Page 18

CHAPTER 18

How Can I Tell You?

I burst from the Gate like a fish yanked from water, the lure still snagged in its gullet.

I was back. Back. Whole. My organs still in my body. The pain only a vague, warning whisper.

“Shhhh,” Tye murmured. “You’re alright now. I’ve got ya.”

Shivering in my damp shirt, I squeezed my face into Tye’s shoulder, breathing in the scents of smoke and campfire, relishing the rough plaid scraping against my cheek, the hands that stroked my back.

James ran a shaky hand over his drawn face. Pale and tired, he looked at Kaz. “Jayzus,” he muttered.

Bryn woke slower than the rest, unfocused eyes blinking away the dream. Then he pushed to sitting, took in my sweaty face, the arm violently shaking around Tye. “ Where were you ?” Bryn demanded.

I sucked in a breath. “Why? Why does it matter? Is this what you wanted?” I asked, my breaking voice rising to hysterics. “For the beast to see me, for Ruhaven to judge—”

“ Rowan ,” Bryn said sharply, but his face looked stricken. “I was speaking of Tye.”

My jaw snapped shut just before I admitted everything.

Tye lifted his chin off my head to scowl at Bryn. “What the hell are you accusin’ me of?”

“Rowan has quite obviously been in distress for some time. Why did you not anchor her?”

“Ya know, it ain’t always that obvious for those new to the Gate, and this is your goddamn fault for making her go in. So don’t ya go blaming me ‘cause ya feel guilty now.”

“ Lads ,” James said, ending the argument with a single, exasperated word. Crouching, he grasped my clammy hand. “Roe, ‘tis normal to struggle with the anchor if yer distracted like ye were.” Concern radiated in the creases of his eyes.

He’d seen—of course—as Jamellian in the market. But did he know the beast had attacked me because of what I wasn’t?

Fully awake now, Kazie lifted a lantern, her skin glowing in its gentle light. “That was wild, Roe. Wild!”

I massaged my sternum, trying to remove the stamp of pain left by the Gate. “Wait, what?”

She threw her arms out. “The market!”

For a moment, I forgot all about the pain that had burned my throat raw, my fear of being found out. “You—you were there?”

She cast her eyes to the sky. “Of course . Couldn’t you recognize me?”

I nearly swallowed my own tongue. “You’re not the mushroom woman with the…”

Laughing uproariously, Kaz said, “ Beretta? No, that’s silly, Roe. Horns, remember? You passed me when… Oh, never mind.” She sniffed. “You never notice anything , Roe.”

“Yera, I think she was a wee bit distracted,” James defended me.

I rubbed the space between my eyebrows. It wasn’t supposed be like this. I was supposed to encounter the Inquitate by now, or at least find some relationship between Willow and the other deaths. Instead, I was being attacked in the Gate, possibly by a mushroom woman, possibly by a demon bird.

“Oh—I—thanks,” I said when Bryn handed me a wooden canister. Tea—and his, by the honeyed smell. “James, did you see if it—if it killed Nereida after Tye anchored me?”

Bryn’s lips tightened into a thin line. Disappointed because Nereida was dead, or because I’d pretended to be her?

The line dipped into a frown.

“Drink, Rowan,” he instructed briskly, rising with the cane. His leg quavered once before he found his footing, and he might have been a shade paler than usual, his seawater eyes stark in his face, like a heavy island on an overcast day.

I turned back to Kaz. “The beast, could it be an Inquitate?” Was that why it’d recognized me?

She scratched her nose ring. “The beast?”

Hadn’t she just said she’d been in the market? “Yeah, the beast . You know…” I opened my arms wide in a flapping of wings, nearly knocking into Tye.

Understanding dawned on Kazie’s heart-shaped face. “Ohhhh—the beast .” Her full mouth curled into a wolfish grin. “That’s O’Sahnazekiel.”

“You named it?” I accused.

“That is his name,” Kazie corrected with a laugh. “He’s harmless.”

“Kazie, he tried to kill me. And his fangs .” I couldn’t stop the shudder that rolled through me.

