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I didn’thavea bond with Grace. I didn’t know what it felt like to have it, let alone to almost lose it.
And I wasn’t jealous about that at all, no siree.
“Dare,” Riot said, in an offensively exasperated tone. “Go inside. Talk to Grace. She needs you as much as she needs the rest of us, andyouneedher.”
“No, I don’t,” I replied, sounding a smidge more petulant than I’d intended to. I didn’tneedGrace. I barely knew her. I wasn’t even sure what I did know, what I did feel, was real.
But when Riot had raced below deck shouting for her and we’d found her passed out on Bullet’s chest…
I’d never been so scared in my life. Not even when I’d found my mom’s body. Maybe because I’d known I couldn’t save Mom, but with Grace it had felt… It had felt like there was still sand in the hourglass. Like if I just knewwhatto do, I could save her.
In the end, she’d saved herself and brought Bullet back with her. She’d used the bonds to find her way home, and not having one with me didn’t seem to impede her in any way.
Whenever I was away from Grace, from her magnetic presence, I wondered why the fuck I was here and if she’d notice if I was gone. When Iwasin her presence, I was as drawn to her as ever, jealous and resentful that the others shared something with her that I didn’t.
Something that Iwanted. Whatever it was, whatever the consequences were, I still wanted Grace to bemine.
“For fuck’s sake,” Riot snorted. “You have it so bad, and you are so in denial. Go. Talk to her. There’s a bowl of lukewarm beans sitting on the table for you. Everyone’s eaten. I think Bullet was going to lie down again.”
“Ugh, fine,” I sighed, not about to waste food in our precarious circumstances. “What about Arsène?”
“I brought him a bowl of food while you were staring broodily at the pitch-black ocean, wishing for a flower so you could pull off the petals. Grace loves me, she loves me not—”
“I’m going to throw you overboard,” I muttered, slipping past him to head back inside. There was a faint amount of light emanating from the interior of the cabin, and in the absolute darkness of outside, it was enough to act as a beacon to get me inside.
Arsène was inside, looking at navigation equipment I didn’t understand at all. Grace was there too, sitting at the table, sipping a cup of water.
“A few more hours until we reach shore,” Arsène told us, eyeing Grace warily where she sat at the table. Arsène didn’t seem to despise Grace in the way that many daimons did with agathos, which was comforting. If anything, he seemed a little frightened of her. “I have never seen so many vessels on the water at once in my life, or so many frightened, angry people.”
“I’ll head back up—” I began, but Wild materialized out of the shadows like a fucking ghost despite being the size of a tank. He still didn’t look one hundred percent himself, but I guessed that was to be expected after this morning. He’d nearly lost both his lovers, and it had been his idea to send Grace after Bullet in the first place.
I had some feelings about that.
Wild gave me and then the bowl of lukewarm beans on the table a pointed look.
“Yes, sir,” I muttered, throwing him a mock salute before sitting down next to a smiling Grace. Wild kissed the top of her head before following Arsène back outside, leaving Grace and me in awkward silence. Or at least it felt awkward to me; surprisingly, Grace looked rather determined.
“What’s on your mind?” I asked, wondering what it was that had put that look in her eye. I spooned a mouthful of the least tasty thing I’d ever eaten into my mouth.Food is fuel, food is fuel.
“I’m going to bond you, Dare… What’s your last name?”
I almost spat out my beans, coughing and spluttering for a moment, until I regained some semblance of dignity. “Abe.”
“I’m going to bond you, Dare Abe,” Grace repeated with a firm nod of her head, as though that was that. Decision made. “If you’re amenable to the idea, that is.”
Amenableto the idea? I shoveled some more food into my mouth, giving myself a moment to formulate a reply.
“Are you sure that’s what you want?” I asked eventually, my dick already stirring in my shorts. A regular response for aregularPhilotes daimon, but an unusual one for me. I wasn’t normally so easy. “Is this because of the near-death experience? I don’t want you to have any regrets by rushing into this—Riot mentioned that it took you guys a little while before you took the leap to fully bonding.”
“That, I regret,” Grace replied easily, no hint of hesitation. “It seemed like the right decision at the time when no one knew what was going on, why Riot and I were drawn together, or what it meant. Hindsight being 20/20, knowing now that we were always destined for one another, I can’t help but feel sort of foolish looking back. Denying the bond is physically painful, and I hate that I put Riot and Bullet through that. I didn’t let it get so bad with Wild, and I don’t intend to with you either. As long as that’s what you want.”
Grace folded her hands in her lap, watching me expectantly as I made myself finish the bowl of beans in case it was days before we got to eat again.
Was this what I wanted? It had beeneverythingI wanted, and in some ways, it still was. But was itreal?
“Would it help to talk about it?” Grace suggested quietly, shrinking in on herself a little. God, I was such a piece of shit. Even if itwasthe bond creating this false sense of obsession, or whatever it was, that wasn’t Grace’s doing. She wasn’t some evil mastermind, trying to seduce me for her own ends.
If anything, she’d demonstrated earlier that she used the bonds to helpus,to her own detriment. If I could offer her another way back when she went chasing into the void after Bullet, then I wanted to do that.
