Page 38 of Renegade Kingdom
“When I let my magic into his mind,” I said carefully, “I felt the changes in him. I don’t know if it’s because of the nightmare or if it’s something else entirely, but Damon isn’t entirely human anymore. There’s a power inside him. Something real and significant. But it seems locked in the depths of him, buried deep, like it’s waiting for something to set it free.”
I hesitated. My heart was pounding, which was ridiculous. These were my mates. They loved me. But this next part felt like stepping off a cliff without knowing if there was water below.
“I also felt the beginning of a bond,” I admitted. “Inside his mind. Faint, but unmistakable.” I looked at each of them in turn,bracing myself. “I know he’s meant to be one of my mates. I’ve been able to feel it for a while now, this pull toward him that goes beyond sympathy or protectiveness. He’s supposed to be one of us.”
Silence filled the cabin. I held my breath, waiting for the jealousy, the hurt, the complicated tangle of emotions that surely had to come with telling four men that there was supposed to be a fifth.
Ryder started laughing.
I stared at him. “That’s not exactly the reaction I was expecting.”
“I knew it!” He threw his hands up, grinning from ear to ear. “I’ve been saying something felt incomplete. Even after all four of us bonded with you, there was this edge, this feeling like we were still missing a piece.” He shook his head, still laughing. “I bloody well knew it.”
I looked at Maddox. He was smiling. Not just accepting but genuinely, deeply happy. “He’s my brother,” he said simply. “Having him truly be part of this? I can’t think of anything I want more.”
Dean gave a single, measured nod. His expression was hard to read, but it wasn’t hostile. “Makes sense. The bond has felt unfinished. If this is why, then we deal with it.”
I turned to Tank last. The one whose reaction I was most uncertain about. Tank, who had come to this group from the outside, who had already had to find his place among three brothers with a lifetime of shared history.
He shrugged.
“We’ll make it work,” he said, his voice carrying the same steadiness it always did. “You need him at your side. That’s obvious to anyone paying attention.” He met my eyes, and the corner of his mouth twitched. “So it’s time to get the bug out of his head and make it happen.”
Something loosened in my chest that I hadn’t even realised was wound tight. Relief, warm and overwhelming, flooding through every part of me.
“You’re all completely insane,” I told them. “You know that, right?”
“You chose us,” Ryder pointed out cheerfully. “What does that say about you?”
For the first time since the battle, since Rhidian, since the word “sister” had shattered everything I thought I knew, I felt something close to lightness.
We had a direction. We had a plan. We had each other.
Now we just had to save Damon before it was too late.
Chapter Eleven
Tank
The ocean stretched out in every direction, endless and dark, and I couldn’t decide if I found it beautiful or terrifying.
Both, probably.
I leaned against the railing and let the salt air fill my lungs. I’d made the excuse of needing some air, and it wasn’t entirely a lie. The cabins below felt smaller every day, packed with too many people and too many problems, and my bear needed space the way other people needed water.
Nymeria was a beautiful place. I could admit that now, standing here with the wind pulling at my clothes and the sky painted in shades of grey and silver that I’d never seen back in the human world. There was a wildness to this realm that called to something deep inside me. Something older than the bear. Something that recognised this land as home even though I’d never set foot here before a few months ago.
I’d already realised that even when this was all over, we wouldn’t be leaving. If we survived, that is. There would be too much to do. Someone would need to make sure there wasn’t another tyrant waiting in the shadows to fill the void once Arikwas gone. Power vacuums attracted the worst kinds of people, and this realm had suffered enough. Whole communities would need rebuilding. The courts, or whatever came after them, would need protecting. The Endless who were still out there, still enslaved, would need freeing.
That someone had to be us. I’d made my peace with that. I’d given up my sleuth to follow Alyssa, and I’d do it again without hesitation. Home wasn’t a place anymore. It was wherever she was. Wherever my pack was.
I looked down at my hands, resting on the worn wood of the railing. Slowly, deliberately, I let the shift come. My claws extended, thick and curved, gleaming dully in the overcast light. Then I pulled them back. Extended. Retracted. Smooth as breathing.
I’d never been this connected to the bear before. The shift used to feel like opening a door, stepping through, becoming something else. Now there was no door. No separation. Just me and the bear, sharing the same skin. I could feel him constantly, a vast presence curled around the edges of my consciousness, watching the world through my eyes with ancient patience.
That’s because you kept me locked in the back of your mind,the bear rumbled.
I snorted. “And why did you always have to be such a dick about it? It’s not like I did it on purpose.”