Kazie’s lips contorted like she was trying to swallow a live eel. “Uh-huh,” she managed at last.

James scowled at her beneath his glasses, while Tye smirked around a cigarette and Bryn did his best impression of an unimpressed rock. Not a flicker of worry about my near-death experience.

Something else occurred to me. “If the pain wasn’t him, there was that female who fed Nereida these mushrooms… Could they have been poison?”

James turned his laugh into a hacking cough while Kazie danced around the clearing, collecting knapsacks and tea canisters. “Beretta’s a darling, Roe! She’d never try to kill you.”

If Kazie didn’t tell me what had attacked me in the Gate soon, I’d hang her upside down by her striped glitter sneakers.

Some of my intention must have shown because James cleared his throat and asked, “Kaz, is it what I think it was?”

“Oh yeah.” She straightened her polka-dot skirt with a huff. “Roe’s Tether broke.”

Everyone froze like chimes in a dead wind. Even the forest seemed to hold its breath.

“Well, not broke,” Kazie amended with a careless shrug. “But, you know, like damaged or whatever.”

The cigarette fell from Tye’s lips.

“ Y our Tether is your Drachaut. And Ruhaven and Drachaut are like people on opposite ends of a teeter-totter,” Kazie explained, swirling her cocktail in the air. “It’s all about balance.”

I blinked at them under the glare of Naruka’s kitchen light. “I don’t get it,” I said for the third time.

There was a collective groan.

Then James blew out a long sigh. “Alright Roe, listen so. I’ll try to explain it another way.”

While he fought with Kazie for a prop to do so, I let the wine burn away the worst of the memories.

At the stove, Bryn stirred a pot of bubbling tomato sauce. It was supposed to be my rotation tonight, but when I insisted I could still cook, he said, “Rowan, allow me to save us all from another surprise chicken casserole.”

I’d forgotten they were vegetarian. Once.

At least Tye didn’t mind. At the head of the table, he gulped down beer while pouring over the equestrian stats in the local newspaper.

“Here we are so,” James said, stealing a euchre card in a muted-pink turtleneck that would have mortified any man in L’Ardoise. “Let’s take this offensive leprechaun playing card, let’s say it’s the planet Tallah. And on one side,” he tapped the top of the card, “is Ruhaven. And down here, ye find Drachaut.” He flicked the bottom joker hard enough, the card fluttered into his spaghetti.

Kazie scooped it out and licked it.

“Drachaut—the other country,” I clarified.

“Right!” she said, delighted with me. “When Tallah travels around our star,” she dragged the card around the wine bottle, “it doesn’t rotate, so one side—Ruhaven—always faces the star. The other side is Drachaut.”

Tye slapped a palm over her moving card, and his petal-green eyes lifted to mine. “It’s like this, darlin’. Two creatures are born together and die together—one Ruhaven for every Drachaut. Gravity, like I was tellin’ ya before.” He splayed his calloused fingers, and the joker winked under them. “They’re Tethers.”

“And mine…broke?”

“The connection between ye two did,” James corrected. “They might be injured, or something’s eating at the bond there.”

Like my lies. “And if one dies?”

“So does the other,” Tye finished.

James took the card from him, ripped it in half. “The breaking of the Tether is the first step.”

Probably because I’d poisoned that bond.

I scooped up the cards, shuffled them. “So did the beast break my Tether?”

There was a collective groan from the table. Bryn stopped stirring.

“I’ve told ye, ‘tis no beast that broke yer Tether,” James scoffed.

Or maybe it doled out my punishment for reasons I couldn’t admit to him. “Then what did?”

“Could be anything.” Kazie shrugged. “But it totally won’t happen again. One time deal. Now it’s gotta be fixed before…” She snapped her fingers. My death , I assumed.

“If the beast didn’t break the Tether, then why did he show up at the exact moment when I felt it?”

Bryn limped to the table, held out the wine. It took me a moment, then I lifted my glass.

