Page 23 of Laundering Down the Legions
"You need to sleep," Kearan said quietly, not looking at me. "You've been reading too long. Your eyes get a particular kind of tired when you push past the point your body can help."
He was right. I was exhausted somewhere deeper than my body, worn through by the revelations and the dagger and the timeline and the fact that Trux was failing faster than we'd guessed. Worn through, mostly, by watching Kearan choose his fear over all of it.
"I can't sleep," I said, because it was true. "If I close my eyes, all I'm going to see is the math that doesn't work."
"Then don't sleep." He finally turned toward me, his face carefully blank in the way that told me he was barely holding it together. "Just come here. Let me sit with you while you're awake. That's the only thing I've got to give right now."
It wasn't a bond. It wasn't a commitment. The way he framed it, it wasn't even really a choice. But it was something. It was him admitting he couldn't stay all the way away, even if he couldn't step all the way across.
I crossed the room to where he waited, and he wrapped his arms around me the careful way he always did, like any second of contact might be the one that cracked his control. Hisheart beat steady against my side, and I felt the bond humming between us, not complete, still waiting on him.
Kearan held me at the distance he'd decided was safe, knowing it wasn't safe at all, knowing we were running out of time, knowing he couldn't give me what I needed and refusing to admit that the refusal was the problem.
The bonds waited incomplete for him to finally choose.
CHAPTER 12
Ryker remained in human form when I walked into the kitchen the next morning. Something had changed in the compound's atmosphere without anyone announcing it. He took up space at the table, done avoiding me. He was committing to being here in a way he hadn't since the bond had rejected him.
I made myself move like it was a normal morning, which was harder than it should've been. He looked barely held together, jaw set, eyes fixed on some point in the middle distance that probably wasn't there.
I couldn't sit straight down at the table with him. That would tip whatever balance he'd struck just by showing up. So I went to the counter and built my coffee the way Kearan would have. Same steps, but it never came out quite as good when I was the one doing it.
Once it was ready, I grabbed a chair and sat down close enough that Ryker would know I was choosing to be there with him.
"Morning," I said, and took a sip. Close enough to right, cool enough to cut the static in my head, sweet enough to take the edge off a few hours of bad sleep.
Ryker didn't answer with words. His fingers loosened on his fork. That was the answer, that small drop in tension.
Then Mephistral darted in like he'd been waiting for the exact second we settled into peace. He landed on the table with the grace of a dropped brick and the self-regard of something that had never met a concept it didn't like, moving too fast, reaching straight for Trux's plate and lifting a strip of bacon off it.
Trux's reaction was the thing.
It came fast and it came wrong. His whole body went rigid, the calm Seph had spent hours building daily snapping back into something tight and dangerous. His shoulders braced as his hand moved toward the imp with a speed that was too quick. The force behind it was too much, and for a second I thought he was going to actually hurt him. The flash behind his eyes wasn't anger. It was older and further down than that, the Hesolga deciding it was done hiding.
Seph moved before anyone else could process it, out of her chair and at his side, her hand settling on his shoulder. She had this skill, making contact land as an anchor. "Hey," she said, low enough that only he really heard it. "You're here. I'm here. We're in the kitchen. That's it."
The fuss she didn't make was what worked. She didn't ask if he was okay, didn't demand an explanation, didn't treat the flash of wrongness like a crisis to be managed. She stood there with her hand on his shoulder until he remembered he wasn't actually about to gut an imp over bacon.
Mephistral still had the strip dangling from one hand, clearly unaware he'd just tripped something that could have gone very differently. "Well," he announced, "that was more response than bacon warrants."
Nobody laughed. That's when I knew it was bad, because we always laughed at Mephistral. He somehow always made us laugh, even if it was after a brief threat of bodily harm.
Trux's breathing slowed, the rigidity easing as Seph's presence worked on him. His hand dropped. "I'm fine," he managed, rough, and the lie was so obvious I almost felt bad for him having to say it.
I drank my coffee and said nothing about the deterioration. I knew, though. I was watching a man come apart quicker than anyone wanted to admit was possible.
Mephistral finally caught on. He set the bacon back on the plate, gentle, his small body going still. "Well," he said quietly, which was probably the most responsible sentence I'd ever heard out of him. "That's not great."
Zandia filled the doorway without knocking, the way she did when she wanted to be impossible to ignore. She didn't look at Trux, Seph, or Mephistral. She looked straight at me, and the flatness of her face told me this wasn't social.
"The traitor and whatever holds your father," she said, no preamble, "are connected at the source."
The words landed heavy and specific. Seph's breath caught, the sharp intake of someone who'd already done the math. Ryker's fork went white-knuckled.
"Ask yourself why a berserker is more useful than a bonded beast," Zandia went on, the words chosen to detonate in the quiet. "Why the bond rejected Ryker when both of you were wanting and willing."
I watched the picture clarify. The accelerated decline wasn't Trux's body failing on its own.
