Page 34 of Twisted Bonds

“What do you have in mind?”

He grins, showing his full set of pearly teeth. Within moments, we are sitting cross-legged next to each other. He hums slightly, and yellow Chroma sparks around him.

I glare at him. “This is a waste of time. It’ll be nightfall soon. We need to be moving.”

“But moving where, Sunder? Admit it. We don’t know what we’re doing, and if this helps us find Mira,” he says in a singsong voice.

He isn’t wrong.

“What will you have me do?” I settle into my seat, waiting for direction.

“Close your eyes.”

I do so.

It doesn’t escape my notice that this is so similar to the time Mira and I spent together in the cabin when I tried to teach her to access her Chroma. She had been so angry with me, and I had been so frustrated with her. Her progress, while slow, had been steady, however, and soon she could access Chroma as a fish swims in water.

But she had been born to it, hadn’t she? All creatures are capable of accessing Chroma with the fated mate bond, even humans.

“Focus,” the Third snaps, uncharacteristically stern. I heed his words.

“Access your Chroma,” he says in a soothing tone. I breathe deeply and reach for it.

I am uncertain what Chroma looks like for the Third, or even the Second, but for me, it is a seething mass that hides below me. It boils with unspoken emotions.

Fear, hatred, and anger radiate off it like a furnace. It’s overwhelming. I do not know if they are my own feelings, or if they are another’s. Tentatively, I poke at the broiling mass. I hiss as it burns my mental fingers, and I recoil.

“I can’t touch it,” I say to the Third. “It’s too much.”

The Third sighs at me like I’m a whining child who just needs a snack. He glows, yellow Chroma surrounding him in a haze of golden light.

Slowly, a thread of it creeps over to me.

“Try it again,” he whispers.

I close my eyes. His yellow Chroma, beautifully controlled and healing, wraps around my hands in my mind’s eye, protecting those mental fingers that poke and prod through the waves of unruly magic. Internally, when I look down, they are bathed in golden light. Like I am wearing armor made from the Chroma of the Third.

I reach for the magic within me. It is so blue that it appears black in places, and I tentatively put my hand on it. The anger and rage are still there, but they are muffled. Fascinated, I poke at it with my fingers. The curved bubble of Chroma ripples and jiggles, but it does not burst.

Interesting.

“Reach for it,” the Third commands me. In the back of my mind, I bristle at this command. Instead of reacting, I simply follow his instruction. With both hands this time, I grip it. I take the roiling mass in my fingers, holding it up in my mind’s eye.

“Now, let it go,” the Third whispers.

I waver.

Though the mass of emotion is not hurting me, it still seethes in my fingers. I hesitate to think of what will happen if I set it loose.

“Do you trust me, Sunder?”

There’s a small laugh in his voice, as though he’s expecting me to say no.

“Yes.” I respond without uncertainty. My trust for this male is vast and unyielding, and I hope he can hear the strength of my truth in my voice when I tell him.

I rip the bubble to shreds.

Energy explodes around me. Through me. I gasp as the feelings pummel into my chest. There’s anger, yes. Rage. Darkness. Light. So many things that I have no words for. They flood me, filling my senses with a kind of overwhelming presence like I am drowning. I claw at my throat, where the feelings hold me in a tight grip. My lungs rasp as I try to expand against the pressure, and I look at the Third, my eyes wide in a silent plea for help.