35. Chapter 35

Iwalked into my kitchen and straight into absolute fucking chaos.

Our carefully hoarded food and dried herbs were smoldering piles of ash. Dyre and Aahil were facing off in the center of the room while everyone else watched from the periphery like some sort of cage match. Dyre was radiating black anger, every inch of exposed skin was covered in burns, and the ends of his long, glorious mane of blood red hair were singed. Aahil was dripping blood from a set of long gashes that looked like claw marks across his face and upper chest, and one of his eyes was swollen shut.

"What the actual fuck?" I snapped, pulling my magic close to me as I took in the scene.

The two men in the center of the room paused their attempts to kill each other, but didn"t break their glaring contest. "It seems your rabid fire elemental isn"t as in control as you thought," Dyre said coldly, his voice full of all the dark disdain of a man who knew he could snuff out life without thought.

Aahil tsked sharply and sent up another flare of jinn fire to lick at Dyre"s body. "Trust me," he sneered, "I"m in full control. I was just in the mood for a little bonfire."

Dyre snuffed the flames with a wash of black magic that made everyone in the room gasp a punched-out breath. "I"m done with this posturing," Sunny said, speaking in his eerie, multi-layered voice of ancient evil. "Attempt to harm my host again, and I will draw the soul from your body, jinn."

Aahil opened his mouth, his entire posture saying he was about to sign his own death warrant. But I spoke instead. "No one will be devouring anyone else"s souls in my kitchen!" I snapped.

I glared around the room at the spectators. "What is wrong with you assholes? Were you just going to stand there and watch them kill each other?"

Niamh shrugged. Zhong looked guilty. Hasumi was leaning against the counter with their shoulders hunched and one hand over their face, probably suffering under the onslaught of unpleasant emotions.

At my words, the water weaver waved a hand and a feeling of calm washed over the room. "It seemed important to let them have it out," the water weaver said softly, their musical voice strained. "At least for a time."

I huffed. "Or you secretly wanted them to murder each other. For fuck"s sake."

I planted my hands on my hips and watched the two idiots in the middle of the room heal before my eyes while I spoke. "What the hell is your problem? I sure as fuck hope it was worth us all starving to death or not having spell ingredients, since you trashed our supplies."

They finally stopped trying to kill each other with their eyes and turned to look at me. Dyre was all cold and aloof. But Aahil was seething heat.

"After how he betrayed you," the jinn hissed, pacing closer to me but not quite coming within touching distance. "After how he threw you away and insulted the gift he had been given, he waltzes in here lifebonded to you again." I felt a tug at the thread that connected me and Aahil as he touched my aura through our bond. "What did he do?" he whispered, inching closer, as if he really wanted to reach for me and pull me into his arms, but couldn"t quite bring himself to show that much tender emotion. "How did he coerce you into letting the wraith into your soul again, Andy?"

I just gaped at him.

Was Aahil… actually trying to protect me?

"You think he forced me to bond with him?" I spluttered.

Aahil straightened his spine and reeled in some of the emotion I had seen on his handsome face seconds before. "Of course. What other logical reason would you have to let the abomination close to you again?" He lifted his pert nose in the air.

I looked at the others. "No one thought to speak up? To maybe say "oh, hey, maybe Andy can make her own decisions about who she ties her life to?" Maybe we should ask her or something?"

Ambrose raised his hand from where he was sitting cross-legged on the countertop next to the stove. "I told them they were idiots, if it helps. But I think we both know these two were never going to listen to reason where you are concerned. And I thought I might be biased, since I was a tad bit outnumbered in my opinions."

I pressed my fingers into my eyes to relieve the sudden tension there. "Has everyone lost their damned minds?"

"Your lovers are jealous," Dyre said flatly. "And none of them cared for me to begin with. It"s hardly a surprise. But we know they are important to you. Which is why they are all still alive when Sunny would have happily devoured them all for trying to harm his host."

My kitchen was an absolute mess, but I shoved my irritation away. It wasn"t my problem. I certainly would not be the one cleaning this up. Everyone else could fucking do it while Dyre, Ambrose, and I went to steal from the SA. To be fair, it sounded like it was mostly Aahil"s mess. But the others had just stood there and watched him and Dyre fight. So as far as I was concerned, it was their mess, too.

Honestly. They were like kids fighting over a piece of candy. It was to be expected, I supposed. Open relationships and polyamory weren"t uncommon in magical circles, but that didn"t mean they didn"t take skill to navigate, and me and my captive lovers weren"t exactly love and relationship gurus. Not a single one of us really knew how to love or be loved in any real, lasting, functional way. So, when you really thought about it, it was a wonder that there weren"t more fights to the death around here on a regular basis.

