A Thousand Shades Of Black

Chapter Nine – Losing the Battle

Alia woke to the glittery light of her night vision and blinked sleepily. She rolled herself off the bed and dropped lightly to the floor. Her leg was already nearly healed and she flexed it gingerly, testing it. Riddick was asleep in a chair by her bed, head lolling and body contorted into an unnatural angle. He looked horribly uncomfortable but had a cat’s ability to sleep in any position.

Kyra was snoring slightly from the bed next to hers and Alia took the moment to stare hungrily at Riddick without anyone there to observe it. There was something so breathtakingly beautiful about him. The animal grace, the chiseled body, the lurking sense of his intelligence that he tried so hard to hide … they added up to something that twisted her all up inside every time she let herself think about it. She tried hard not to think about it, but it was getting more and more difficult.

Her mother’s words were nibbling at the back of her mind. Was she doing herself a disservice in resisting him? Watching him sleep, she thought that maybe she was but the fear was there as well. What if she let him in, what if they grew as close as the bond supposedly allowed, what if something happened? She brought her thoughts up short there and moved feather-light to the door. She slipped out into the hallway and quickly rubbed her hands across her eyes. She was tired. The wetness in her eyes was from exhaustion, that was all. Maybe if she told herself that enough times, she might believe it.

“Sturm!” She turned her head and saw Vaako hurrying along with what looked like a small crowd of people behind him.

“Miss Sturm!” Ziza was barreling towards her and Alia braced for impact, plucking the child from the air and catching her up into a fierce hug. At that moment she didn’t care who saw her moment of weakness, she was so damn glad that the child was safe. She buried her face in Ziza’s dark kinked hair, smelling the dank of the catacombs, the blood, smoke and fear, and smelling the live warm scent of little girl under it all.

“Vaako.” She acknowledged the former Necromonger with a nod and he bowed formally to her. Lajjun was leaning wearily on Freet, or maybe they were supporting each other and the others just looked shell-shocked and sort of lost.

“Is everyone okay?” Vaako asked tentatively and Alia nodded.

“Riddick and Kyra are sleeping.” She watched as the faces around her relaxed and thought about the first time she had met Riddick. She wondered how they had both gone from wanted felons to society’s top citizens. It was a dizzying shift and she felt a trifle light-headed at the thought. Of course, that could also be the blood loss.

“Not anymore.” The gravelly voice made her bleed inside but she hid her reaction behind the cool façade that had always served her so well.

“Riddick!” Ziza launched herself from Alia’s arms at him and he caught her with his usual dexterous grace, settling her on his hip with a wry expression.

“I see you survived.” He made it sound like he was disappointed, but his lips were twitching and he hadn’t let her go either. She wrapped her arms around his neck and clung limpet-like to him. Lajjun looked torn between laughter and embarrassment and Kyra, still mussed from sleep, appeared behind him in the doorway with an expression of exasperated amusement.

“She’s worse than I was,” Kyra grumbled.

“What’s with the past tense?” Riddick growled at her and Kyra opened her mouth to argue before she stopped and stared at him in shock.

“Did you just tease me?” She made it sound like a milestone in human evolution and Alia had to clamp her jaw down on a burgeoning laugh. Riddick gave her a blank goggled stare that gave nothing away but Kyra was jumping up and down excitedly. “Vaako! Did you hear that? Riddick teased me!” Vaako looked at her rather tiredly and shook his head at her.

“Where do you get your energy?” His voice was as ragged as his clothing and he smelled awful and looked worse.

“Seventeen,” Riddick griped and Alia nodded in complete sympathy.

“I vaguely remember seventeen. That was before everything hurt so damn much,” she drawled the words lazily and Kyra now stared at her.

“Was that a joke?” The younger woman shook her head in wonderment. “I didn’t know you had a sense of humor.”

“I don’t,” Alia deadpanned and Kyra grinned at her.

“Now that’s more like it. I don’t know how to deal with you when you show human emotion.” Alia was tempted to stick her tongue out at the brat but couldn’t find the energy to do it.

“Rest, bath, food,” Lajjun chanted and they all nodded gravely at her.

“Let’s go home,” Riddick ground out wearily and led the way from the hospital. Alia wondered if he had even heard what he’d said. Lajjun sure did, because she was looking at him and smiling with a strange sort of shy happiness as though he had complimented her on her dress.

They went home.