“Rowan, I spoke to James, and the beast man —as you put it—is an Azekiel,” Bryn said as merlot trickled from the bottle. “The species is Ruhaven, and therefore, will not hurt you. The Azekiels even bear the Mark of protection, so it likely lessened the pain rather than caused it.”

Marks. Tethers. Inquitate. I wanted to pull out my journal and wipe the drool off my face with it. I was just an electrician. I was never going to figure all this out. I couldn’t even stay in the Gate for more than fifteen minutes.

“What’s Kazie’s Mark?” I asked, forgetting what she’d said a month ago.

“I’m a Wykitome,” she answered, sliding into her seat with a mountain of spaghetti. “A pattern detector.”

I sipped the fruity wine. “Patterns of what?”

“Oh, just things,” she said with an air of if-you-really-have-to-ask . Right— that was why I’d never asked.

“So Bryn’s Mark is light, James and I are Kalistas who bond spirits—except not me, because my Mark isn’t activated yet—Kazie is some pattern detector. Tye, you’re what again…?”

He puffed out his chest and flexed a bicep. “Pure muscle, baby. But all the key stuff is in the right place, if that’s what you’re askin’.”

James and Kazie rolled their eyes while I blushed scarlet.

Kazie held up a fork and said with her mouth full, “I think this is missing something.”

“Burnt chicken?” Bryn supplied, not missing a beat.

She grinned so wide a noodle popped out. “That’s it!”

I would never live that down. “Kaz, the next time you mention my cooking, I’m going to sneak into your room with a screwdriver.” I picked up a fork to demonstrate. James’s eyes widened. “And when I’m done, your light switch will spin the birdcage and your alarm clock will be my new pet.”

Tye sliced me a grin. “Darling, you can feed me chicken any time.”

“That’s not what you said last week,” Kaz retorted.

“Indeed not.” The heavenly scent of roast basil hit me a second before Bryn slid a plate of spaghetti in front of me, then laid a cloth napkin on my lap. “No mushrooms,” he promised. No, teased .

“Ha. What’s her Mark? Beretta’s?”

“She can talk to plants,” Kazie answered matter-of-factly as Bryn straightened again.

“Probably convinced them to attack Nereida’s Tether,” I mused. Maybe they were all trying to get me to let go of the memory.

Kazie waved this away with a tired pfft . “Ruhavens don’t attack each other. So O’Sahnazekiel’s got fangs—so do you! And I’ve got a tail. I mean, I don’t know what you’re freaking—”

She broke off on a blood-curdling scream.

I leapt out of my chair, adrenaline flying. “ What ? What’s wrong?”

Kazie lifted a trembling finger, jabbed it at the table. Hissed .

It took me five seconds to locate the crawling speck. “Oh, for the love of…” Bang. I slammed my palm on the newspaper, squashing the spider into a headline about fairy forts.

James tugged at his hair. “Ah sure, ye didn’t need to kill it like!”

They were nuts, the lot of them.

So nuts that they’d think a flying, fanged beast had nothing to do with Nereida’s broken Tether. That his arrival was just some coincidence.

I nudged the spaghetti aside, took out my notebook.

Drachaut—the land existing on the other side of the world and the name of the race that lives there. Not in the Ledger ?

Tether—a thread, a connection, between Ruhaven and Drachaut. Then scratched out connection and replaced it with lifeline . Because if one died, so did the other. So it was someone to tie you to existence.

The dry wine curdled on my tongue. “What about Willow?”

James looked up from trying to find the dead spider to reassure Kaz. “Willow?”

I tucked my notebook away, shoved back my chair. “Yeah. What if one of us was a Drachaut? And the other came through the Gate with Nereida as her Tether?”

Then maybe, maybe I wasn’t a total fraud. Maybe that was why I could see her memories.

The kitchen hiccuped on a beat of silence, a mosquito pinged off the lamp, then James shook his head. “Yera, I don’t think so, Roe. First, ‘tis only Ruhaven who come through the Ledger , and two, there’s no entry for Willow—just yerself.”

Or so he believed.

Looping my fingers in my belt, I paced the small kitchen, nearly knocking into Bryn’s cane twice.

