Page 132 of The Bound Blood
I move fast but carefully, pulling on my clothes with hands that won’t quite steady. I shove my legs into my pants, don’tbother with my panties, then tug my shirt over my head. It lands twisted and wrong across my ribs. I leave it that way.
Figures.
My boots follow, laces loose, everything quiet and frantic all at once. My heart won’t slow, a strange awareness still crawling under my skin as if the object is calling to me even from the floor. I’m halfway bent over, tugging my second boot on, when the bed shifts.
The shadows move first—restless, as though they’ve sensed movement before he has.
“Lindsay.” His voice washes over me, sleep-filled and confused. When I straighten, he’s sitting up, eyes still closed as he rubs a hand over his face.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
I swallow and force myself to keep moving, reaching for my jacket. “Getting dressed.”
His eyes open then, the blue of them dark, taking me in from head to toe. The boots. The crooked shirt. The tension I’m not hiding nearly as well as I think I am.
“Why?” he asks.
“I need some air.”
His brow furrows, concern cutting through the haze of sleep. “I’ll get dressed and come with you.”
I shake my head before thenoeven fully forms. “No.” The word comes out sharper than I intend.
He pauses, studying me more closely now. “Lindsay?—”
“I just need a minute,” I say, already crouching to swipe the object from the floor. If I stop moving, I’ll hesitate or worse, stay.
Before I can hand it back to him, the magic hums. Almost making it feel like it doesn’t want me to leave it here, as though it wants to show me something. Okay, now I’m going crazy. But my fingers tighten around the ball anyway, and I covertly tuck it into my pocket, hiding the movement as I grab my jacket.
Of course, Kael is the most observant person I know, and he tracks me before he looks past me, scanning the room, and I see the moment he notices his jacket neatly placed on the chair. His shadows still around him, and his gaze snaps back to mine.
“Did you find something?”
I swallow. “Your jacket dropped something.”
A pause. Silence stretching, the ringing in my ears coming back as I wait for his reply.
Kael swings his legs over the side of the bed, running a hand over his face as if he’s already thinking of what to say. “You shouldn’t have touched it.”
That’s…not reassuring.
“What is it?” I ask, my fingers curling over the place where it hums in my pocket.
“It’s nothing you need to worry about,” he says quickly. “Just something I keep for?—”
When he goes quiet again, his words escaping him, I press, “For what?”
He hesitates, his mouth opening and closing, a swipe of his tongue over his lips.
“It helps me keep track of things,” he says finally.
Things like me?I want to ask, but the question sticks in my throat.
“Magical fluctuations. Situations that need watching.”
Situations.
I almost laugh. It bubbles up cold and brittle in my chest, but I swallow it down. “And I fall undersituationsnow?”
