Page 40 of Twisted Bonds
He looks surprised, but only for a moment. Then he grins, displaying a row of perfectly white teeth. There’s a gleam in his green eyes that sends a chill down my spine. “Very well,” he says, flourishing his hand towards the open door. “Sleep well, Cal.”
I watch as Callum glances first at me, then at Tairyn and finally exits through the open door with a stiff nod. As soon as the door clicks shut, Tairyn turns to me, the amusement in his eyes now replaced with a harder, more calculating gaze.
I take a deep breath and prepare myself. This is going to be an interesting evening.
eighteen
Mira
“I think it best if we start with some ground rules.”
Tairyn’s voice rolls through me the same way his gaze does.
“I wasn’t aware we were playing a game,” I retort, crossing my arms over my chest and raising an eyebrow at him.
His mouth twists into a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Of course you were.”
As much as I like to tease and poke at Sunder, that desire is tenfold with Tairyn. However, it lacks the same light-hearted nature. It’s darker. Deeper.
I don’t understand it, but it’s almost compulsive. Something about his face, the way he carries himself, pushes me. With almost a bored tone, I say, “First rule: don’t fall in love with me. You won’t be able to let me go like you promised.”
Hiding my shock at my presumptuous words, I watch as gleeful surprise sprints across his face and disappears. Tairyn chuckles softly, a hint of something dangerous beneath the surface, like a giant leviathan lurking beneath the smooth veneer of a moonlit lake, silently biding its time. His laughter is like the slow ripples spreading out, hinting at the beast hidden below.
“Second rule,” he says, his green eyes twinkling with wicked delight, “don’t presume to give me orders, nin anto anna.”
The words are foreign, clearly an elvish language. I refuse to give him the satisfaction of asking him what it means. Instead, I narrow my eyes at him and retort, “Third rule: speak in a language I understand.”
Tairyn arches an eyebrow, a small smirk playing on his lips. “As you wish,” he says, with a slight bow of his head, the picture of sarcasm. “My last stipulation is that you refrain from touching me, however tempted you may be.”
His tone is stern, no longer taunting. My mind immediately flashes to being bent over like a rag doll and spanked. Heat floods into my chest, my cheeks. “No worries there,” I spit back. Not my most elegant reply, but I can hardly think straight when I’m flustered.
“Good. We have an understanding then. Sit, Vessel, and I’ll begin.”
I grit my teeth against both the ache in my leg and the pain in my ass known as Tairyn. I don’t know what I hate more; him probably calling me a bitch in Elvish or Vessel. When I plop down on the chaise, he moves fluidly beside me. So close I can smell him. Our gazes lock and there’s no mocking or twisted amusement as he kneels beside me. Heat radiates from his fingers as they hover just over my leg.
“Think of Chroma like a rope draping deep into a bottomless well. Each of us is granted a different hue, like a singular thread in a rope. If you’re strong enough, you might occasionally be able to grip the entire rope, demanding it obey you. That’s how you channel white. There’s no secret, only strength.”
The intensity in those emerald eyes glaze over as he turns to my leg, concentration deepening the furrow in his brow just as a single thread of white slinks from his hand into my flesh. A sudden rush of cold, easing the ache inside. I take a deep breath, watching as a single bead of sweat drips from his brow from effort as he pushes the last of into me. Finally, he finishes and leans back on his heels. A hint of exhaustion touches his eyes.
A small voice in the back of my head notes his action, using enough magic to tire himself to heal what is nothing more than an inconvenient injury at this point.
Internally, I roll my eyes at that voice. He also took me prisoner.
“Will you remove this shield now so I can try?”
Even tired, I’m not stupid enough to think he couldn’t overpower me if I tried to attack him with my Chroma. More and more, I’m convinced that the episode with Yurghen was a crazy fluke. I’ve never replicated anything close to that, and with Tairyn, I think I might need that much power to take him down.
He takes his time rising to his feet, only answering once he’s leaned his shoulder against the bookcase. His eyes rake across my entire body, both an inspection and an unspoken warning. Don’t make me crush you, it says. Probably more eloquent, though.
Without a single motion, the shield between me and my Chroma is gone. It comes flooding back into my veins, itching to be released. I breathe instant relief as I close my eyes and immediately sense the two bonded threads in my mind.
One is taut, ready to break. Hard yet brittle, the sense of Sunder when I caress that thread nearly brings a tear to my eye. The other is thicker. Softer and wrapping around the other. Bobble is holding Sunder together. I can detect them both faintly, far to the East.
Immediately I sense something pulse from them, like a blurry picture coming into focus, and I know they can feel me too. A mutual acknowledgment of our welfare, our existence.
I suppress a smile and open my eyes, only to remember that I need to look like I’m trying to channel white.
“How are the two louts?” he drawls from the corner of the room.