Page 24

“Keira!” Rowen yelled as he dropped to my line of sight, his eyes frantically scanning my body. “What happened?” he asked, his beautiful face contorting in panic as his hands flew around me but not on me, and my heart pinched from the loss of his touch.

“You're even pretty when you make that face,” I grumbled as I rose to my feet, but my legs buckled, and I fell to the ground. “It’s not fair.”

“Where are you hurt?”

“My arm,” I slurred, trying to shake off the sedation.

Rowen’s eyes narrowed further. “Were you hurt in training?” he asked as the veins in his neck strained. “You just fell out of nowhere.”

“I traveled to see my m-mother,” I said, my eyes two heavy windows.

“Don’t just stand there. Help her up,” Rowen commanded over his shoulder.

Confused and wondering who he was talking to, I tried lifting my head, but I collapsed in exhaustion. Here was as good a place as any to take a little nap. When suddenly, I was swept off the ground .

“Put me down,” I grumbled, squirming in the strong arms that carried me. “I don’t need to be carried.”

“Keira, you can’t even stand.” Maddock’s chest-rumbling voice vibrated against my cheek.

Of course it was him. Who else would have been able to touch me?

“Wha . . . what are you two doing out here? Together?” I slurred. Either the sedative running through my veins made me see things, or Rowen and Maddock had been out here alone.

“That’s not important right now,” Rowen said in a panic. “What happened to you?”

“My mom tried to sedate me, and she . . . plunged half the syringe. I stopped her before . . . before . . .” My eyes succumbed to the powerful drug, and I relaxed into Maddock’s arms.

“Keira,” Rowen yelled.

“She’ll be all right. Sedatives won’t kill her. It will just make her tired. She will wake soon,” Maddock said, and I felt Rowen’s nerves calm.

“Remember, her fate is your fate,” Rowen ground out, his voice like gravel.

“That makes no sense! I didn’t even do this.”

Rowen growled.

“No, you’re right. It makes perfect sense,” Maddock said, his arms tensing beneath me. “I’m ninety-eight percent sure she’ll wake up.”

“Just carry her to Takoda’s,” Rowen demanded, not above asking Maddock to provide the assistance he couldn’t. “This way.”

“Sedatives are a funny thing,” Madds replied as he carried me back to the village. “She might not remember she found us together, and we won’t have to tell her. Who knows if she heard anything. ”

“We are telling her,” Rowen said sternly. “I won’t keep anything from her.”

“Tell me what,” I asked, fighting to open my eyelids.

“Nothing you need to know right now, my flame. Just go to sleep.”

I closed my eyes again as my cheek fell to Maddock’s chest, and a deep chuckle rumbled through him. “I’ve had to subdue her, revive her, and now carry her for you,” he mused. “Do you need me to fuck her for you too?”

With a predatory snarl, my soul flame charged Maddock. “I may not be able to touch her, but I can damn well break your bones.”

“Yeah,” I said sleepily, bolstered in Maddock’s strong arms, and I found it immensely irritating that I was comfortable. “Punch him in the face, Rowen.”

“Hey! I’m literally carrying your ass,” Maddock shouted in my ear.

I shrugged sleepily, not opening my eyes.

“You’re lucky you’re holding my entire world. It’s the only thing preventing me from tearing you limb from limb,” my favorite voice said.

“Fine. I’ll lay off. Just making some simple observations.”

“Make any more simple observations, and I’ll bash your teeth in. Besides, you are more than welcome to ask her for a fuck, though I doubt she would be interested. As I recall, she’s seen the disappointed look on your partners’ faces.”

I’d glimpsed into Maddock’s life, experienced his memories as if they were my own. And I couldn’t shake the image of the beautiful blonde woman who’d thrown a vase at my—his—head upon learning of his many infidelities.

“Good one!” I chirped from my creeping slumber.

I couldn’t fathom the pain of depending on someone else to help the one you love. If our situations were reversed, I might have punched someone’s teeth in ages ago. But Rowen’s control was astounding, whereas mine was slipping away by the second.

I might find comfort in Maddock’s arms now, but I still didn’t trust him. I knew I should hate him, but I couldn’t remember why. I had a million questions on the tip of my tongue when all turned to black, and I succumbed to my mother’s sedative.

My heavy eyelids slowly blinked open. I was in Takoda’s dome of healing, his living medicines hanging from the walls and dangling from the ceiling.

“Keira,” Rowen breathed as Maddock let out a relieved exhale.

The sedative sludged through my system, and I was still groggy, but I remembered everything. “What did you want to tell me?” I asked, sitting up too quickly and almost vomiting.

“Careful, you still need rest,” Maddock said, helping me sit up.