My Tether, something that bound me to life on Tallah, another person—no, a Drachaut. And seemingly unrelated, as no one had been born with a twin before.

It had to be Willow. Or rather, I had to be the Drachaut, but I didn’t say that.

I stopped behind Tye. “But what if Willow was my Tether and got—well, pulled or something—and she came through and it just wasn’t recorded?”

James folded his hands patiently. “Roe, there’s no Drachaut here. And there’s no missed recordings.”

He said this like it was impossible for the Ledger to be wrong, and of course, it was in his world. This was the sacred book his life had been built on. He couldn’t see any other possibilities beyond those weathered pages.

“Maybe they have a different book.” That made perfect sense. The Ruhavens’ book landed here, the Drachauts’ somewhere else.

“No.”

I rounded the table. “But you said there’s never been a twin before either. Maybe there’s an exception for the Drachaut too.” I snapped my fingers as an idea came to me. “What if the Inquitate are infecting Drachaut and that’s why Willow died?”

“Attacking.” Bryn.

Tye lowered his newspaper with the spider’s guts still clinging to it. “Infecting Drachaut?” he repeated skeptically. “Darlin’, that’s a little far-fetched, even for Ruhaven. And unless there’s something Stornoway ain’t telling us—he ain’t Drachaut, and they targeted him.”

The bubble burst.

“I’m trying to follow your logic. You tell me Ruhaven come through, that our souls are preserved, and that our souls are bound to these Drachaut. But you’re somehow certain no Drachaut came through?”

Tye looked at me with pity. “That just ain’t how it works.”

“Well, how does it work? You don’t really know how we come here, how the Gate works, you said that yourself, Tye.”

Kazie rounded on me, a feat she managed even buried in a bowl of spaghetti. “Roe, okay look, here’s the truth, okay? They’re sacrificed. So they can’t come through.”

The wine smoked in my throat. “Sacrificed? To what? Why?” Nereida’s Tether was sacrificed ?

James sighed. “Ye see, when Ruhavens come through the Gate, there’s got to be a trade. Everything’s a balance, that’s what we’ve always told ye. When they pass through the Gate, it’s their Drachaut that are sacrificed in the trade, and that’s why ‘tis only Ruhavens in the Ledger . One Drachaut is sacrificed to have our souls reborn here.”

That was a hell of a thing to tell me now. “I don’t know what to make of that.”

James patted my hand in sympathy. “It doesn’t matter, ‘tis done. And yer making progress, Roe, asking the right questions.”

I nodded half-heartedly. Big, fat questions was all I had, and only a vague connection between Willow in Paris one summer and Patrick four hours away in Marseille. Basically, I had nothing.

Then Bryn spoke. “You should investigate those who have experienced broken Tethers,” he said as he circled the table, cane clicking on the linoleum. “Perhaps there is overlap. In the meantime, I expect that Nereida, Jamellian, and Kasmira will seek out her Tether in Drachaut, to fix what has been broken.”

Tye turned, laid an arm over the back of his chair. “She oughta give Ruhaven a break for a little while.”

I shivered when Bryn’s mouth brushed my ear. “Surely, you are not so afraid of one little Azekiel,” he said softly, then straightened. “Kazie and I will visit the Gate tomorrow at three. You will join us then.”

S ince I was hell-bent on Tethers having something to do with Willow and I, I pulled journals from any who’d experienced a broken Tether and suffered an Inquitate attack.

Patrick—broken Tether experienced on July 6, 1981

Oisín—broken Tether experienced on Feb 19, 1943

Anastasia—broken Tether experienced on Aug 2, 1963

I smoothed out the pages of Bryn’s notebook, read his notes on Oisín.

Oisín Flannagan—died of a brain hemorrhage at 41 before he could make the Fall.

The Fall?

I flipped to the earlier pages of my notebook. Yes, I’d noted it next to Patrick’s name. He’d been months away from making the Fall, but what was it? Some rite in Ruhaven, probably. Maybe it was the name for the rite they obtained their Mark in.

