodding toward the water.