Page 4 of Laundering Down the Legions
The bond hummed. Live wire from my sternum to wherever he stood. They all did that, but the bonded ones felt different from the ones still hanging open, and his was still open.
Finishing it would cost Kearan something I couldn't fully map. The man already took other people's pain into his ownbody and carried it like luggage. Bond me to him and every hurt, every joy, every 3 a.m. panic I had would land in his nervous system on top of everyone else's. Me, stacked on the pile he already hauled around. He carried more than most people could. I wasn't going to be the thing that finally cracked him.
We also couldn't stop what we'd already started. So that was going great.
He straightened, bag in hand, and turned back to me. Face neutral again. Only his eyes still gave him away, that same pale, assessing look, just warmer at the edges now. The look of a man who'd made a decision and had zero plans to discuss it.
He zipped the kit shut. "Results by morning." Nothing about the moment. Nothing about whatever I'd seen flicker across his face.
"Thanks."
He held my eyes one more second, then he was gone, the door clicking shut behind him exactly like Grayson's had.
The room felt bigger without him. Emptier. My dagger sat dead in my lap, runes dark. Whatever magic lived in my blood had clocked out for the day.
I needed intention. Clarity. I needed to stop thinking about the exact temperature of his hands, which was its own kind of magic problem and not one I was going to solve sitting here.
My phone buzzed.
Grayson: Found something in the archives. When you're ready.
I wasn't ready. Wouldn't be for a while. But Grayson was waiting, and Grayson didn't text about my demonic gene donor for fun.
Eventually, I tucked the dagger into my waistband and got to my feet. Down the hall, Kearan was probably already working on my blood sample. Grayson had dug up something I almost definitely didn't want to know. And out past the walls, Ro waswalking around with two signatures in one body, and I still had no idea what the second one was for.
I stepped into the corridor and shut the door. The bond with Kearan hummed in my chest, warm and unfinished. Still waiting on me.
For now I had archives, and a father, or the thing wearing his face, to deal with. The hallway stretched out long and quiet, full of shadows that had apparently been occupied this whole time. Cool. Great. Love that for me.
CHAPTER 3
Ididn't go to the archives.
Grayson's text sat unanswered in my pocket, the dagger a familiar weight at my hip, and instead of turning toward answers, I let my feet drag me the other way. Toward the living quarters. Toward the one room I'd been avoiding all day without admitting I was avoiding anything.
The kitchen smelled like garlic, rosemary, and something sweet underneath, caramel or honey, that hit me before I'd even cleared the doorway. Kearan stood at the stove with his back to me, one hand making slow circles in a pot, the other reaching for a spice jar without looking. He'd been at this for a while. The wreckage on the counter said so, chopped vegetables in tidy piles, herbs stripped and measured, a bowl of something dark and glossy I couldn't identify. He'd dimmed the kitchen lights low, and he hummed to himself.
He didn't turn around. Didn't say hi. Just kept stirring, his shoulders loose in a way I almost never got to see.
I leaned on the counter and watched him work. His hands knew exactly what they were doing. A precise little flick of the wrist when he salted. Years of practice.
My stomach tightened, and not because I was hungry.
He'd been making all our meals ever since we'd arrived at this compound.
It was so obvious now that I was looking at it. The stew after the demon expulsion, garlicky and soft enough to eat when I was too wrecked to chew. Eggs this morning, scrambled loose with green onion, because he'd somehow noticed I picked at anything tougher when stress had my jaw clamped. Berries on the side of the plate. Toast cut into triangles because I'd mentioned once, days ago, in some throwaway second I couldn't even remember, that triangles of bread tasted better than squares.
And I'd eaten all of it without ever once asking why. There was a cafeteria here. Or I assumed there was since the last compound did before I accidentally turned it into a flaming wreckage.
He lifted the spoon, tasted, and added two grinds of pepper, then stirred again. His shirt had ridden up at the back, and I caught the edge of the burn scar above his waistband. A reminder to be careful.
Except he wasn't being careful with me. Precise, sure. Careful, no. Careful keeps its distance, and there was no distance in feeding someone exactly what their body wanted before their brain caught up to wanting it.
This was how Kearan talked. Not declarations of love and grandiose gestures. Food and acts of service.
The bond hummed behind my sternum, right next to where the others were. And I knew, standing there watching a man season whatever he was cooking, that finishing this bond would mean letting him do this forever and letting myself just take it. Like air. No thank-you, no ceremony, no fuss.
I didn't know how to do that. Saying thank you was default for me, built out of years of getting nothing and learning not to expect it. Letting his care be a given would mean tearing that out, and I had no idea what was left standing afterward.