And Dyre was right when he said he had never fit in easily among them. I couldn"t blame any of them for feeling how they felt. Dyre had his reasons, his own hurts and insecurities and concerns that had led him to reject me and get rid of our initial bond. But anyone who claimed to care about me could see that the whole experience had hurt me. And Dyre wasn"t as open and vulnerable with the others as he was with me. They mostly still just saw the cold, disdainful necromancer he presented to the world. One who only looked out for himself and felt no fondness for the living beings around him.

When Dyre split from me, the others stepped in to fill the void with bonds of their own, with their own love and devotion. And now he waltzed back in and showed them all up by reestablishing the lifebond—a connection that was stronger than what I had with any of the others. Not to mention the other part of his statement—Dyre was more powerful than any of the others. They might get the best of him if they all worked together, but we really had no clue what the necromancer was capable of if the wraith took over. That didn"t make things any easier among them.

I got it. I understood the tension and the hard feelings. Which was why, upon finding my kitchen filled with smoke and the smoldering remains of our carefully hoarded food and dried herbs and two of the men I loved healing from painful injuries, I blurted out the most asinine words I could have chosen.

"Look," I said tiredly. "This isn"t some damned competition for my attention. If you all want a lifebond so bad, fine. I"ll bond every single one of you as deeply as possible if we just manage to live through this bullshit with the SA."

Silence settled over the room.

Shit. That was a smooth proposal, Andy. And now my heart clamored in terror. Because I wanted it. I wanted to be bound to them all as deeply and tightly as I was now bound to Dyre and Sunny. But for all their posturing and jealousy, and even with our new bonds… a lifebond was something else entirely. Maybe they didn"t really want quite that much commitment.

Hasumi pushed themselves away from the counter and straightened, once more their ethereal, calm self. They could probably sense my wildly fluctuating emotions from a mile away. "You truly entered into this second lifebond of your own free will and desire?" they asked evenly, turquoise eyes delving into my own.

I felt them reaching for me down our connection and opened myself to the water weaver so they could sense the honesty in my words. "Of course," I said firmly, to Hasumi and to the room at large. "Dyre hasn"t done anything wrong." I gave the necromancer a wry glance. "Except love me when it apparently means risking life and limb."

Dyre lost a fraction of his stiffness and coldness as his violet eyes met mine. "I never thought it was going to be easy, Lovell."

I huffed a laugh and turned back to Hasumi. "Satisfied?"

Hasumi nodded and came to take my hand, lifting it to kiss the back. "I feel the truth. The rest will realize it soon enough. But in this one instance, I feel it isn"t my place to intervene."

I sighed. "Sure."

Turning to the others, I waved a hand at the mess. "You"ve got a shit-ton of cleaning to do. Me and Dyre will be upstairs getting ready to go. Ambrose, you can join us so we can go over everything one more time, since you at least attempted to not be a dumbass."

The boogeyman"s expression was smug as he dematerialized and reappeared before me. "Don"t give me too much credit, my lovely witch. I did manage to feed off all their anger and fear."

I shook my head at him. "Monster."

"Yes, but I"m your monster." He winked and pressed a kiss to my forehead before turning to link his arm through Dyre"s. "Come on, my loves. We have mayhem to plan. And I think everyone else needs some time alone to marinate in the feeling of having disappointed our fearless leader."

I glanced back over my shoulder to find Aahil still standing in the middle of the room, looking down at the floor, his expression completely blank. Shit. He had messed up, and I was definitely pissed at him for his dramatics and his overreaction. But… Goddess, he had been trying, hadn"t he? Poorly, yes. But still, he was really new to caring about someone else"s wellbeing. That he had rushed to defend me said a lot about how he felt. Even if it was badly executed.

But calling attention to that now would just make him act all defensive. I turned away and let Ambrose lead me out of the room. But I was going to have to talk with Aahil—and all the others—privately at some point.

"It"s a lot of work, isn"t it?" Ambrose mused as we made our way to the stairs. "Managing your harem."

"Ambrose," Dyre said tiredly. "For once in your life, please. Shut up."

The boogeyman just grinned. "As you wish, sweetheart."

Dyre narrowed his eyes at the other man. "No."

But we all knew that wasn"t going to stop Ambrose from being obnoxious. And I wasn"t going to object. Because I was pretty sure after that whole mess, Dyre needed to feel like there was someone on his side.

On that cheerful note, I squared my shoulders and tried to hype myself up for a visit to the Supernatural Alliance.