Page 103 of Nikolay

Then I had tried to ring her an hour ago, and the call had gone directly to voicemail.

Madelyn never turned her phone off. Not for sleep. Not for work. Certainly not while away from Texas, where her brother might need her. She was pack to the bone in that regard. Reachable. Accounted for. Alert to anyone who might call her home.

I took the corridor to my father’s study with a speed I did not bother disguising. The servants had not yet begun to stir. Dawn had only just started to leach the night of its authority, turning the tall windows into pale mirrors. I caught a glimpse of myself in one as I passed and nearly laughed at the sight. Amber eyes bloodshot. Beard shadowed darker than usual.

When I reached the study doors, they were already open.

Of course, they were.

My father sat behind the desk as though he had expected me, which perhaps he had. Devon perched on the carved arm of his chair in one of her mismatched layers, pale hair an unruly cloud over one shoulder, turquoise eyes fixed on my face before I crossed the threshold. There were times she looked heartbreakingly young. There were other times she looked ancient in a way that had nothing to do with years. This was one of the latter.

“Nikolay,” she said softly.

That was all. My name and nothing more, yet it nearly undid me.

I did not sit. I could not have if commanded. I crossed to the desk and planted one hand flat against the polished wood to keep from putting it through the wall instead.

Father’s gaze moved over me once, cool and complete. “Report.”

I almost smiled at that. Not because anything in me was amused, but because I adored him enough to take comfort even now in his refusal to drape panic in softer language.

“I cannot reach Maddie,” I said. My voice sounded rougher than I liked. “And something is wrong with the bond.”

Devon straightened where she sat. Father’s expression did not change, though I saw the faint shift in his eyes that meant I had his full attention.

“It does not feel severed,” I went on. “If it were severed, I think I would know. This is...” I searched for something precise enough and found nothing that did not disgust me. “Bent. Strained. Like a limb pulled from its proper shape, but not yet torn free.”

The image made Devon wince. Father only steepled his fingers.

“For the past week,” I said, “it had been... quiet. Not weak. Merely unsealed. A low warmth. Constant. Sheer contentment at times. Irritation at others, naturally, because she is herself.” My mouth nearly betrayed me with the memory. “Even when we were apart, I could feel her there. Not thoughts, exactly. More like weather. A warm current beneath everything else. I had grown accustomed to it.”

Accustomed. Christ.

Dependent was the truer word, and I was ashamed that I had only recognized the extent of it now that the sensation had turned inside out. For days that bond had sat under my skin like a hearth banked low against winter. I had gone about my duties at Obsidian, sat in meetings, endured Bohdan’s sarcasm, even spoken with clients while some hidden part of me listened for that gentle pulse of her existence. She had been there in every hour, reminding me that for all my pride and stupidity and long-held prejudices, fate had chosen not to ask my opinion.

Now that same current scraped at me. Wrong. Distorted. Like her soul and mine had been put under tension by hands neither of us had invited.

“I have been calling since an hour before dawn,” I said. “Straight to voicemail every time.”

Father let the silence stretch. He had perfected that over centuries, using it not as absence but as pressure. Beside him, Devon did not look away from me once. Her hand settled on my father’s shoulder briefly, perhaps for him, perhaps for herself.

“What happened this week?” she asked.

The question should not have been painful. It was. I lowered my eyes to the desk because it was easier than saying these things while watched.

“I stopped fighting it,” I said.

Father made a low sound that might have been derision, if derision could ever sound paternal.

I ignored him because he had earned the right.

“I did not tell her plainly,” I said. “I should have. Instead, I behaved like an adolescent nobleman in a provincial romance and attempted to court her through gestures.”

Devon’s mouth twitched. My father looked as though he regretted having ears.

“The morning after...” I exhaled slowly. “I made her French toast.”

Devon smiled then, sudden and bright. “That’s so romantic.”