Silence. Different in quality from the one before. This one was charged because we all knew how bonds were forged.
I gently extracted myself from Damon’s lap and started to pace, because I knew where this was going and I wanted to be able to see all of their faces when it was eventually said aloud. We weren’t doing this is even one of them wasn’t fully on board.
“Help it how?” Ryder asked, very slowly, but I could see him trying to suppress a grin from making it’s way to his lips.
“However bonds get made. Which is how they’ve been made with each of us along the way. Intimacy. Magic. The two together.” Maddox’s voice stayed level but the pink in his cheeks deepened. “Except this time it has to be all of us. At the same time. With her.”
Nobody moved.
I watched the understanding land in each of them. Tank took a slow breath in and let it out. Dean’s arms stayed folded but his jaw tightened. Damon’s shadows had gone completely still, which was somehow louder than if they’d been flailing. Ryder was staring at the ceiling as though it had become the most fascinating ceiling in Nymeria.
Heat was crawling up my neck. I had thought about this a dozen times before I’d let Maddox bring it up. I’d thought I was prepared.I was not.
“It isn’t only about the Endless,” Maddox added, softer. “Alyssa’s carrying more magic every day. The realm is settling onto her and the five separate bonds are being stretched to hold what’s pouring through her. They aren’t going to hold for much longer. Not through a battle. Not through what comes after. If we don’t braid them, they could break. And if they break… we all saw the widow at the hissing swamp. I won’t let that happen to her.”
That point did something to the air in the room.
“Well,” Ryder said eventually. He was still looking at the ceiling. “That’s a sentence I did not have on my list for today.”
“Shut up,” Tank said mildly.
“I’m not saying no. I’m saying it’s a lot.”
“It’s a lot,” I agreed.
“A lot is one word for it,” Dean muttered.
I took a breath and tried to pull myself together. If anyone was going to give the moment its dignity it was going to have to be me.
“I know this isn’t...”
“I’m in.”
Damon. The shadows around him flared once and settled again.
I blinked at him.
“Whatever you need.” His voice had gone low and even. “Whatever it takes. I spent far too long watching myself hurt people through my own eyes. I’m not going to spend the rest of my life watching you fight a war with one hand tied behind your back because we didn’t give you the chance to be as strong as you could possibly be. I’m in.”
Maddox had tears in his eyes. I could feel them through the bond.
“I’m in.” That was Tank. Steady as ever, quiet as ever, but his voice had a weight to it that was new. He was looking right at me. “Sweetheart. I told you a long time ago that I was yours. That hasn’t changed and it’s not going to change. If the magic needs all of us at once to give you what you need to survive this, then that’s what it gets.”
“Tank...”
“We’re not losing you.” He said it like a fact. “That isn’t on the table. Whatever has to happen to make sure you walk out of this fight on your own two feet, it happens. I want what comes after. I want the years. I want the quiet house and the ordinary mornings and you asleep beside me when I wake up. I’m not negotiating the route we take to get there.”
My throat had closed up. I couldn’t speak.
Ryder had stopped staring at the ceiling. He was looking at me now, and the smile was gone. The humour was gone. There was just him underneath, the Ryder I’d seen in flashes over the past few months, the one without the mask.
“I’m in,” he said. “For the record. I was in before Damon spoke. I was in before Maddox finished the sentence. I’m just bad at stillness, so I had to fill the air with something.”
“Ryder...”
“I love you.” He said it plainly. “I want the whole messy life with you. A ridiculous house with a dog that Tank will pretend to be annoyed by and secretly love more than the rest of us. I want the arguments about dishes. I want growing old. If getting there means the five of us have to work out how to share a bedroom for one night, we will work it out.”
I laughed. I hadn’t meant to. It came out wet and broken.
