AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I think I’m feeling your thoughts and emotions,” she admitted quietly, then cringed. “I know that sounds crazy, but I feel like…” She paused, turning red, rubbing the bed sheets in a refusal to look at me. “I feel like we formed a bond, even though we didn’t ask the Goddess’ blessing, something I know isn’t possible. Or maybe I’m losing my mind.” She cringed again. “That’s entirely possible.”
The Goddess had gifted similar bonds to pairs who had come before her and asked for her blessing to willingly join together. The rate had declined drastically since the Goddess had gone silent, but it was not uncommon for couples to bond outside of the capital. Inside the capital, no one experienced that anymore. They didn’t join in love. It was all arranged.
“No.” I sat on the bed next to her, taking her hand. “I feel you too.”
Her eyes shot to mine. Wide.
“I knew I wasn’t going insane. I knew I felt you.” She slapped my arm with the back of her hand.
“Ow,” I mocked, acting hurt. “What was that for?”
“You felt so guilty for not telling me about Aiden. Well, I’m assuming that’s why you felt guilty.” She raised her eyebrow at me. “You made me sick to my freaking stomach. Do you know how hard it is to stand up to someone when you feel like you’re going to barf?”
“Sorry.” I gave her a crooked smile, thinking.
I debated how much I could say without talking to the guys first. We hadn’t told anyone about our circle other than Eryk. But it didn’t take much debate. Anyone else and I wouldn’t have considered saying a thing without talking to the guys first, but Kaia and I had a bond of our own. She was a part of me, so she was somehow a part of us. In a weird way, where you bonded to your best friend’s future Claimed, and your other best friend was in love with her. Nothing to be done about that.
“Something similar happened to me and the guys,” I admitted.
“What do you mean?”
“The guys and I formed a bond somehow. We confided in your father, but no one else knows.”
“Wait…the four of you bonded together?” That tiny nose scrunched up in confusion. “You kissed? Because I’m pretty sure that’s when it happened for us. My chest got all…” she held her hands in front of her chest like she was holding a ball between them and spinning it around, “…it got all cool and full when we kissed. Have you been with the guys like that?”
I grinned. “Why does that thought seem to excite you?”
“I…” she stumbled over her words as a giggle escaped. She managed to look annoyed that it came out and tried hard to hide her amusement. “It doesn’t excite me. It's just, wait, what?”
“I’m kidding,” I laughed. “We bonded completely differently from the way you and I did. When I was six, I bonded with Ash accidentally. We attributed our bond to a child’s flight of fancy. Especially when our lives didn’t change much besides feeling closer to each other. It wasn’t a big deal.” I smiled at her. “It didn’t feel nearly as powerful as ours did.”
She blushed, and I was so flipping happy to see it. I scooted closer on the bed and pulled her to my side, kissing her forehead. She tried to shove me off but relented, resting against my side with her head against my chest. She smelled good.
“Then we were twelve,” I continued, “we met Aiden in training. He clicked with us instantly and helped us advance fast in our training class. He’s stupid smart and so good at strategy. After only a few months of working and training together, we felt the bond click into place. We felt the same fantastical rush of power I felt with Ash, but more. Bigger. Stronger. I could feel the two of them in my very soul. It was a much more intense connection than I had with just Ash, and there was no denying the situation.
“We met Griff when he was sixteen. He was unapproachable and guarded, so it took him longer to accept and trust us. Who am I telling?” I laughed. “You know Griff. I told you he beat on us. But we knew as soon as we met him that he was one of us. So, we followed our intuition and kept trying. After a year, when the bond didn’t form, we almost believed we were wrong, that it wasn’t the same as with Aiden. But we were just so sure.”
I rested my head against the top of hers. Her hair was so soft.
“On a particularly tough mission, we almost lost our lives, and something changed. We were forced to place more trust in each other and work more coherently than we ever had in the past.”
I paused, looking back. That wasn’t a good night, even if I’m thankful for the gift the Goddess gave us every night since. We stood in the destruction of the manor, breathing heavily, injured, and significantly low on magic, but alive. The bodies of members of the other teams partially buried in the rubble were a stark reminder that many weren’t as fortunate. It was terrible and cruel and one of the times when I hated my job. No one really wins in war.
“At the end of the night, we all silently acknowledged that without every member of our team, we could have had a very different outcome. I knew I only fought with confidence because of having those men at my back. Something passed between us.” I rubbed my hand up and down Kaia’s arm and buried my nose in her hair. “Feelings of trust and respect seemed to be magnified back at me from four different directions until the link clicked into place. And there was no missing the magnitude of that situation.” I shivered, remembering the intense feelings that accompanied that bonding. “We formed a circle, as we called it— since we honestly had no clue what the fuck had happened. We still don’t know what happened or what caused the bond to form, but I’m grateful for it daily.”
“Wow.” She looked up at me, her big gray eyes shining with wonder. “I’ve never heard of anything like that before. What’s it like?”
“I told my brothers it was like sharing a piece of my soul with them, and in return,” I grinned down at her, “lovingly caressing a piece of theirs. They disagreed, saying it was a link or a circle, but definitely not a soul caress. I knew better. We were so much more than a simple circle.”
She laughed, and my heart started pounding in my chest.
“So, what did you do? How’d you figure out what happened?”
I laughed, thinking back. “Honestly, we had no fucking clue what the hell was going on. The next day, Griffin’s reaction to finding out we could read his emotions was freaking hilarious. Almost as funny as his reaction when I started to respond to his thoughts a couple days later, not realizing he hadn’t spoken.”
Kaia chuckled. “I can imagine.”
“It took a while for us to realize when we were projecting our thoughts and longer still learning to control that. Luckily, learning to shield was mandatory in our training, so that helped us keep our thoughts to ourselves until we figured things out better. It took Griffin a while to learn to live with his shield down, but the rest of us didn’t mind the constant chatter when one of us was close. It got easier to turn on and off or push them aside.”