Kyra sat and stared at the table and then picked up a fork and dug into the meal. Lajjun was a terrific cook and the exotic and delicious dishes that the dark-skinned woman placed before her were filling all of Kyra’s scrawny thinness out.

It had been two weeks since the invasion had been stopped and Kyra was slowly getting used to the idea of living in a house again, but it was hard.

She missed Imam. Sitting in his home and watching his wife and daughter made the ache in her heart seem overwhelming. She had run away and he had died. There was no connection to the two events, not really, just the one in her heart. If she had been there, could she have changed anything? Could she have made a difference?

Something that started out almost sweet turned hot in her mouth as she chewed and she gulped down some water hastily. She glanced around the table at her strange little clan in bemusement. How did they get here, why were they still here?

Riddick ate as though the food were tasteless, chewing and swallowing without much attention paid. Vaako ate like he was starving and was barely restrained by good manners. Freet ate with dainty precision, as though she were at some formal meal. Sturm – well, Sturm ate without a wasted movement, as quick and precise with a fork as she was with a knife. Joisa and the other Necros ate rather humbly as if they felt that they didn’t deserve the food. McCauley shoveled food in as though it were going to run away from him at any minute. The children fell on the food, but kept one eye on the adults, trying to get away with mischief without being caught.

Kyra noted who looked at whom and found it interesting that Sturm and Riddick never looked at each other. The table was a bustle of eating and conversation and somehow their eyes never once turned in each other’s direction. Kyra found it very interesting indeed.

She followed Riddick after dinner, catching up with him as he was heading out to walk the streets. He had taken up the habit of patrolling for a few hours, making sure everyone was all right. Sturm said it was because he didn’t want to be part of the nightly routine of getting three children to bed. Bali and Tannin, the neighbor children Sturm had rescued, had simply been moved into the house with them and made part of the strange family that was building itself around Riddick.

She swung into step with him, content at first to just be in his presence. Finally her curiosity began to eat at her and she decided to beard the lion.

“So what’s going on between you and Sturm?” she asked casually, pretending the answer wasn’t important. Riddick tensed a little beside her and was silent for a long time. Just as she thought he had decided not to answer, his low raspy voice startled her.

“Nothing.” He sounded a little strange as he said it and it took all her willpower not to stare at him. Kyra had never heard him sound uncertain about anything in his life but right now that was exactly how he sounded.

“Why not?” she asked, pressing her luck.

“Simple question, complicated answer,” he retorted, sounding more like his usual self, i.e. pissed off and dangerous.

“I’ve got no nowhere special to go,” she pointed out with a small smile tugging at her lips. He shot her an irritated look and she figured he wasn’t going to tell her.

“I was thinking about things in the hospital. I was thinking about Carolyn.” The non sequitur took her aback and she stumbled a little. Lightning-quick, Riddick’s hand was at her elbow, keeping her steady.

“I have tried not to think about her,” Kyra replied and it was true. Thinking about Fry had hurt too much, so she hadn’t done it. She had learned to bend her mind around the painful thoughts; a mental contortionist, that was her. The time spent in the Underverse already seemed dream-like and distant.

“I think about her a lot,” Riddick murmured it, his deep rumbling rasp a comforting sound in her ear. “She challenged me to rejoin the human race, you know.” Kyra was shocked still inside herself as she listened. Her body kept walking beside Riddick but her mind was reeling as she grasped what he was saying. “I told her that I wouldn’t know how to.” He shook his head and Kyra glanced fleetingly at his profile. He looked as though he had been chiseled from granite but for the first time Kyra could see the aching loneliness in him.

“I think you’re doing pretty good.” Kyra didn’t know why the need to encourage him had come over her but there it was; she was feeling all cheerleader-like of a sudden. “You haven’t ditched anyone in years.” He looked at her and she gave him a smile, letting him see that she was teasing and he turned back to his patrol

“Give it time, you get annoying real fast.” He growled it out, but his heart wasn’t in it. She could see the complete lack of real animosity and she grinned happily.

“You like me, admit it! Hell, you brought me back from the dead. That has to mean something.” She poked him in the ribs, feeling light and joyous, and he grunted and batted her fingers away.

“You asked about Alia.” He returned her to the subject, deftly dodging a confession of his feelings one way or another. Kyra didn’t care, she knew the truth, that he loved her as much as she loved him. Her big dangerous murderer of a brother had risked everything for her on multiple occasions and that spoke volumes to her.

