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“I love you too,” Fordham said.
The light danced into each of their hands. They lifted them upward as one, not to their own foreheads, as had happened during the Daijan bond ceremony in the arena, but straight upward. They were still linked. Kerrigan didn’t know if it was even right to do, but she couldn’t break away from him.
Mirrored balls of light conjoined into one large ball over their held wrists. Keres broke off her words, staring up at the light in shock. Something must have gone wrong, and yet it felt so right. So very right.
They dropped their hands together. The ball falling to the ground. Wind and shadow rushed out across the clearing, rippling the celestial pool and blowing debris from the edge of the trees.
Kerrigan could feel his magic then, the shadows that crept along his body, that he barely held at bay. She could sense every inch of his magnificent power and how it could be doubled and tripled and quadrupled under her own power. But beyond that, the magic was a thread, a tether. Not one directional, but two.
Fordham could feel her power as well.
She gasped at the first touch of his shadows against her deep well of magic. The way his eyes lit up as the magic went two directions down the mating bond.
Keres hadn’t known what would happen to someone already bonded the way they were. She’d assumed it would work the same way. She had been wrong.
As one, they reined in their magic until nothing but a soft current of air and shadow swirled around their bodies. The mating bond and Daijan bond becoming one tether that linked them together completely. A new sort of bond that made them both more powerful than they had ever been alone.
51
The Fears
Keres sent everyone to bed when they returned from the pool. She claimed they needed to work the portal at sunrise. When Vera protested that they should spend a few days regaining their strength after the ritual, Keres just strode out of the room and said she was going to prepare. They all looked at each other in confusion.
But she was gone, and there was nothing else to do but as she’d said. Keres was the only one who had the power to open that portal. If it had to happen tomorrow, then it had to happen tomorrow. Even if Kerrigan would have liked more time.
Fordham drew her down the hallway to his bedroom again. His kisses soothed the questions in her mind. The new bond that joined them made everything heightened. Every touch a new experience. Every kiss a revelation. By the time they finished, Fordham was out cold, delirious from the new bond. Yet Kerrigan couldn’t sleep.
She kept remembering what had happened on the spirit plane. The cuts on her arms that remained as little silvery scars. She was sure even the best healer couldn’t remove them. They were a reminder of what it had cost her. What the stakes were if she fell into the pattern of her grandfather, He Who Reigns, who hung over them all.
When she heard the creak of the door in the front room, she couldn’t let it stand.
Kerrigan kissed Fordham’s temple. When he reached for her in the dark, she had to snake out of his embrace to pad barefoot out of the room. Keres stood before the dying embers of the fire, staring forlornly into the ash, as if it had the answers to all of her problems.
“Something is bothering you,” Kerrigan said.
Keres didn’t move. “You should be asleep.”
“Oddly enough, after two rituals in less than a day, my brain won’t shut off.”
“I thought you’d be happy about the Daijan bond.”
“I am,” Kerrigan said. She stepped deeper into the room, sliding into the chair that she had sat at with Cyrene only the night before. Somehow, it seemed more like a distant dream than reality. “Fordham’s pain was terrible. I wanted to fix it however I could. I wasn’t sure if there was a way to fix what had been broken. I’m still not sure it put all the pieces together, but we have a better shot than we did before.”
“I think so too.” Keres still hadn’t looked at her.
“I was surprised it worked the way it did. I’ve tried bonding with my dragon so many times, and it never took. Only a two-way crux bond has ever let us have that sort of closeness. I was sure it’s because I’m only half-Fae.”
Finally, Keres turned to face her. Confusion showed on her face. “Why would you need a dragon bond?”
“Didn’t my dad explain how it works? We bond with our dragons to join the Society. Our lives are linked.”
“Yes. I remember him explaining that. He didn’t make it into the Society. Another Fae took his place and stole away the woman who was to be his wife.” She said it without emotion, as if it hadn’t mattered to her. Kerrigan supposed it didn’t. Keres had been married during their affair after all. “But Doma don’t need bonds with dragons.”