Anastasia Mikovich—Killed in 1963 in the USSR, number 1165 in the Ledger . Another suspected brain aneurysm, but they could not get the medical documents at the time. Reported dead by her spouse, not a Ruhaven.

Spouse . How would that work if she was visiting the Gate? Hey honey, I’m just going to pop over to a fantastical world for a little while. I’ll be back for dinner.

I snorted and turned the page.

And suppose when they visited the Gate they had an… an encounter , like James and Essie. Would that be cheating? Everything felt real, so wouldn’t it be as well?

Was Essie in the Ledger ? James spent as much time as he could visiting the woman that his past life had loved. Wouldn’t James want to find her here—reborn in the Ledger ? They could visit Ruhaven together, talk about what they both lived. Or maybe she’d come through decades ago and they’d missed each other.

“…bring him back. Roe?”

I jerked my eyes from my notes. “What?”

Kazie rolled her shoulders. “I said, that’s forty minutes. Can you anchor Bryn?”

Around us, the woods hummed with the soft chatter of Ireland. Tiny birds fluttered between branches that let in the faintest glow of afternoon light. And despite the visible sun, rain squeezed a path through the clouds and thundered on the vivid blue tarp that Bryn had strung above with clean, tidy knots.

“Is it time already?” I glanced at the man lying as quiet as death in the Gate. “Can’t he go in for hours?”

Lounging against the tree across from me, Kaz lifted the sweater she was crocheting. Or maybe it was a scarf. “Yeah, but James is worried he’ll get too obsessed again.”

We were probably already past that point, but I nodded and crawled toward Bryn, eager to discover how to anchor someone.

He lay at the center of the meadow, entirely still but for the breeze stirring the hair around his brow. His cheeks were a bit rosy from the cold or the Gate, his parted lips equally pink.

“Where do I start?” I murmured.

“Take his hand.”

I was about to ask Kazie if Bryn was okay with me touching him, but he had agreed to be my test dummy—my term. I eyed Bryn’s still form. Would I see what light looked like?

More than just curious now, I picked up Bryn’s limp wrist. He didn’t stir, didn’t even flinch, as if he were more than dreaming, as if his consciousness was somewhere else. His eyes remained closed, delicate eyelashes casting thick shadows over sculpted cheeks.

“ That’s holding his hand?” Kazie said dryly.

Rolling my eyes, I set his arm down again, slid my fingers through his, and grasped tightly when he couldn’t squeeze back. His palm was surprisingly rough, not as smooth and unworked as it should have been. Must be all that Turner exam marking.

Kazie lowered her voice to a conspirator’s murmur. “You need to get close to his ear and whisper his name.”

I glanced at her. “I’ve never heard James call my name?”

“That’s because you’re in the Gate,” she said primly. “Now, say ‘ Brynjar’ nice and sweet, like you’re talking to your favorite garage tool.”

I scowled at her. “You know, I can still dismantle that bird cage of yours. Or better yet, your alarm clock.” She left it blaring every morning between six and seven.

She only poo-poo’d that.

Screwdriver. Birdcage. I’d do it, I swore to myself.

But I lowered onto my elbows. “ Brynjar ?” I murmured. Using his full name felt strangely intimate, but his left ear twitched at my voice.

Something tingled up my arm, a low pulse that wormed into the rest of my body, heating, teasing. “Kazie, is this right? It feels…” I felt myself blush. “Odd.”

Her soft laugh carried behind me. “Oh, you’re fine. Now, just lean over and give those gorgeous lips a big ol’ kiss and—”

Oh, goddamn her.

I let out a string of curses that could have curled the ends of Bryn’s golden hair. “Kazie, you don’t even want to know what I’m going to do to your budgies,” I threatened. “You’ll be wishing for chicken casserole again.”

Laughing, she ducked the branch I threw at her.

“Hello, Rowan.”

I jolted at Bryn’s low voice. Spun around.

He sat up, one knee bent, not a strand of hair out of place despite the wind, eyes twinkling like early morning mist on a lake. “Do you make a habit of seducing everyone in the Gate?” he drawled. “I am beginning to see why Tye does so enjoy your company.”