“Yeah, I did,” she agreed amicably, content in that moment to just have the warm knowledge in her heart.

“Furyans mate for life you see.” It took her a while to wrap her head around that thought and then two and two kind of slotted together.

“You’re not ready to settle down for the long haul, is that it?” she asked, twisting her head up to look at him. He seemed conflicted as he strode, his face twisting as he tried to put words to what he was feeling.

“Mating means more to us than just marriage, Kyra, at least for an Alpha. It’s a real joining – mind, heart, soul all bound up in each other and you can never get free of it.” His face was shifting through the gamut of his mixed emotions: regret and longing, but also anger and stubborn denial chased each other and Kyra realized that he was seriously tempted.

What must it be like for the eternal loner, the man who never had family, friends, love, caring – any of the things most people take for granted – to have the promise of eternal companionship dangled in front of him? To have it dangled in the form of an attractive, deadly predator who was so much like him, must be an even greater temptation. Yet also the fear must be overwhelming. To want the exact opposite of everything he had always been and yet to be afraid to reach for it. Kyra wasn’t sure she could handle having someone in her head all the time, no matter how much she loved them.

She could see how it would tear a person apart and not just him. Sturm was controlled, so perfectly able to drop the walls down between you and her. Sturm lived all her life withdrawn from everyone, stolid, stoic and untouchable. To let someone, anyone, inside that fortress must be a terrifying experience. Yet Kyra could also see how tempting it would be to have at least one person she could open up too in complete safety.

If anyone needed someone in her heart and head, it was Sturm. She was the most alone person Kyra had ever known.

“Poor Sturm.” She realized that she had said it aloud and his enquiring eyebrow encouraged her to continue. “Well, she works so hard to keep us all out, yet it’s plain she wishes there were someone she could let inside. I just feel sorry for her. You have me to talk to, but who does she have?” Riddick stopped and looked at her with an expression of surprise on his face.

“I doubt that she needs anybody, Kyra,” Riddick laughed and she shook her head.

“I think you’re wrong. I think she needs lots of things, but that she is too proud to ask for them.” Kyra tried to think of a single time that Sturm had ever asked for anything and couldn’t think of even one instance.

“Well, I don’t think she needs me.” Riddick was frowning as he spoke and it occurred to her that maybe he was sorry about that.

“I think you’re wrong again there.” She turned and met his glance with a thoughtful look of her own. “I think the more she needs something the less likely she is to actually ask for it. I think she needs you more than anything but will never allow herself to look weak by asking.” Riddick stood still in the evening light, mulling over her words and Kyra waited patiently as he thought. When he spoke again his voice was amused and wondering at the same time.

“When did you grow up, Jack?” The childhood name had lost the power to wound her when he had come back to get her from death. She grinned at him lopsidedly.

“While you were busy playing tag with the big ugly beasties on Planet UV?” she answered him and for the first time in a long time, she heard Riddick roar with laughter.

Alia propped her feet on the balcony railing and looked out over the city. Two weeks had passed since the invasion and she was growing antsy. The urge to be about things, to get to Furya and deal with the problem of the un-warded gates was gnawing at the back of her mind. At the same time, the need to take care of this growing group of dependants was also there. Neither she nor Riddick could just up and leave, as was their usual habit.

She liked her room – the huge four-poster bed with its white cotton sheets and mosquito netting, the cool tile floor with the scattered rugs, the balcony that opened onto the night – this was probably the best place that she had ever lived but she was restless and feeling a little caged by her responsibilities.

The city was devastated, the food was growing scarce and Lajjun couldn’t manage three small, highly traumatized children on her own. For the first time in years, Alia had to think about someone’s needs beyond her own. She used to consider Kava as well, but her baby sister had been easy to care for. Kava had been … Alia sighed and shifted in her chair, running a hand through her hair.

Best not to think about Kava too much right now. She had miles to go before she could rest. She had people who depended on her to function right now and there was no room for her personal weakness.

“Alia?” Riddick’s low rumble alerted her to his presence in the doorway and she turned her head back to acknowledge him. He stalked into the room, a large tiger in too small a cage and she stayed still. There was something there, some new tension in him that she couldn’t read and it made her uneasy. He seemed as restless as she was and it was sparking something low in her belly.

“Riddick?” She moistened her lips and got the name out without a tremor, just questioning and she thought it a major milestone that she hadn’t choked on her own conflicted emotions.

