I rubbed my shoulder, control slipping back into place. "Only death breaks a tether." This wasn’t about me. “If you did not make it, then this may be something we don’t understand.”
Two tethers. Could Rowan feel my lover’s? I didn’t know how this worked.
“The Architect healed her upon arrival,” I said carefully.
Only Morgen and I knew my lover tethered Quinn. The world hated mentalists. Most were killed as children, their mind control too dangerous.
Rowan sat slumped, gaze fixed far away. A tether was overwhelming. He didn’t understand it. For now, I had to believe my lover’s actions were still a secret.
“Until the Architect wakes.” I stopped rubbing my bruised shoulder. “My only goal is to keep her safe and under the radar.”
Rowan sat up, biting his lip. "The families are already talking, and they don’t know Quinn’s a woman."
I nodded. My network of spies giving me the same information. “Everything I do, I do to keep her safe.” Rowan tethered her. My lover tethered her. She hadn’t chosen either man. “She’s something unique and deserves a future of her choosing.”
Would I say the exact words to Xan? Or was I selfishly hoping for more?
Rowan held his hands up. “I know, and I will do everything in my power to give her that. I didn’t intend to bind her to me. We’ve only spoken a handful of times. I barely know her.”
I almost missed Rowan’s response. This wasn’t like me. What would happen would happen. Thinking about it changed nothing.
“I trust you, Rowan.” I reached out and grabbed my general's shoulder.
Pain shot down my shoulder from our earlier fight, and I grimaced. Rowan also moved stiffly, likely feeling the same. We shared a brief grin.
“I made you a part of my inner circle for a reason. Neither of us should forget that.” I released him. “You’re now tethered to Quinn. You can only move forward. Can you feel where she is?”
“She’s above us.” Rowan looked up. “Celebrating with the other trainees.” He cocked his head to the side. “She no longer needs a medic. Someone healed her. But she’s nervous. If her emotions were mine, I would be on the verge of making a rash decision.”
I stood, ducking under the trapdoor. "Take me to her. Explain on the way."
Chapter 19
Quinn
“Don’t…ohGod.Honey,what have you done?”
The rush of the world, whispering its secrets, faded into painful moans. I’d been walking with someone, a man who fancied me. With floppy hair and kind eyes, or maybe I hadn’t.
“Quinn, focus.” My dad’s voice came from my left. “You had to have tools and medical supplies to do this. Where would Miss Q have hidden them?”
Taking one last breath of crazy, the world came into focus. I was in my usual pine forest. I’d skinned my knees, and streaks of red ran down my dirty skin. But my injuries were nothing compared to the naked man lying on the trail in front of me.
Blood looked to have exploded out of both his caved-in knees. No, not caved in. Missing. Muscles and tendons sagged where the caps should have rounded his skin. What had been his clothing now lay in pools, tinged with brown and green of a park ranger uniform. My breaths came out in short, quick bursts. I couldn’t move. A dull ringingfilled my ears. Lines of ink, which must have been tattoos, ran down his left side and one of his shoulders.
The man moaned and talked. My dad talked back.
I couldn’t take my eyes off the man’s knees.
I’d done that.
The sound of crinkling foil sizzled in the air before a silver blanket covered the man, cutting off my view of his knees.
“I was trying to help her,” the man panted. “And my knee replacements gave out.”
I dragged my gaze to his face. The man with floppy hair looked back at me out of pain-filled, but kind, old eyes. “Did you do this? How is that possible?”
I said the only truth I knew. “Magic.”
