CHAPTER 33

SLADE

As I hold her tight , Auren clutches me just as fiercely, and everything in me finally settles. The rage, the terror, the unrelenting pain of being separated from her.

Then my attention is pulled when I feel something else wrapping around us, something soft yet strong, and I turn my head to look.

And there they are.

Golden tendrils flowing from her back like rays of sunlight.

My entire body stills with shock, and I blink, expecting the incredible sight to disappear, but it doesn't.

"Auren…" I choke out. "Your ribbons ."

A sob snaps off from her lips, left in pieces against my neck. "They're back," she tells me, but it sounds like she's telling herself too. Reassuring herself that her ribbons really are there. That she has them again.

"Let me see you."

She leans back in my arms just enough so we're face to face. Eye to eye. Breath to breath.

She hiccups, cheeks glistening as she stares at me like she's in as much awe as I am. "How?" I ask, just as the tendrils come up around us, stroking me, curling around my shoulders, slipping around my arms. They wind around us, like they're tying Auren and me together.

"I don't know," she answers, and I can see the joy in her gilded irises—can see the utter relief. And then she cripples me. "They're back, and so are you. I'm whole again."

I'm whole again.

I yank her forward and slam my lips against hers. She meets my kiss like she's been looking for me for a lifetime, and maybe she has.

Maybe I have too.

We've lived a thousand little lifetimes, dying a little bit every second we were apart.

"I missed you with my entire soul," she says, swiping her lips across my jaw.

I know exactly what she means.

"My heart didn't work without you," I tell her.

She smiles and looks into my eyes. "We're quite the pair, you and I."

It feels like I said those words so long ago, and hearing her repeat them now makes my chest tighten. "You figured it out?"

She shakes her head. "Not until it happened."

Being wholly fixated on her, I didn't notice what our auras were doing until her ribbons start reaching out to dance in the shadowed light. Our auras have surrounded us completely and are growing denser.

"What's happening?" she asks quietly.

"It's us."

Our bonded auras start feeding in, both golden glow and basking darkness. It soaks through us. Into us.

The magic that pulses with it is incomprehensible. Unfathomable. It feels as if I'm touching a star and standing in the middle of a parted sea.

Then a sudden need to be buried inside of her snares me, stealing my fucking breath and setting my veins on fire. The bond flooding in demands no separation. I can feel her even more intensely than I did before.

We're not two anymore. We're one pair, and that magic is consuming . The p?yur bond surges, heating me from the inside out, flooding me with an intense urgency that's demanding to be sated.

Auren clutches me with serrated breath, her ribbons fluttering around with anxiousness. Then the flare of our auras dims, drifting away, and the ground settles, but she's still trembling. I look down at her, and now, I'm trembling too. Brimming with ravenous need .

She stares at me, no longer crying, her cheeks flushed and her lips parted, and I can see the need in her too—right there in her dilated eyes.

"Slade…I…"

Her words choke off like she's dying of thirst, but I know her scorched throat has nothing to do with water and everything to do with the bond magic demanding that we quench a different kind of thirst.

"It's okay, Goldfinch. I know."

Her arms tighten around my neck, and she buries her face there. I can feel her core pressing up against my front. Her body is always warm, but right now, she's blazing.

Now that we seem to have fused, her aura has gone back to a faint shimmer around her skin, no longer blotting out the rest of the world.

The street is still blessedly empty, save for the shell-shocked male who stands beside the fountain. "Auren?"

As soon as he says her name, a snarl rips out of me, and my teeth flash at him with unbidden fury. I want to tear him apart. I want to gut him from groin to grin and spill out his lifeblood for daring to speak her name.

I take a threatening step forward, but Auren's grip tenses around me, and she leans back. "Slade."

Only her voice could yank my attention so thoroughly. My breath pants through gritted teeth, and I'm fucking hard as a rock, enraged at the nearness of this strange male so close to her.