He was somehow standing right behind her, still in the shadows and she felt curiously vulnerable in her relaxed pose. She had never felt quite as uncomfortable in his company before. Something was crackling under his flesh and she hated how it made her feel.

“You remember that conversation we had once on the Basilica?” Remember? How could she forget, every word was sliced into her mind with painful daggers of memory.

“Yes.” She had to struggle to get the word out and cursed herself for her weakness.

“You still afraid?” His waist was at her shoulder, she could lean her head back and be resting against him, but she kept herself from succumbing to that temptation. His scent was clogging her throat and slowing her ability to think. Was she still afraid? Not like she had been, no, but that other fear was still there and it haunted her.

“Yes, but not for the same reasons.” As always, she answered him truthfully. She never seemed able to lie or even evade the truth with him. It was his scent, she decided; it left her unsteady and off-balance and she just blurted the truth.

He walked around her and grabbed a stool. He settled onto it and leaned forward, resting his chin on his fists.

“Talk,” he commanded and Alia wriggled uncomfortably in her chair. Where to begin, she thought, because not answering was not an option.

“My father was Otoran Sturm. He was an Alpha, like you.” Start at the beginning, Kipling had said, and so she did. Riddick nodded; he knew that already. “My mother Delia was a Void Walker like myself, though I suspect that I am much better at it than she was.” Not arrogance there, just a quiet deduction based on the evidence of her childhood.

“They mated,” he growled and her pulse quickened, damn him and his voice, how was she supposed to think?

“Yes,” she acknowledged. “Then he died.” She turned her eyes from the darkening sky and looked at Riddick. He had pulled the goggles off and his eye shine was muted in the half-light.

“Your mother started drinking,” he prompted after she had been silent for too long and she nodded jerkily.

“Drinking, drugs, men – anything to ease the pain.” A deep breath as she saw the compassion ripple across his features. “She was devastated by the destruction of the bond. She was broken by the loss of it. She had my sister when I was fifteen. She was raped by a doctor in the rehab clinic she had been sentenced to stay at.” The bitterness was back, the buried pain and the memories.

“I’m sorry.” He said it so softly that she almost didn’t hear it and she shrugged.

“Not your fault.” It was all so long ago, yet it still had the power to wound her.

“So you’re afraid that we would bond and I would die and what happened to your mother would happen to you?” he asked finally, cutting to the heart of the matter. She laughed sharply, a broken sound that made him wince.

“No, Riddick, that’s not what I am afraid of.” He looked at her in surprise.

“So what is it?” It took every bit of her courage to get the words out.

“I am afraid I would die and it would happen to you.” He sat back hard, looking at her with eyes wide.

“You’re afraid for me?” He sounded incredulous, as though the notion was so ludicrous that he couldn’t quite grasp it. “You are worried that you would die on me?”

“You’re a far better fighter than I am, Riddick, you are far less likely to be killed than I am. I am a thief, not a warrior.” He was looking at her with his eyes gone flat and unreadable and then he was off of the stool and pacing, all tiger again. “I saw what it did to you when you thought Kyra was gone. I don’t want to be a chink in your armor.”

“You’re trying to protect me.” There was this wonderment in his voice and she was baffled by it. She swung her legs off of the balcony railing and got up to follow him into the room. Hadn’t he seen how she had always been trying to protect him?

“Yes,” she answered him, still confused by his reaction. He spun on his heel suddenly and grabbed her arm, yanking her hard up against him. She was reminded rather forcefully of how strong he was, how he topped her height by a good five inches, of how very good he smelled.

“What makes you think I need protection?” His voice was rough, almost angry, and she felt a little flutter of apprehension. Her mouth dropped open as she tried to figure out how to speak again. “You are sacrificing what you want for what you think might happen to me years down the line.” She had never really thought it through that clearly she realized, the instinct to defend him was just hardwired into her. “What if I want that chink in my armor?” His arm circled her waist and pinned her against him.

“I…” she stuttered, bewildered by his words, and feeling shaky and off-balance. He dipped his head down and breathed her scent in deeply, his lips just inches from her throat. Her ability to cogitate rationally went right out the window and she found that she was trembling.

“In case you hadn’t noticed, I can take care of myself.” She was pressed so close to him she could feel his words rumbling against her sternum and knew that she was losing the fight rather quickly. She really wasn’t sure that she wanted to win this battle, but the heat he was generating in her was fighting against the cold fear in her belly.

“I don’t think I could stand hurting you,” she admitted softly and his eyes came up to meet hers.

