“I am,” I say. “Elder Arcon emphasized how important mastering my heart, mind, and soul is if I want to bond the dragon. I know this is serious.”
“Great. Then show me,” Kazh deadpans.
I roll my shoulders and with a sigh, close my eyes.
Okay, let’s do this. I inhale, feeling my chest expand. Then, exhale.
In the past, I would always get scared when the time came to open the door into my subconscious. I have to find a different approach.
Jax has been a little more distant today. I think our bond is settling into whatever it needs to settle into, or maybe as we get used to it, we’re learning how to keep our distance.
If you say so, darling.Jax’s voice floats through my mind like a cloud in the summer sky.
My eyebrow twitches, but I keep my concentration and ignore him.
I focus on shutting the door between me and Jax. The tunnel that flows between our minds and our bodies is…intense, to say the least. Fuck it.
I move on to Lorca. The trickster god is not always with me, thankfully, but when they’re here…even if they don’t speak or interact with me, I feel them lurking. Like right now. Somewhere at the back of my mind there’s a presence I can’t reach. It’s like an inch I can never scratch.
Annoying as fuck.
Pain explodes at the base of my skull.
“Ouch!” I grab the back of my head and curl up in a ball.
Kazh circles me. The hand gripping her cane spasms.
“You call that meditation?” she snaps.
“I was getting into the flow!” I say, defensively.
“You were biting the inside of your cheek. That’s not meditation, but wallowing in your anxiety,” she says calmly, folding her hands on the head of her cane.
With a heavy sigh, I rub the back of my head. “There’s gonna be a fucking bump.”
“Good. Maybe then you’ll remember not to waste my fucking time.”
The guys don’t say anything, playing their damn cards. But they don’t have to. I know they watch our every move. Listen to every word that passes between us. It irks me to no end, my incompetence.
“You better get to it, or I’ll whack you with the cane again,” Kazh says.
I shoot her a glare. “At least pick a softer spot next time.”
Right before I close my eyes, I see her mouth twitch a little.
A moment later, the familiar tapping of her cane on the hard ground begins. It’s grounding, and I lock in on that sound as I drop into my body and focus on finding that damn door into my subconscious.
I have to stop being so afraid.
What’s the worst that can happen anyway?
The image of corpses floating in the Well’s otherworldly waters comes to the front of my mind. The blank, milky eyes. I shake it off immediately, pushing it away to the very back of my consciousness.
No distractions.
I have to master this.
Inhale.
