Page 41 of Chaos Carnival (Cirque de Sanguine #2)
Chapter 40: Crushing Devotion
Maverick
The mate bond snapped taut like a rubber band returning to form. My shadows writhed as the air bent inward, creating a pocket of impossible space in our tent. Stone's goat bleated a warning as ancient forces filled the air.
She materialized like a dark cloud, her form coalescing from energy my seraph senses couldn't process. Magic rolled off her in waves that felt like static in my veins.
“Miss me?” Tess's smile held echoes of warmth, her eyes reflecting moonlight.
My shadows reached for her instinctively but hesitated at the edge of hers. Even they recognized she wasn't quite contained anymore. The mate bond hummed with a resonance that felt both familiar and not.
“Where were you?” I kept my voice neutral, though my fingers itched to grab her, to check every inch for damage.
She laughed, the sound rippling through the tent and beyond. “Exactly where I needed to be.” Her gaze swept the space, taking in Stone's rigid posture, Lux's careful stillness, Addie's wide-eyed wonder. “The hunters won't be a problem.”
“What did you do?” I forced my hands to unclench.
“Showed them what real power looks like.” She moved toward me with that new liquid grace. “They thought they were hunting a pet witch. I showed them something ancient, something blue, something eternal and something true.”
“You could have been killed.” Seraphim power bled into my voice.
Her smile turned sharp. “No, I couldn't have.” She reached up to touch my face, fingers trailing electricity across my skin.
I caught her wrist, needing the anchor of physical contact. Her pulse raced beneath my fingers, not with fear but with power—with the intoxication of becoming something monstrous.
“Next time—” I started.
“Next time, it'll be even more fun,” she cut me off, gentle but immovable. “I'm not fragile anymore. You don't need to shelter me.”
“You're my mate,” I growled, leaning into the possessive surge.
She didn't flinch. Instead, she stepped closer. “Yes. And I'm strong enough to protect what's mine too.”
It hit me like a sucker punch. She wasn't just claiming her own might—she was claiming me, claiming all of us, with the same fierce protectiveness I'd always felt toward her.
“The hunters,” Stone spoke up, his voice measured. “They're dead?”
“Just one of them.” Tess's smile held darkness I'd never seen before. “The rest will spread their fear through Hell itself.”
Something dark and demanding unfurled inside me. My mate wasn't just powerful, she was delicious. Terrible and magnificent and mine. Even if I couldn't cage her anymore, I could get used to this.
Later, as we headed backstage, my shadows sensed a shift in her. Reality bent around her steps as she materialized in my path.
“We've got a few minutes.” The way she said it made me wonder if she meant minutes or eternities. “Remember how you used to just teleport us wherever you wanted?”
I laughed, the sound an odd echo. “I don't recall you complaining.”
“Well,” she pressed closer, “I think maybe it's my turn.”
The big top's atmosphere pressed around us, heavy with anticipation. My pupils dilated as magic rolled off her, and I finally understood what she intended.
“Trust me?” she asked, though the knowing gleam in her eyes suggested she'd already seen my answer.
“Always.”
She rose up, pressing her lips to mine in a kiss that felt like smoke and starlight. The circus blurred as the world bent to her will, pulling us sideways through dimensions until nothing existed but us and possibility.
An observation deck formed around us, glass and steel condensing out of void. Chicago seemed to spread like a glittering carpet, millions of miles beneath us.
The platform beneath us shimmered like liquid glass as Tess's power rippled through the air. I'd seen countless wonders in my centuries of existence, but nothing compared to the woman before me.