Page 151 of Pocket Wife

“I need⁠—”

I stop.

I cannot name what I need.

Rethan does.

He lifts one hand, and the bond reaches between us like a promise.

“We can find a place,” he says. “If you need one.”

My gaze moves over the field, the clinic, the tribunal feed still glowing in the distance.

Then I face him.

“Yes,” I say.

He does not smile.

But the bond warms.

And for the first time all day, I let myself breathe.

The old barn is abandoned, half-collapsed, and forgotten.

It is perfect.

Rethan leads me through the sagging door and into the shadows where dust motes drift in the last light. The air smells of dry hay and old wood, and everything else falls away.

The live slate is off.

The feed is silent.

The valley’s demands are elsewhere.

I turn to face him, and the bond answers with a heat that has been banked too long.

“You cannot speak to me,” I say. “During the hearing. You cannot help.”

“That is the restriction.”

“They made you watch me fall.”

“I watched you stand.”

I close my eyes.

When I open them, he is closer.

His hands find my waist, careful, aching, and I step into him like coming home. The bond flares bright between us, and for one long moment, there is only the warmth of his body against mine.

“Rethan—”

“Say it. Tell me.”

I pull him down by the front of his tunic.

“I need to remember I am alive.”