Page 261 of Commanding Blood And Bonds

Rolling my eyes, I yanked him to his feet. “I swear to God, Alec.”

“You might wanna stop that. Pretty sure it’s in the commandments.”

“I should’ve left you a ground potato.”

He chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck like he was ready to go again. “What’s next? You showed me fire animals and⁠—”

“Nothing,” I cut in, shaking my head. “That’s enough for one day.”

“I dunno. Can you do it without melting my brain yet?”

Grimacing, I shrugged. “It’s harder than I expected.”

“That’s what she said.”

“Oh my God, Alec!” I shoved him in the chest. He staggered back, laughing like a lunatic. “Will you grow up?”

“So I can be as boring as the rest of you? I don’t think so.”

“For fuck’s sake.”

“Have you ever thought about that phrase?” he asked as we turned for the house. August was reading on the porch swing, Fae crooning to her new plants. In the west pasture, Marcus and Eloise were tending to their horses—sickeningly adorable, as usual. Somewhere in the farmhouse, Damien and Tessa were grumbling about failing to catch Adrastos in their nets. “Well?” Alec nudged when I didn’t answer.

“No, I can’t say that I have.”

“It’s just funny, isn’t it? Like—the fuck is possessive of the sake. For fuck’s sake. The sake belongs to the fuck. But that raises the question of sentient fucks, and that’s a whole other philosophical rabbit hole.”

“Have you been diagnosed yet?”

“Like your brain doesn’t run down bunny trails?”

Sure. Mine just…ran darker. “So the fuck owns the sake.”

“There’s my girl!” He threw a fist in the air. “Knew you were in there somewhere.”

“Watch it,” August warned from the swing. Possessive August really did things to me he shouldn’t have.

“Oh come on, rookie. She’s like—a best friend. Like a loyal doggo, if you will.”

August looked up at last, expression flat as he stared straight ahead.

Laughing, I said, “Comparing me to a dog didn’t win you any points back.”

“Tough crowd today.”

We split up at the porch and I stepped up to join August, where he swayed in the chilly breeze, flipping another page.

“You ready?” I asked.

“Just about. You?”

“For a night with you? Always.”

The smile he gave me barely reached his eyes, and it twisted something in my chest.

After everything—the staggering welcome, the warmth of this place—it was jarring when August experienced his first full-blown hierarchy rejection. The Aegis were a moderately sized hierarchy of healers—smaller than Hazelharbor, but better at battlefield medicine, where the witches of the west relied on terrain and controlled environments. We needed every healer we could find. But the threads had been divided on which way they’d go.

And our visit had been…