I felt my shoulders slide to my ears.

“It’s been ages since we had anyone new at the Gate,” Kazie said, settling onto the blanket, impatient to be off to Ruhaven. “I have to get in my fun while I can.”

Hilarious. “Thanks for that,” I muttered. “I hope you gave Tye the same treatment.”

Bryn caught the apple Kaz tossed him. “Yes, although Tye did not fall for her prank nearly as easily as you, Rowan.”

I felt my face burn as he crunched into his apple, the juice wetting his lips. He offered the unbitten side of the Granny Smith to me, lifted a brow. “Are you hungry?”

I must have been staring like a dog in heat. “No, no thanks,” I said, quickly adjusting the blankets, then looked up as Bryn kneeled beside me, mischief twinkling in his azure eyes.

“Would you prefer to be anchored the usual way?” he asked, taking another lazy bite of his apple. “Or shall I whisper your name like we are in bed?”

I was going to kill Kazie. Wrap her body in the hammock, then toss her and that alarm clock out the window.

“The usual way,” I said through my teeth.

Bryn swallowed a long, slow bite. “As you wish.”

And as Ruhaven swept us away, I forgot all about the looming beast.

I slipped through the dark, trickling void of my Prayama, through the cold tumble of the Gate, and when I arrived—

Alive. I was still alive.

And Nereida’s pain was amazingly, blissfully gone.

Nothing threatened to tear us in two, the beast—or O’Sahnazekiel—didn’t bare his teeth, and the only thing I felt was air trickling in through abnormally large lungs.

So Ruhaven hadn’t rejected me after all. Relief washed over me, as thick and sticky as waking from a nightmare and realizing it’d been only that. But how long could I go on pretending? What happened when the Gate really did put its metaphorical foot down?

Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe it was worth the consequences. Everything I’d seen, lived, and experienced in Ruhaven was more exciting than anything that had ever happened to me in L’Ardoise. It might have been Willow’s, but maybe, for a little while, it could be mine. And that wasn’t such a bad thing.

Nereida nestled under a blanket as I waited for my eyes to come into full focus, for my mind to slide into hers like I was buttoning on jeans just a bit too tight.

At last my eyes blinked open and I watched the whirling gears feeding off the sky. Their quiet grinding filled the space between heaven and Ruhaven. Then Nereida tilted her head to the side.

I sucked in a breath.

For as gorgeous as Ruhaven was during the day, it had nothing on the night.

Fleshy trees burned, purple lanterns in a dark swamp. It was horribly beautiful, like the burning car I’d passed on the side of the road one night driving home. The trunks burned from the inside with violet flames that cast a tender glow around the woods. Sparks popped and fizzled out in the soil, filling the thick air with a smoked-vanilla scent.

On a deep exhale, I burrowed further under the blanket, enjoying the tickle of its soft feathers against my skin. This was why I’d returned—because for a short while, there was an unbridled wonder here I hadn’t felt since Willow died.

Then Nereida sighed, shifted, the soft feathers brushing her bare shoulder, and I had a moment of terrifying clarity.

This was not a down blanket. It was feathers.

Wings , to be exact.

And I was naked. Dear god, I was naked!

Don’t panic, don’t panic. It might not be the beast. Maybe some other animal was about to eat me.

But—but that sense of recognition was tingling through her body, vibrating with awareness of the heat lying behind us. And if that wasn’t enough, a sharp talon drew tiny circles on our waist.

Nereida huffed a throaty exhale, settling deeper under feathers.

I saw the massive dappled-gray wing clearly covering us—blackened at the tips and dusted with gold.

So the beast man had flown us to his bird lair. Maybe these fires were some ritual before dinner.

But it’d be okay because Bryn was watching, and I could trust him to yank me out before I lived through death. I think.

Seemingly unbothered, Nereida stretched our mouth into a long yawn. She sounded embarrassingly like a mewing cat.

I braced myself as she sniffed, pressed onto elbows, and began a slow roll that would bring us face to face with the beast.

