Page 37 of The Bound Zodiac

“On the grounds that I called dibs.”

Theo huffed. “Why don’t you take the room at the bottom, closer to Hell. You’ll feel right at home there I reckon.”

I sat down on the arm of the sofa and yawned.

‘They are children,’ Noodle said, from where he had draped himself across the mantel over the fireplace.

“Yeah,” I admitted. “Pretty much.”

Noodle and I made our way through the tower. It got worse before it got better. Eris duplicated himself twice and sent both copies sprinting up the stairs to physically occupy two rooms simultaneously. Rowan used his gravity to pin one copy to the third landing, at which point I felt the pressure spike through the bond and said, “Rowan,” and the pressure vanished so fast the copy fell over.

“Sorry, love. Reflex.”

Draco, who had not participated in any of it, simply picked up his bag, walked up two flights, and took the smallest room at the back of the third landing—the one with no window at all, tucked into the thickness of the tower wall, the one nobody else wanted.

The first floor was claimed by Phoenix, because there was a small door off the room that opened onto an empty garden box, and I knew he felt more comfortable with his feet planted on the hard ground. Lucas took the room across from him, the one nearest the door. Theo and Rowan took the second and third landing, Eris the fourth, Aiden and Jamie the fifth, and Percy…on the landing across from my room. Because of course he did.

I answered the knock at my door hours later to find Theo holding two mugs. “Tea?”

I rubbed my gritty eyes. “I have to be awake in less than two hours.”

“Which is precisely why you should have tea. Sleep is a lost cause. Might as well lean in.”

I took the mug. It was the good stuff, sweetened just right, and I made a noise into it that was frankly indecent. He leaned against the door frame and watched me drink it with a sparkle in his bronze colored eyes. He looked entirely too awake and energized for this early in the morning on zero sleep.

Down through the floor, muffled by stone, I could hear Eris shouting something at Aiden about a mattress, and Aiden shouting back, and then a crash, and then Lucas’s voice cutting through both of them. Then there was silence.

“They’re going to kill each other,” I said with a groan, punching the bridge of my nose.

“Probably not.” Theo’s mouth curved. “It’s harder to kill a man when you can feel his pain.”

“Is that what this is? Aversion therapy?”

He tipped his head back against the frame. “You spend so long inside each other that you stop being able to hate anyone properly. It’s very inconvenient. I’ve been trying to hold a grudge against Rowan since second year and the bond simply will not let me.”

“What did he do?”

“Broke my nose.”

I snorted and shrugged. “Fair enough.”

“I deserved it.”

I laughed into the mug. Once I finished my tea, Theo took it to the sink to wash it out while I yawned even harder, envying Noodle curled up asleep in my bedroom. I was mid-yawn when Theo crossed the room and put both his palms flat against the sides of my face.

“Right then.” He kissed my forehead and stepped back. “Two hours. Sleep if you can.” He made for the door.

“Theo—”

He turned.

“Maybe sometime soon, you could… uh, stay here with me. Not right now or anything…obviously, but…soon?”

Christ, why did I have to get so tongue-tied sometimes? Maybe it was the exhaustion speaking and not me. Or maybe this whole bond mate situation was infinitely more terrifying than I was letting myself accept.

Theo went still, then he slowly turned to face me again. Something flickered behind his eyes. Suddenly, the teasing was gone. Then, he stalked toward me like a predator cornering its prey, all pretense thrown out the window.

I barely had a second to process it before his hands landed on my hips, and he hefted me onto the counter. My ass hit cold stone and his body was there, crowding between my thighs, hands braced hard on the edges, trapping me. The air went electric.