Page 96 of The Bonds of Indigo

“None of this is your fault.” I cut in gently. “It’s mine. I should’ve been more careful. I shouldn’t have been an asshole back in my cell. All of this could’ve been avoided if I⁠—”

“Stop.” His voice is a warning—low, frayed, and dangerous in a way that has nothing to do with violence and everything to do with emotion.

I don’t stop, because as painful as this is, it has to be said. “I should’ve told you to seek out another. My kind hide in the most populated Mundane spaces. You could have found someone else, gone on this weird road trip without me, opened the gate, and gotten to him.”

His chest expands with a long breath, his drenched shirt clinging to every carved line of muscle beneath it. Gods, what I wouldn’t give to see all of him like this without the ache of guilt twisting in my ribs. He’s infuriating and arrogant and impossible… but he’s also perfect.

I wish I were weak enough to take him.

“You heard, then?” he asks.

I nod.

That, more than anything, is why I’m sorry for the bond. Not because he can sense, hear, or feel me. But because it’s made him question himself. Question what he wants. When he already has someone he is literally willing to cross realms for.

How many people would do that? Go into the Beyond for someone they love? Not many… Definitely not for me.

Heat stings my eyes, but I refuse to let my smile fall. I keep it there, steady, even as something in my chest feels like it’s unraveling thread by thread.

“Yes,” he says softly. “I’m asking you to open the gates so that I can go and get the man who left me hundreds of years ago. But that doesn’t take away from⁠—”

“From what, Butcher?”

“Stop calling me that,” he grits out. “You know my name.”

“I do, but I don’t want to fight. I’m hoping that now we’ve both cleared up our very first question for one another, we can move on. Maybe…” I swallow. “Maybe be friends?”

He shakes his head slowly, bewildered. “What is happening?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all…” I step to him and extend my hand out toward him. “Let’s be friends. My name’s—” “Amarah.”

“Gods, that is so strange.”

“—and I’ve learned how to open the gates to help you so you can get him back.”

“You… have?”

I nod. “Thornwyn showed me.”

His gaze drops to my hand, and it isn’t just the look in his eyes that tells me I’ve given and taken too much from him at once. It’s the bond—vibrating, unsettled, like it’s fraying and tightening all at the same time. Gods, I wish it would stop.

He reaches for my hand and takes it.

“I’m…” He hesitates, fingers tightening around mine. I watch his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows. “Not okay with this.”

“Strange name,” I murmur, “but if you’d prefer me to⁠—”

“Just stop.” He drags in a sharp, frustrated breath. “Luce left me, and I thought it was because he was done with me. But now I’m thinking that maybe… maybe that wasn’t it. Maybe he’s in trouble.”

My heart tries to climb up my throat, and I force it back down. Just keep myself steady and stay calm.

“And I’m going to help you get to him,” I say softly. “That was the promise I made to you.”

He tugs me closer and I don’t have time to brace myself; I’m pulled until we’re only inches apart. My head tilts back to keep him in view, and though I keep my expression perfectly neutral, my skin tingles just from the nearness. I haven’t felt like this in seven years, and I didn’t think I ever would again.

“Amarah…”

“Yes?” I ask, barely above a whisper.