Sava waits for us at the top of the mountain. The massive black dragon’s wings are folded back. The wind is strong up here. I feel a spike of something through the bond—stubbornness, faint annoyance?—and then worry crashes through it. The worry has a different timbre to it, and Roiven’s annoyance sharpens in response. I freeze, my brow furrowed as the emotions overwhelm me. Roiven, walking ahead of me, stops and turns over his shoulder.
“What?” he asks.
“Is that Sava? Why is she worried?” Surely not because of the bond I just agreed to form, not when Roiven was pushing so hard for it. No, it must be about the Hellions heading to the Tower.
“You mean through the bond?” he asks, eyebrows raised. I nod and he frowns back at me. “You can feel that?”
“I don’t knowwhatI’m feeling,” I mutter. It’s overwhelming, like having too many people shoved into my head. Even without their thoughts, it’s hard to keep straight which emotions are mine and which belong to them. I knew I was agreeing to let Roiven in. I didn’t know I would have anything to do with a dragon.
“My bond with Savasaeirn lets her into my head. Your bond with me must be picking up everything in my head, including her. She can’t communicate with you directly.”
“You hearherthoughts. Are you sure you don’t hear mine?” I ask suspiciously. Roiven sighs.
“Yes, I’m sure. The familiar bond is different. Not… stronger, but different. Our familiars choose us. But a kin bond, we both—”
“Kinbond?” I don’t like the sound of that.
Roiven’s emotions flare into discomfort as he shrugs.
“It’s just what it’s called. If we wanted to speak, mind-to-mind, we’d have to work at it, and even then we couldn’t read a thought the other wasn’t trying to share.”
Well. That’s obviously never going to happen, then.
“Alright,” I say, and rub my head, still feeling overwhelmed.
“Try pushing it away,” Roiven suggests. He starts walking again.
“Pushing?” I don’t mean to snap, but the words come out sharp. I’m completely overwhelmed by trying to balance all the emotions crashing through my head, and listen to Roiven’s words at the same time, and accept the strange reality where I’mkin-bondedto the King of Witches.
“However you want to picture it. Pushing the emotions away, or closing a door with Savasaeirn and me on the other side. Whatever feels natural to you. It will dull the sound, so to speak. But I should warn you it won’t keep me out if I’m trying to get in.”
“That doesn’t feel fair.”
“It goes both ways,” he says with a shrug. We reach Sava’s foreleg.
The witch swings up, scaling her with athletic ease. I spend a moment staring at the bond marks on my left hand before I follow more slowly.
I follow. Roiven is already sitting between two rows of spikes near the base of her neck; the pack is secured between another set of spikes with a veritable web of ropes. He lounges casually, leaning back against the spikes with one knee up in front of him as he tugs his glove on tighter.
“Can you move back?”
I feel a moment of surprise from him, though I can’t think why. He looks up at me, lips slightly parted, then snaps his mouth shut. Roiven scoots back until he’s pressed hard against the back row of the spikes, and waits for me to sit.
I slide down, grabbing tight to the spikes and feeling oddly nervous. My heart shouldn’t be beating as hard as it is. Roiven is attractive, and I no longer hate him the way I did the first time we did this, but I have to remind myself riding together doesn’tmeananything. It’s just to keep from falling. My body grinds against his as I wriggle into a comfortable position. Sitting so close, I breathe the scent of him in: leather and storm and smoke.
He’s wearing thicker clothes this time; we both are. The leather armor presses against my shoulders. When his hands slowly reach around to grab the spikes right above mine, it’s the gloves that brush my fingers, not his skin.
Despite all that, my heart pounds and I find myself sitting straighter, taking shallow breaths.
“Ready, knight?” he whispers into my ear.
I don’t feel anything from him at all. It’s like his emotions have shut off. He must have done the ‘pushing away’ that he’d talked about.
“When you are.”
Sava launches up and away from the mountain, immediately banking hard to the side as her wings snap out. Roiven’s hand is around my waist the moment she begins to tilt. His arm fits right beneath my breasts, pushing up against them as his fingers splay over my ribcage.
Wait. I stiffen, hands locked on the spikes.