“You can’t stop that. One way or the other, someone always gets hurt.” His eyes were serious but there was also a raging fire in them that was doing nothing for her equanimity. “The question is how do the odds stack up? Does the good outweigh the bad?” With him holding her against him, one hand all he needed to keep her pinned and immobile, she couldn’t really think of anything bad about the situation. Her mother’s devastated face was quickly being overlaid by the pleas from the visitation.

“I don’t know. I’ve never had anything good before.” It was true, she realized. Kava had been the only person she had ever cared for and the terrible failure of her loss had come to overshadow the happy memories. Kava had been a dependant, not an equal; a half-blooded Furyan whose frailty had weakened Alia. Riddick made her stronger. She could feel that in her bones.

“Me neither.” He rubbed his face lightly against hers, soft stubble roughing her skin. “Isn’t it about time that we got something good then?” he rumbled in her ear, sending fingers of electricity across her skin. She leaned into him finally, letting herself relax into his embrace as she had when she had gone out to see the energy patterns of the alien ship. It felt so very good to let go of even a little of her wariness. “Can’t we just have what we want and fuck the consequences?”

“I guess.” She smiled against his chest, amused by how inexperienced they both were at all of this. When had she become shy? His heartbeat beneath her ear was steady and strong and she could feel her own heart trying to match his rhythm.

“Aereon and Shirah keep telling me that I have this destiny, that I have these things that I have to do.” She nodded and let her arms slip around his waist. It was strangely comforting to lean against him, she felt as though she were sinking into a warm safe place. She was burning with passion for him but also feeling peaceful and relaxed – it was a strange sensation. “If I have to save the damn universe then shouldn’t I get something good for it?” There was almost an angry tone in his voice, as though he was still resisting the whole idea.

“Yeah, I think you should,” she chuckled at him. The irritated look on his face was as dear to her as another man’s smile would be.

“So, what I want as my reward is you. All of you.” She drew in a sharp breath in surprise and pulled back a little to look at him. She wasn’t quite sure that she was really hearing him correctly. The reality of what they were discussing, what it would mean sent her thoughts reeling drunkenly away from her. “Don’t you want me, Alia?” Her long silence had cracked his cool and there was just Riddick, looking at her with his heart in his eyes and Alia lost the battle right there and then.

Riddick saw her eyes soften and her hand came up to cup his face. The terrible tension of the last few moments fell away and he felt shaken and unsure.

“Yes,” she murmured and he growled as some very primitive part of his brain registered his triumph. Those silver flecked black eyes were open and vulnerable and her lips were gently parted and he knew that it was all his. It had taken three years but he had finally found the softness in her.

He kissed her and the length of time he had gone without might have had something to do with how damn good it felt but he doubted it. Her arms twined around his neck, her body molded itself to his and he was quickly lost in the sensations she was invoking in him. She was more slender than she looked. His hands spanned her waist easily and she seemed suddenly fragile and rather precious.

He was usually one to take a woman hard and fast, but right then he had no such urge. His heart hurt a little as she returned the kiss and he wasn’t at all sure what he was feeling. He just knew that he was being given something valuable and was rather humbled by the thought.
He tried to remember the last time he had held a woman who wasn’t being paid to be there. Alia tilted her hips against his groin and all thought receded to a distant background noise. He growled and ran his mouth along her jaw line nipping at the flesh. He had learned a long time ago to control the animal in him, but Alia’s answering growl came as a happy surprise.

So much for gentle, he thought as she began clawing at his clothes. He had never met another Furyan before, let alone had sex with one, and he was discovering that it made a difference. She sank her teeth into his throat and the burst of pleasure that rocketed through him as he realized that he didn’t have to hold back with her had him almost coming in his pants.

He reached down and picked her up, then walked over to the bed and tossed her onto it. She rolled to all fours and eyed him much the way the Crematoria Hellhounds had, like she was trying to decide where to start chewing on him. It was the sexiest damn thing he had ever seen. Her eyes glowed in the darkness and her black clothes against the white sheets made her seem like a panther, lean and dangerous.

He crawled onto the bed, moving towards her and she lunged for him, her arms going around him and their mouths fusing. She pulled him down on top of her and he was drowning in the taste of her mouth, the scent of her arousal, the sound of her panting breath as they broke apart and he began tearing at her clothes, trying to get to her warm flesh.

