At least that part was true. Sort of.
Kenya sent three more texts, but I silenced my phone and tossed it aside. I couldn't deal with her right then. Couldn't deal with anyone.
I tried to distract myself with normal things around my apartment, but nothing worked.
No matter what I did, I was hyperaware of the silver thread. It was like having an itch I couldn't scratch or a song stuck in my head. A constant reminder that somewhere across the city, Elias existed.
And he wasn't here.
By three in the morning, I was back to pacing. The threads in my apartment were going haywire, flickering and sparking every time I passed through them. My power was leaking out, uncontrolled, responding to my emotional state, and I was trying really hard not to panic. It had never been this bad before.
I pressed my hand to my chest, right over where the vest covered my scar, and tried to ground myself. Tried to find some center of calm.
Instead, I felt the mate bond pull. Not just a tug this time. A yank.
Something was wrong with Elias.
The knowledge hit me with absolute certainty. I could feel it even through the fresh bond. Pain. Confusion. Need. He was hurting. Struggling. Just like I was.
And despite everything, despite my fear and my self-loathing and my certainty that this could only end badly, I wanted to go to him.
I wanted to go to him so badly it physically hurt.
I lasted exactly fifteen more minutes before I broke.
Then I was grabbing my coat and I was out the door.
The streets were empty this time of night—morning, really. The sky was still dark, but there was that quality to the air that said dawn wasn't far off. I should have been exhausted. Should have been stumbling with fatigue after letting him feed from me and then using my power so recklessly. Instead, I was wired. Electric. Every nerve ending singing with the need to find him as I walked back the way I'd came.
I didn't have to wonder where he was. The mate bond led me like a compass pointing north.
Killian's house sat in the French Quarter, tucked behind wrought-iron gates and a courtyard tangled with magnolias. I'd only been here once before, when the vampire coven first started coordinating with my family about Alex. It was beautiful in that old New Orleans way. All Creole columns, brick facades, and two-story galleries with deep shadows that hid the ghosts of people who used to live there.
I hesitated at the gate. This was stupid. This was so incredibly stupid. I should turn around. Go home. Deal with this like an adult instead of showing up at a vampire's door at four in the morning because I could feel his distress through a bond neither of us wanted.
The silver thread yanked again, and I was through the gate before I could talk myself out of it.
Kenya answered the door before I even knocked, like she'd been waiting. Her brown eyes were worried behind her glasses, and there was a tightness around her mouth that made my stomach drop.
"Is he?—"
"Upstairs," she says softly. "Third door on the left. He won't talk to any of us."
I nodded, not trusting my voice, and slipped past her into the house, the hair raising on the back of my neck as I entered this den of predators.
The hallway upstairs was dark except for a sliver of light under one door. Third on the left. I stood there for a long moment, hand raised to knock, heart hammering against my ribs.
What was I doing? What was I supposed to say? "Hey, I know we both freaked out when you bit me, but I could feel you falling apart through this mate bond and it was making me fall apart too, so could we maybe talk about it?"
The door swung open and Elias stood there, staring down at me.
His shirt was unbuttoned, hanging open to reveal the lean muscle of his chest. His dark hair was disheveled like he'd been running his hands through it. But it was his eyes that gutted me. Dark and wild and filled with something that looked dangerously close to desperation.
He breathed in deep, and I knew he was scenting me, just like I knew he'd known it was me at the door. "You shouldn't be here, little witch."
"Yeah, well." I crossed my arms, trying to hide how badly my hands were shaking. "You shouldn't be broadcasting emotional distress through a mate bond I didn't ask for, so I guess we're both having a bad night."
Something flashed in his eyes. Pain, maybe. Or recognition. He stepped back from the door, and I took it as an invitation and followed him into the room.