“No. Tell me. I remember. What is it?”

“Told you she would remember,” Rowen said proudly.

“Wouldn’t you rather talk about the horrible things your mom just did to you?” Maddock asked, clearly trying to change the subject.

“No,” I said, realizing it was the truth. “Those memories no longer serve me.”

Madds spun to leave the dome. “I’m going to go and let you two talk about it. I don’t want to be here for this.”

“Oh no, you’re staying,” Rowen said, yanking him back down by his arm. “This should be fun.”

“What is it?” I asked, rubbing my temples.

Rowen pursed his plump lips and sighed before he said, “Maddock is in love with you. ”

“Ha. Ha. Hilarious,” I said through the dull throb in my skull. “Now, tell me.”

“It’s true, Keira,” he said as Maddock moaned in embarrassment, avoiding eye contact.

I was most definitely still drugged. “Come again?” I asked, dropping my hands into my lap.

I glared at Maddock in confusion, his brown eyes darting back to me.

“It’s not . . . by choice. It appears that when I invaded your mind—” Rowen glared murderously.

“—I went in pretty deep. I dug my claws in as far as they would go, then pushed harder. I saw many of your memories. Saw what you saw and felt what you felt. Your feelings were so powerful, unlike anything I’d ever felt before.

There was pain, but there was also silver and gold and love.

And when you pushed me out of you, I didn’t want to let go.

You just felt so good. So I gripped tighter.

Not only did I take some of the Alcreon Light, but it appears I’ve also taken a piece of your bond with Rowen. ” He swallowed hard. “On accident.”

“He has felt the power of our soul flame bond, Keira,” Rowen said, not moving a single muscle, but I had grown accustomed to spotting the rage just beneath his calm exterior.

So that explained why he’d been able to help me the day I almost drowned and why I felt comfortable in his embrace. It wasn’t just stolen emotions. It was a stolen bond.

I pressed my hands to my eyes to clear the lingering fog. “That is . . . weird.”

“It’s not for a lack of trying not to. But what you have is . . . powerful. Better than any drug I’ve ever taken, and I’ve damn near tried them all. Better than ecstasy, better than heroin. And a thousand times more addicting. I . . . I find I need to be near you.”

My shock faded, the reality of the situation hitting me like a rogue wave .

I shot up from the bed and into Maddock’s face, nearly stumbling into the medicine cabinet. He tried to help me, but I pushed him away, nausea creeping up my throat. “How dare you take a piece of my Light, and my bond. That is sacred. You’ve already stolen so much from me. And now this?”

“I know, and I’m so sorry to you both. If I could stop it, I would. I just want to help you now in whatever way I can. That is all I want.”

I didn’t care what he had to say. Not a single word.

I pulled back my fist, anger coursing through me like a riptide.

I hadn’t been able to intentionally touch anyone for so long that the moment my fist connected with his face, satisfaction rippled through me.

And I grinned as his head knocked to the side.

He looked at me in shock, rubbing his jaw. “I know you’re mad. But?—”

“You have no idea how I feel right now.”

“Actually, I do. Maybe not to the full extent. But I hold a piece of your bond within me. I’ve . . . I’ve been able to feel you for a while now.”

Disgusted, I nearly gagged. “What about your fiancé?” I asked, remembering I’d taken memories from him too.

“I’ve been dead to her for a while now, since before the accident. She’s moved on, and I let myself die there. I’m not going back.”

“Well, you can’t stay here! I don’t want to be anywhere near you. Not even on the same planet as you. We can literally split the universe in half. Stay on your side, and I’ll stay on mine.”

I punched him again and again. Fury blinded me, but Maddock made no move to evade my onslaught.

“Keira,” a voice pulled me back to myself, as it always did and always would. My fist stopped midair. “Are you sure you want to beat him to a bloody pulp?”

“Yes. I really think I do. ”

“Then continue, my bloodthirsty little soul flame. Exact your revenge.”

“I agree,” Maddock said. “It’s no less than what I deserve.”

“You don’t get to speak,” Rowen snarled, charging up and landing a punch to Maddock’s stomach.

Maddock fell to the ground, wheezing. “You’ve both got quite the aim. A perfect match.”

“You weren’t there when she fled from the crevice, running as if the Dark Spirit were on her heels.

You didn’t gather her from the forest floor or hold her as she sobbed her soul out, incoherently repeating that you were inside her .

You weren’t there when she woke three days after you defiled her mind. I was.”

“I know. I’m so sorry. I’ll do whatever it takes to earn your forgiveness.”

“You’ll be trying a while,” I said, standing over him and glancing at Rowen. “And why were you two alone out there anyway?” I asked.