Page 131 of The Bound Blood
I stand there longer than necessary, just… looking. Memorizing the slope of his shoulders, the faint furrow between his brows even in sleep. The demon prince, laid bare in the quiet of dawn.
Eventually, I force myself to move.
Our clothes are scattered across the room—mine in careless pieces, his discarded with less urgency, more intention. I gatherthem up, folding my things first, then his. It feels oddly domestic.
When I pick up his jacket, something slips free. It hits the floor with a soft clink and rolls across the stone, stopping near the edge of the bed.
I freeze.
The object is small—smooth, dark, etched with faint markings that seem to shift when I look too closely. But it’s not the shape that makes my breath catch.
It’s thefeeling.
Magic pulses from it, low and steady, a heartbeat I can feel more than hear. The air around it hums, and something deep in my chest answers back, immediate and insistent. Calling me.
I take a step closer before I even realize I’m moving.
I don’t know what it is or what it does. I only know that every instinct in me is leaning toward it, drawn in a way that feels uncomfortably familiar.
Like it recognizes me.
The same way that book did—the one Tamsin and I found hidden away in the Forbidden area. The same low hum. The same pull, like magic reaching out and curling its fingers around something already inside me.
What is it? Is it like the book? Is it going to set off some sort of magical explosion if I touch it?
On the bed, Kael shifts in his sleep, shadows stirring faintly along the wall, stretching and moving like they’re aware something has changed. He groans softly and moves his arm over his sheets, but I can’t focus on him right now, all I can see is the thing that rolled out of his jacket pocket.
My fingers hover over the object, hesitation buzzing through me. My heart is in my throat now, a high-pitched ringing filling my ears, like pressure building too fast.
I should leave it alone.
I don’t because I’ve never been good at that. The moment my skin makes contact, the world tilts.
A sharp inhale tears out of me as the magic flares against my skin. The object warms beneath my fingers, pulsing once, twice, in time with my heartbeat. Light flickers across its surface, the markings shifting and rearranging themselves as though they’re… focusing.
On me.
The air tightens. The ringing in my ears deepens until it feels like it’s inside my skull, and suddenly Iknow—with bone-deep certainty—this was used by Kael to watch me.
A connection snaps into place, invisible but undeniable, like a line drawn straight from the object to my chest. My breath catches painfully, magic pressing back in response, answering the call before I can stop it.
No. No, no, no—we really need to learn to not touch things that call to us.
I jerk my hand back, the connection severing just as abruptly as it formed. The object dims, going inert on the floor, but the feeling doesn’t disappear. It lingers, a phantom awareness crawling along my skin urging me to pick it back up.
My pulse races.
Questions crash in all at once, sharp and unwelcome.
How long has he had this?
Did he use it to track me?
Is this how he’s always found me all those times?
I glance back at the bed, and his eyes are still closed. More questions start to form, one after another, and I know—deep down—that if I’m still here when he wakes, I won’t leave at all.
I need space and distance. I need to think without having him right in front of me with the ability to distract me.