He felt a slight coldness along his back and he realized that she had drawn a knife from somewhere and was busily slicing him out of his own clothes. Ever practical – that was his woman, he thought with a grin. His woman. He liked the way that sounded.

He had never let anyone get a blade that close to his body before without being afraid that they would stick it in him but her expression of eager anticipation had to do with an altogether different intent.

Being able to trust, to relax into touching and being touched without fear or reservation was intoxicating and he stripped the last of her tank top away from her flesh and dropped his mouth down onto her breast with a hungry sigh. God, she tasted good; her skin had that same apples and cinnamon flavor as her scent. He could spend a lifetime just drinking in her fragrance and tasting her flesh.

She tossed his shirt to one side and then muttered something.

“Hmm?” He raised her head and she grinned at him.

“Boots. Off. Now.” she commanded and he pulled off of her, chuckling, and obeyed. The heavy clunk of their boots hitting the floor made him grin back at her with a feral gaze. She set the knife on the bedside table and returned to his arms. He ran his hands along her side, over her waist and hips, tugging the black fatigues down with his thumbs.

A few minutes later they had managed to get rid of all the offensive barriers between their bodies and were stretched out, wrapped around each other like vines. Her mouth and hands roamed restlessly over him and he found that he too couldn’t seem to get enough of just touching her.

He was harder than he ever remembered being in his life and desperate to just plunge into her. He tried to pull back, catch his breath and slow it down, but she snarled at him like the panther she so closely resembled and he found that feral grin on his face again.

His fingers confirmed her readiness and he pushed her legs apart and set the head of his penis at her opening. She didn’t wait for him, thrusting her hips up to meet him and sheathing him in one quick stroke. He groaned in pleasure, knowing that he would have to ride the ragged edge of his control if he wanted this to last. She fit him perfectly, as though she had been formed just for him, and he was utterly lost in the incredible sensations that coursed through him.

She was moaning and he forced himself to pay attention to her pleasure, to slow his thrusts and keep himself in check. She was heavy-lidded and glistening with sweat beneath him and the sight was driving him mad. There was a creeping sensation in the base of his balls that suddenly exploded as she arched beneath him and he realized that he was catching the echo of her orgasm. It was enough to tilt him over the edge and her wide-eyed gasp of pleasure echoed his own. He knew then that the bond had started to form.

They lay stunned, wrapped around each other, his now relaxed member still inside of her. There were echoes in his mind – the feeling that he was seeing and hearing things twice and he stared into her suddenly troubled eyes, feeling the faint taste of her distress.

“Shh, it’s okay Alia.” He stroked her hair letting his wonderment and joy flood him and she burrowed against him burying her face in his shoulder. She was clinging to him and he could feel her fighting her own fears and instincts. She was as much a loner as he was and he didn’t know why this was so much harder on her. Her earlier words came back to him and he nuzzled her neck. “It’s okay, baby,” he repeated and she snorted.

“No one calls me baby.” She bit down hard on his earlobe and he chuckled as her throaty voice thrummed through him.

“Right, note to self: never call Alia ‘baby.’ I’ll keep that in mind.” Her laughter dispelled her fear and he found that underneath it was this incredible sweetness. He was astounded by how much compassion and caring was hidden at the core of her, behind all the walls and defenses. “What do you prefer?” he asked suddenly; he could feel something in there that sounded like a nickname, but he couldn’t hear it.

“My mother and sister called me ’Li.’” She shrugged and he nodded, suddenly sobered. The name reverberated in her with echoes of pain and joy and he stroked her hair from her face.

“Li.” She shivered beneath him as he imbued the word with everything he couldn’t say. He didn’t have to say anything anymore he realized, as she would always know. He felt a tiny stab of panic as he began to grasp what they had done here. Now it was her turn to comfort him and she held him tight.

“Shh, it’s okay, love, it’s okay.” He felt that warm compassion wrapping him up and he relaxed into it. He pulled himself free from her and then settled back on the bed, pulling her half on top of him, where she lay sprawled and boneless.

A memory tugged at him and he recalled their earlier conversation, the way her hand had glowed as she explained the bond.

“How come we didn’t glow?” he asked suddenly and she buried her face against his neck. Her voice came out muffled as she spoke.

“Because it had already started, we were already halfway there.” He knew that, he realized, had known it for ages; he’d just been unwilling to think about it. He’d belonged to her since the beginning and she had always been his.

He fell asleep with her against him and could feel her sliding into sleep beside him