Page 83 of The Sixth Spring

“Willowtree,” Itori started, and then stopped.

“What?”

Itori gentled him back so they could look at each other. His hands were still around Will, softly tracing patterns on his bare skin. Will could tell he was thinking something through, and left him the silence to do so.

Eventually, his hands stilled.

“I… know a way to reopen the spring vein.”

That got Will’s attention. He perked up immediately, the post-coital haze falling away. “You do? How?”

Itori’s hands came down to his hips to move him back, allowing Will’s softening cock to slide out of his slit.

“It is what I told you I would not do. Something I should not even ask of you.”

Butterflies the size of turtles moved in Will’s stomach. He had an idea of what Itori was hinting at, but dared not speak it aloud in case he was wrong.

“What is it?”

Itori touched his shoulders, then traced down the rope of the necklace to the pearl. He thumbed over it thoughtfully.

Will’s nerves clumped together. “Just tell me,” Will said. “It’s okay.”

“The bond.”

His heart squeezed. “You said…” He trailed off, unsure.

“I did,” Itori said. His luminous eyes turned away from Will, like he was ashamed. “But there are no choices left. No time. The energy we need… there is one last way to get it.”

“The bond?” Will asked.

Itori nodded. “A bond is the purest form of creation energy. It can make anything, even a new vein to a spring.”

“That’s–that’s great!”

“It would be. But it requires a high price,” Itori said. He still wasn’t looking at Will.

“Okay,” Will said slowly, trying not to get swept away by the idea that they could save Itori. “If it could help you… I mean, I would do it.”

Itori’s face did something then that Will didn’t understand. “You do not know what I am asking. The bond would… change you.”

“Change me how?” Will asked.

Itori was silent for a long moment, then started picking his way through the words carefully. “The bond creates a permanent tether. We feel what each other feels, for the rest of life. Your energy is my energy; my life is your life. My death is your death.”

The back of Will’s neck prickled. “So if you died…?”

“You would die.”

That sat heavy between them. He understood now why it had been off the table.

“How can I ask that of you?” Itori said. His hand came to thumb over Will’s cheeks. “How could I take your life?”

“I would give it,” Will said, too quickly.

“Willowtree,” Itori said. He looked away again, his eyes lost on the far distance. “It is not only that. You are human. To my knowledge, my kind has never bonded with a human. I… can guess what the creation energy would to do equalize us, but I cannot be sure.”

“Equalize us? You said it tethers us. Do you mean like, physical change?”