A cocoon of feathers briefly shuttered the indigo night from view. They brushed Nereida’s lips as she turned, butter-soft and tasting of misty clouds. Strong, too, with a hard bone running through the wing blade.

A shoulder came into view first, contoured with muscles larger than Tye’s. The forearm looked like it’d been dipped in golden liquid and left out to dry. Four fingers and a thumb ended in talons of clear glass. And I knew by the intricate tattoos that this was the same demon who’d grabbed me on my first visit to the Gate.

I should have recognized him before.

More bronze tattoos trailed up his torso to a chest that swelled with muscle and polished stone skin.

What was coming out of his armpit? Hair? White hair? Or… feathers .

Feathers in his armpit.

On another exhausted sigh, Nereida plopped her cheek on his arm and I came face to face at last with the Azekiel.

O’Sahnazekiel .

For a heartbeat, I did nothing but stare.

Because he was like the trees—terrifying. And beautiful.

His head was longer than it should be with star-like freckles whispering over his nose, but his face was strong-boned with a solid chin and sweeping cheeks. His lips, a dusty rose, parted slightly on a quiet exhale, revealing a hint of the fangs I’d seen when he landed at the market. Five golden hoops decorated his pointed ears.

A long braid looped over his shoulders and wrapped down his back until it brushed his hips. Like his forearms, it was nearly liquid gold, the individual strands as thick as yarn.

I braced when his tail lifted, flicked—

And swatted a flying lizard away.

Nereida worked her hand loose, then reached fire-lit fingers toward him. But instead of attacking the beast with the blades she strapped at her wrists, the woman trailed the pad of our finger along his wide collarbone, caressing muscles strong enough to break us in half.

Because—because god, they weren’t enemies. They were—were lovers .

As I mentally swore, the beast heaved a breath, tickling the jelly hair on my head.

I couldn’t let James know, or Kazie, or especially Tye. But their past lives knew Nereida—what if they saw something in the memory?

Wait. No, it was worse than that. What if they saw Nereida— me —reacting while I lay in the clearing like James had with Essie?

I couldn’t lie there moaning and sweating. God, no. I had to get out of here before—

The Azekiel’s eyes winged open.

Holy god.

Molten irises gazed down at me. My pulse stuttered, stopped. The force of him was as physical as the hand sliding up my spine, but not nearly as tender.

Then his lips parted, and two fangs lengthened over full, wide lips.

It all happened too fast, the memory speeding along before I’d even had a chance to understand.

Nereida tilted her neck as those Saturn-ringed eyes locked on the vein I felt pulsing there. Breath whispered across my skin. My heart pounded, faster and faster as Nereida arched for him.

How long did I have left? Five minutes? Ten? Long enough to humiliate myself at the Gate with Bryn—

His teeth pierced my neck, drawing a low, husky moan from Nereida— had anyone heard that? —and a gentle tug pulled under my skin.

If embarrassment alone were enough to yank me back to earth, I’d have shot out of this memory like a rocket. But as it wasn’t, I only lay there. Letting the Azekiel suck the—presumably—blood from my neck like some vampiric bird, his hand stroking my back as Nereida purred against him.

Suddenly, something cold trailed down my spine.

O’Sahnazekiel’s talons? His tail? God only knew, but Nereida’s moans had turned into hot pants. Worse, I wanted whatever this was as much as her when I didn’t .

There was no way I wasn’t putting on a performance at the Gate. I almost hoped Bryn didn’t anchor me, so I could die of embarrassment quietly here. This was why they’d all been having a laugh at me yesterday, knowing the beast was her Ruhaven lover. God, that was almost worse than the teeth still at my neck.

The pressure on my spine increased until I squirmed in her mind. How did Nereida not feel this? My vertebrae felt like they were rearranging themselves, letting a line of energy drive straight through my body. Waves of power, of pleasure, vibrated in my blood. Fused my bones together.

Then I realized what it was.

Not the gentle hand of James or the sprinkling dust ball that was Kazie, but the solid, unshakeable command of a new anchor.