Chapter 10

10

I dropped the last braid of my quipu. I’d left the task too long, but boy did emptying my thoughts into the artwork feel good. Not so good for my fingers, but if I kept up with this, then I could begin to consult the quipu while making coven decisions. If Huxley and Spyne managed to dig up useful demon information, I hoped the quipu could piece together some of the demons’ plans too.

That would be of real value.

I turned to Wild, who sat on the couch reading. “Anything good?” I asked.

“Just brushing up on my Vissimo and Luther knowledge. All done?”

“Even if I wasn’t, my fingers are.”

He put his book aside, and I took the invitation offered, curling up on his lap. He took my hands in his, and soothing, cooling magic licked away the throbbing rawness in them. He placed his arms around me after.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. Your mind is quieter now.”

“Always gets busy if I neglect my quipu. I don’t like to think how life may’ve been different without the gift. I had trouble ignoring the threads and braids everywhere as a young child. Pretty sure humans considered me majorly weird.”

“You are what you are.”

I looked at him. “Did you just call me weird in a roundabout way?”

His dark eyes danced, then he said, “Huxley told me about today.”

Through all manner of meetings, the curiosity of what happened this morning had been on my mind. I finally understood the impossibility of denying curiosity as a grimoire. I’d be driven to find the answer to this mystery tether always now. I blew out a breath. “I need to figure the tether out. Even though I decided not to care about the person on the other end, now I have to, and I don’t know where to start.”

“Have you tried communicating through the bond?”

Not in a long time. Not since it first arrived.

“I’ll give it a go.” I dove within, quickly locating the thin tether to another being in the demon realm. I knocked a few times, then waited. Nothing. I plucked it harder, but the bond was so thin, I didn’t dare risk anything more.

I checked my divination affinity for any sign of my demon after.

Nothing aside from black smoke. Nothing, nothing.

Were the two linked? Huxley had mentioned the woman had black scales.

I opened my eyes. “No response. And no sign of my demon either.”

Wild didn’t reply. He was working through something akin to fear, and I understood that fear. I’d felt it since realizing the deeper ramifications of the possibility my demon was trapped in another realm.

“Tempest, what if your demon can’t come back by herself?” he asked in a calm voice.

Wild was anything but calm.

My chest tightened. “And what if the only reason we were going through the ritual was because she had a foothold in me? Now that she’s gone, what does that mean for us?”

Wild started to shake. He hadn’t done so in a long time, but I wasted no time resting a hand on the V of skin visible at the neck of his tunic.

His words came in a rush, “The glow of your power is brighter each day. I’m struggling to see through it. Your magic puts me in a trance. I can shake it off for now.”

For now.

He hadn’t mentioned a trance before. “What do you think that means? What is the ritual telling you to do?”

“To devour your magic.”

I pulled my hand away. “The ritual wants you to eat my power?”

He dragged his gaze to mine. “Yes. Every bit of it.”

What did one do with such news? “O-kay.”

Wild’s throat worked. “I won’t, obviously, but…”

Denying the ritual was really fucking hard, and it got harder every day. I said that from my side of the fence too. I’d never experienced the same strength of urges as Wild. “We’re going to figure it out.”

“I won’t let you go into that realm,” he snapped.

My brows drew together at his abrupt shift. “I’m not going into the demon realm, Wild.”

His embrace was crushing, nearly painful. “Promise me.”

“I’ve already promised you that. To never go without telling you first.”

“Promise me you won’t go in at all,” he snarled.

Wild wasn’t home. I rested my hand on his chest again. “You know that I can’t promise such a thing. We may need to enter the realm for a number of reasons.”

Denial burned in his gaze as he waged for control over his fear and possessiveness. If I could be tied down with rope and chains, he would have done so already. “I want to try something else to trigger our mating ritual again.”

“What?” he forced out.

“I wonder if we can spark it,” I said. “Like lighting a fire. What do you think?”

I watched as he clawed his way back to the semblance of control. I hadn’t realized he was struggling this much.

Wild loosened his hold at last. “How do you propose we do that?”

“Just enter into our bond and see what happens?”

A corner of his mouth lifted in a wry smile. “Just see what happens?”

“Not like we have a book on this, right?” I quipped.

He acknowledged that with a small nod. “Not like we do. I’ll see you there.”

I closed my eyes, resting my cheek against his chest, and I found my way to our four-strand bond. The thing was monstrous. Permanent. There was no withering with this bond, unlike the bonds I shared with deceased family members. If this bond was severed—if one of us died or betrayed the other to such lengths that the bond snapped—then I understood death awaited both of us. More than death, though, I feared another eternity in chaos. An endless eternity in chaos this time.

I’d barely survived the loss of my family, and I had more than enough respect for the pain and suffering a lost bond could cause. I would be nothing more than a wraith in half death without the bond I shared with Wild.

There were four colors. Gold—which denoted the grimoire gift the Mother gave me after the last step in the ritual. I was assuming she’d channeled the gift through Wild’s grimoire affinity, and again I was reminded of the concept of grafting. The Mother used my demon heritage as a grafting point to allow me and Wild to go through the mating ritual. Demons possessed mates, like Vissimo and Luthers, but magus had never possessed them until Wild and me. It couldn’t be coincidence that I was half demon, and Wild had gained an echo of a demon in the process.

She’d used Wild’s grimoire affinity and our connection as a graft to give me a fourth affinity too.

The remaining three strands, purple, blue, and green, tied our bodies, magics, and emotions together.

I opened my center to the spiraling bond and took a spiritual step onto it. I could sense Wild at the other end. I felt the vibrating through the bond as he took the same step.

I kept walking, moving from one strand to another.

Languidness spread through my body and mind like a soft, heavy blanket, and a humming overtook my very soul as I moved toward Wild’s energy.

The center. I stopped there, sensing I should go no further.

He was here too.

We were at the center ofour centers, the middle of our bond where we were in the calmest and most aligned state of magic. I’d never been to this place with anyone. I hadn’t known such a state or place existed.

This was… certain.

I didn’t want to disturb the lulling security, but we’d come here for a reason.

With no other idea, I sent out a pulse of intention—of my yearning for the mating ritual I’d loathed until recent weeks to restart. To spark.

I felt the intention ripple outward and disappear into the abyss surrounding us. Wild sent out a ripple, too, which disappeared.

We remained there for a time before I stepped back the way I’d come. Never turning from Wild, I drew into myself once more. There was a coldness to it—a return of uncertainty. At the center of centers, things were simple.

There, only we had existed.

I opened my eyes and lifted my head to find Wild watching me. Waiting.

“Anything?” he asked.

I glanced down at his chest. Not glowing. “No. No change.”

Sorrow whispered through me at his disappointment, but he forced a smile. “A nice place to discover, though.”

I smiled back. “Nice isn’t the word I’d choose. But yes, I’m glad we found it.”

I was fresh out of ideas, and I could tell that Wild had made the same decision as me to drop the matter until another time. And yet Wild was losing control to the urge of the mating ritual. The glow of my magic had started to send him into a trance. And his growing desire was to devour my magic.

To not consider what might happen to our bond, or to Wild, if I wasn’t able to get my demon back was impossible.

How ironic that the very things I’d wanted gone since this began were all I wanted back.