Page 241 of The Bonds of Indigo

For a moment she doesn’t move or speak. She just stares down at the glass. Kayn and I give her the space. I rub her back gently, and she hums.

“That’s nice, feels like forever…” She looks at me, then over at Kayn. “I need to go to the bathroom. But when I’m back, can you keep doing that?” She turns back to me, indigo eyes full of hope.

“Of course, dollface.”

“Want me to walk you there?”

She shakes her head and stands slowly. “No… just remind me which room? My brain’s a bit…”

Kayn sets a hand on her waist. “I understand. First door on the left.”

She gives him a weak smile and moves down the hall, disappearing into the room.

“Fuck,” he groans. “She’s suppressing already. The bond is tied in knots, and I can feel all of her emotions being shoved into a tiny bag and suffocated.”

I move beside him and take his hand. “We will help her… but Kayn, how are you?” I place my palm to his cheek, turning his face to me. “Atlas, he…”

“Was probably the closest friend I had besides Kairhyse. But, Lucifer, I understand my life as an immortal. Death happens.” He exhales slowly. “It’ll take time to stop seeing that image, but… I’ll be alright.” He gives me a soft smile. “Thanks for worrying.”

I nod and lean in, kissing him. He grabs the back of my head and deepens it.

“Sorry to break this up.” I jerk at Xeraphine’s voice. “But we have a fucking problem.”

Chapter 60

Agroan slips from my lips.

My head throbs as I lift it after what feels like an eternity with it slumped forward. I blink a few times, finally taking in the bathroom mirror in front of me.

I know this place. I’ve been in this bathroom twice before—this is the third time. Even through the haze clouding everything, I recognize it as the one in Xeraphine’s house, the one attached to the bedroom I stayed in with my men.

But it isn’t the familiarity that makes me squeeze my eyes shut and shake my head.

It’s the perspective.

I’m… not looking at the mirror.

I’m looking through it.

A trembling breath escapes me. My chest feels heavy, even though nothing is pressing down on it. I try to move my arms, but I can’t.

Metal cuffs clamp around my wrists, chains pulling them taut and vanishing into endless darkness. I shift my gaze downward, and my feet are bound too. I’m not standing—I’m suspended. The restraints hold me out, stretched and weightless.

Panic floods in as I scream, “Help!!!”

No echo. No reverberation. The sound dies the moment it leaves my mouth, swallowed by the silence.

The memories from right before I blacked out start to surge back when the sound of a door opening and closing snaps my attention forward.

I watch myself walk into the bathroom, right in front of the mirror.

There’s blood all over me, and my stomach twists hard at the realization of whose it is.

“Atlas…”

I begin to shake as indigo eyes meet mine—as though she can actually see me.

“Well,” she says, leaning forward onto the counter. Her lips curl into a smile that tells me everything I need to know. I’m fucking doomed, and so is that world. “It’s been a while.”