Page 94 of The Threads Between

Lily rose from her chair but did not look at me. She walked toward the stairs with unhurried grace.

At the foot of the stairs, she paused. Glanced back. Just once.

She communicated through the bond—nothing so crude as words. Just a pull. An invitation. A door left open.

She ascended the stairs.

I counted to six. Then I followed. Perhaps someone noticed. I could not care.

The stairs seemed endless.

She was waiting in our room. Standing by the window, afternoon light turning her hair to fire. When I stepped through the doorway, she turned to face me.

I closed the door behind me.

The click of the latch was loud.

For a long moment, neither of us spoke. We simply looked at each other across the small room—the narrow bed between us, the window casting gold across the floor, the silence thick with everything we had been holding back.

“That,” she said finally, “was unbearable.”

“You began it.”

“You retaliated.”

“You thought about my hands during Beth's entire discussion of defensive positions.”

Her cheeks flushed. “You were not supposed to feel that.”

“The bond.” I crossed the room. Each step deliberate. “Goes both ways.”

I stopped before her. Close enough to touch, but not yet touching.

Her want rang through the bond. Raw and aching and exactly as desperate as mine. The separation. The hour of deliberate torture. It had built into something with claws, something that would swallow us whole if we let it. And we were going to let it.

“We should return downstairs,” she whispered. The words meant nothing. We both knew it.

“Should we?” I lifted my hand and brushed her jaw with my fingers.

A tremor ran through her at the contact—starting where my fingers met her skin and traveling down her spine. The bond carried it through me, once in her body, once in mine, the sensation folding back on itself until I couldn't tell where her want ended and mine began.

“The war strategy . . . ”

“Will survive without us.” My thumb traced her lower lip. She made a sound that was not quite a word. “If you want me to stop, just say it.”

Her eyes met mine. Dark with want.

“No.”

The word undid me.

The pendant was gone. No corruption crushing every good feeling. No father's control twisting desire into shame. She stood before me—warm, alive, wholly present—and she was saying no to stopping and yes to everything else.

I kissed her.

Not gently. There was nothing gentle left in me. The separation, the torture of the planning session, and the bond amplifying everything until I could not tell where my hunger ended and hers began.

She made a sound against my mouth—relief and want braided together—her hands fisted in my shirt, pulling me closer.