"Uh, what now?" That caught me totally off guard.
"My wallet had Frost’s feather in it, and my eraser, damn, that was the first thing Ieverput in my wallet. Nuts, my wallet’s gone too. If Kyle burned it, I figured Frost would know something was up and come get me, the feather, not the eraser, so I convinced Kyle to burn me before he burned me. Does that make sense? A test instead of a sacrifice.”
Some of that made some sense. He’d been in trouble, and in true Max fashion, found a way to survive.
“Great, everybody’s caught up.” Frost’s voice sounded about as tense as mine. No wonder we snapped at each other. “Contact me if…” He didn’t know how to fill in that blank. “If you need to contact me. I’ll go collect the last Accelerant mage.”
He vanished and then we were alone. Much as I’d like to be there when apprehending the guy who hurt andburnedMax, this was more important.
“Hey, I’m fine,” Max promised. “Frost patched up the worst of the physical injuries. I’ll survive. Hopefully. If we do this.”
My first reply was a strangled noise. We were supposed to bond with him battered and bloody in the dead of night in the middle of nowhere? If he already felt torn about our best course of action, how could we go forward under these circumstances?
"We don’t even know if this will work,” I said. “I can’t ask you to take that chance."
"You didn’t ask."
"Max, this is—wrong,” I settled on, though the word wasn’t enough. “All of it is so wrong."
"If we bond, your answer is yes, right?"
"Of course. I-I love you,” I found myself confessing. “But that doesn’t change that there’s few options and you—"
"I want this," he said.
"Doom is hanging over your head,” I continued. “We have to find some other way to save you, even if it seems impossible."
"It isn’t. I already know how."
That stopped me short. "You…you do?"
"Yes. I know how to stabilize myself. I saw more when I started breaking down. Even saw somewhere familiar. This time I saw what hid there, what I couldn’t sense before.” What? “I’m remembering bits and pieces, it’s all kinda going in and out."
That could not be a good sign. He was becoming more and more unstable, though right now he seemed incredibly…composed.
If there were another option, if this wasn’t the only way to save him, that changed everything. He had options. It was just… a choice.
"Heaven isn’t my home,” he said. “I’ve never even been there. My parents are the only angels I know other than Frost. I may be an angel, but I feel closer to Earth than Heaven. I want to be part of Earth and you, and I want you to be part of me."
Very lovely words but… “Are you sure? I mean, this is so, so—”
"Icando this without you,” Max promised. “But I realized that I don’twantto. I made my choice. You made yours. Are you going to respect them or not?"
"Of course, always, I’ll always respect your choices."
"I know. That’s why I want this.” His hand touched my face. “That’s why I love you. Well, part of why. You’re, you know, alright for a nerd with weird taste in chips."
Torn between everything I wanted to say, what I thoughtshouldbe said in this situation, and also thinking of what needed to be said and done in the little time we had at the moment, what came out was…
“Uh, you should bite me.”
"What?"
"I love you too,” I said. Probably should have led with that. “And if we’re going to bond, you should bite me."
Did I ruin the moment by thinking about the practical concerns like saving his life? Because I regretted nothing if it meant saving his life, but Max sighed heavily…and started complaining.
"Do I have to doeverythingmyself? Think of a plan, call Frost, and defeat Kyle, then give you a pep talk—"