A small part of me knows I'm acting insane, but there is no room for logical, rational thought. There's nothing but a base, animalistic need that's ignited every nerve, demanding me to claim her, to protect her. To satiate her every need.

"Slade," she murmurs again, and one ribbon comes up, tapping against my cheek like a finger. "Eyes on me, baby."

My gaze snaps to hers and she nods with a smile. "Take us somewhere safe. Somewhere we can be alone," she says against my lips, fingers digging in where she clutches me. " Please ."

Her plea undoes me, and my hands grip her ass as I turn around, looking every which way. I'm so out of my mind I can't even fathom a thought as to where to go. All I know is she needs me.

I'm a split second away from taking her right here, bent over the city's fountain. But my bonded deserves so much fucking more than that.

"This way," the male says.

I bare my teeth at him, my canines so sharp they nearly slice through my lips.

"Shh," Auren soothes, even as she starts to rock against me. I have to bite back a groan as she presses fevered lips against the pulse at my neck. "Let him show us where to go. I need you."

My head swings toward the male. " Where. " I demand.

He turns and quickly starts leading us away. I put one foot in front of the other. It's all I can do.

Auren's hips move as I hold her against me, seeking a satisfaction she can't yet reach. And she won't—not until I'm inside her. Not until I'm pumping her full and the pair bond is fully sated.

I never personally knew anyone who was a p?yur, but I heard crass stories of the newly bonded and how they'd shut themselves into a room for days at a time.

The male keeps a good distance ahead, squeezing us down an alleyway and then to a narrow building on the next street over. My head swivels around, but everyone ran from the dragon.

Thank fuck. I don't think I could handle anyone else being near Auren right now. I'm barely holding it together as it is.

Instead of going to the front door, the male goes around the back of the steepled building, its sides smoothed with decorative arches around every window and vines growing down from the roof. He stops at the building's back and kneels down, shoving aside the vines that have draped over the ground to reveal a cellar entrance.

" Slade… "

It kills me to hear the desperation in her voice.

I grip Auren harder, one hand at her ass, the other holding the back of her head so that her face can be pressed against the skin at my neck. I'm hoping my scent can soothe her at least somewhat. Her scent surrounding me is one of the only things keeping me fucking sane right now.

But then her hot, wet tongue darts out, tasting my skin, and I nearly explode in my pants.

"Hurry. The fuck. Up," I say to him through my teeth.

The cellar doors squeak open, and the male quickly hands me a key. "It locks from the inside," he tells me. "Go down the stairs, and you'll come to a private underground waterway. There's always at least a boat or two there to use. Take one and row downstream until you see the house with the green bulbs. It's a Vulmin safe house. No one will be there, and I'll ensure no one will disturb you. It's secure."

Auren stops licking me to turn her face, her cheeks blotched with heat and probably a bit of embarrassment too. "Thanks, Wick."

It feels like every muscle in my body fucking bulges.

"Goldfinch?" I grit out.

She tips her head up at me, her eyes lidded, my blood surging.

"I'm hanging on by a fraying thread . I really need you to not say another male's name right now."

Her eyes widen. "Oh," she breathes.

"Yeah. Oh ."

"I'm going," the male—Wick—says as he starts backing away, hands held up in front of him like he's warding off a rabid animal. "When you two are…done, go to the building with the blue roof in the city. We'll be waiting there."

"Wait!" Auren suddenly blurts. "Oreans. Just outside the city. I got them out of the dungeons. They'll need your help."

Wick nods. "Don't worry. I'll take care of them."

I barely hear him, already stepping down into the cellar. As soon as I clear the stairs, I reach one arm up and slam the doors closed and then engage the lock. Slipping the key into my pocket, I turn, letting my sight adjust to the darkness of the tunnel while my bond burns with my need to take her.

Have to get somewhere safe first. Have to take care of her.

My feet crossed two realms to get to her, and now, my hands itch to cross over every inch of her skin. With the way she's shaking and rocking against me, I know we're running out of time.

The bond is demanding that we pair. In every way.