Page 15 of Laundering Down the Legions
"But both Ro and Jericho have now gotten in since we repaired the demon wards after they broke." His brow pulledtight. "It's how they're getting in. The wards should be holding. They're not, and I can't find the gap. That's what's eating at me."
"Have the wards ever just failed before," I asked. "Before I broke them, that is."
"No." His jaw tightened. "Either somebody built a way through, or we missed something. I just can't see it yet." The information sat there between us, heavy. I'd caused a lot of chaos since coming into their life. "I know why you don't want to put the ring back on… but maybe you could until we can get through the worst of it, then remove it again?"
"How do you know when you're making the right choice?" I held his gaze. "That the stand you're making is the right one… where do you find the resolution in your decisions?"
Kearan blinked slowly, working through it, uncertainty pulling at his brow. I waited. Didn't rush him, didn't fill the space with noise.
"I don't know that I've ever thought that deeply about it," he finally said.
I refused to ask him if starting the bond was the right choice; I was certain of that despite all the hurdles we'd run into.
"Maybe I should kiss you," he said, mischief sparking in his eyes.
"Oh, uh…" I stammered as his words surprised me. "Only if you're ready."
He took a step closer, and for one second I felt the Tsigo bond pulse between us. The pull hit me before I'd decided anything. That need to reach out. I leaned in, fingers hovering over the scar ridged tissue, giving him every chance to pull back. He didn't. I grazed my fingertips along it, following each line, and met his eyes.
"I want to finish the bond with you," my voice was firmer than I thought it would be.
He didn't flinch. He breathed deeper and held my gaze, like he was letting me in.
"What are you thinking?" His voice came low and rough.
I picked my way through it. "I know the team thinks this came from Grayson. That he caused it." Barely above a whisper, the whole moment thin as glass. "But you're so much more than the things that hurt you. And I think we forget the weight of what you carry. What you've always carried."
Something flickered across his face. Anger, maybe, or the start of a wall going up. I braced for it, for the shutters to slam down. Instead he let my fingers stay on his skin, let me look at the part of him nobody else got to.
"It's complicated." The sigh that came with it carried something old and raw. "This scar isn't about Grayson. It's mine. Something I absorbed. A burden I picked up from choices I made and people who wore I let myself get too vulnerable with." His gaze cut toward the hallway. "I fought to keep my abilities contained, to hold the chaos down, and somewhere in there I started carrying everybody else's pain along with my own. The scars that came with it."
This was why he'd hesitated so much when we'd first met. It was proof of every time he'd pulled somebody else's hurt into his own body so they wouldn't have to. I squeezed his forearm gently, anchoring us both.
"You're not alone in it," I said, swallowing hard. "You don't have to carry that by yourself."
A faint smile. "I know that now."
Four quiet words, and they hit harder than any speech. I kept my fingers on the scar a beat longer, not ready to let the moment go.
And before the moment could tip into anything braver, Grayson's voice cut through the moment, loud and shameless. "Kearan! Just kiss Parker already!"
I turned to find him propped against the doorframe, arms crossed, grin enormous. "If I have to keep watching you two tiptoe around this, I'm going to lose my mind."
Heat flooded my face. A laugh burst out of me before I could stop it. The tension popped, the sheer absurdity of it landing somewhere between mortifying and exactly what I needed. Kearan shook his head, chuckling beside me, and the warmth of it circled us both and pulled us tighter.
"You're both adorable. Somebody had to say it." Grayson pushed off the frame and backed down the hall, grin intact. "Don't let me interrupt. Work through that... whatever this is."
I watched him go, equal parts grateful and ready to throttle him.
When the quiet came back, Kearan was still smiling, caught somewhere between disbelief and amusement.
"So." I tried for confidence. "Should we kiss?"
His brow ticked, a smile fighting the corner of his mouth. "We should probably finish that research on the dagger."
I laughed. "If that's how you want to dodge the whole kiss thing."
"Maybe another time."
