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“I know.” Fane ground his teeth, his jaw working back and forth as he thought. “I’ll do what I have to.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I asked as a streak of panic sliced at my heart.
Fane shrugged. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”
ChapterThirty-Six
I wokeup in Fane’s bed, his warm fire and autumn spice scent all around me. Someone—hopefully the demon shifter—had cleaned all the blood off me and changed me into one of his t-shirts.
Wanting Fane Maverick to be the one to take care of me when I was naked and vulnerable was weird, but I didn’t trust anyone else.
Damn it. When did I start trusting this prick again?
The man in question leaned against one of the windows, the sun setting behind him and coating him in a warm glow. Last time I woke up and found him propped against the wall next to a window, he’d been looking out into the night in the Underworld. Now, his gaze remained on me, heavy with a tempest of emotions I couldn’t decipher.
Except for the worry. I could feel that through our link like it was too big for him to block.
“How long have I been out?” I asked, struggling into a sitting position, pain ricocheting through every damn cell in my body. When Fane pushed off the wall, I shook my head. “Don’t even think about it, Maverick. You’ve already taken enough.” Even darker circles now bruised beneath his eyes, and his cheeks looked hollow. Had he eaten or slept at all?
He grimaced as he folded onto the side of the bed, his hip pushing against my thigh. “It’s been almost twenty-four hours since you fought those agrigons.” He curled his hands into fists like he wanted to demolish something. Anything. “Almost twenty-four hours since I watched those demons nearly rip your soul out.”
“Yeah, that wasn’t fun.” I winced and rubbed my chest, but something about the pang that just hit me seemed—different. When my head lifted, I caught Fane watching me.
The pain had come from him, an emotional kind that wanted to rip his insides apart.
This relentless bond refused to stop growing. Before long, Fane wouldn’t be able to keep me out, and I wasn’t sure if that frightened or excited me.
A memory wormed through my complicated thoughts, and I recalled how Fane’s ghostly form slowly faded to nothing after I’d regained some of my strength. “What happened to you in the forest?”
He gave a nonchalant shrug. “I went back to my body to haul ass here.”
“But you faded out just like you had in Ruin’s lab when Venna’s demons broke in to grab me.” I massaged the center of my forehead, trying to push away the fog in my brain and focus. “Both times, I was so weak I could hardly move, and then, like my battery had been charged, strength flowed through my muscles, and I could fight again.”
The sun reflected off the demon shifter’s eyes, making them glow as he stared toward the window again. “I don’t know what you—”
I grabbed his chin and forced him to look at me. “Cut the bullshit, Fane. This bond has come with some strange side effects. As much as you want to stay closed off from me, this involves both of us. We’re in it together, and there’s no point in lying to me.”
He pried my hand off and gently laid it on my leg, his lips flattening as if trying to keep the words from spewing out. “I’m not really sure how it happened or how I knew to do it.” His throat bobbed as he swallowed hard. “I somehow willed you my strength.”
“You gave me your strength?”
He dragged his fingers through his hair and nodded. “It depleted my energy, so I couldn’t maintain my astral form, and I fell back into my body.”
I’d suspected something like that but saying it out loud made it too real. How much more would this bond grow?
“I don’t know,” Fane said, answering my question even though I hadn’t meant to project it into his mind. “Maybe Cirilla will have answers for us when we return to her cabin in a few days.”
Right. Our next visit with the elder wolf was approaching. If Cirilla couldn’t figure this out, then what? Was it a demon thing? Would we need to find a powerful demon that we could trust?
Could Ruin help?
My pulse spiked at the thought of letting others in on our secret, even Ruin. We didn’t know what this bond was, and if the wrong person found out, they could use us against each other.
I cleared my throat and changed the subject before I broke out in a cold sweat from panic. “Did you speak to Ruin about the demons?”
“He wasn’t happy.” Fane dragged a hand down his face and sighed. “Ruin, of course, doesn’t believe the missing shifters are linked to any demons, but he was definitely pissed that some have been slinking into Mohan Wilds.”
Ruin’s cold, icy anger wasn’t something I’d like to be on the receiving end of. When he almost killed Denton for keeping me in a cell, the demon lord didn’t even raise his voice, and he still evoked enough fear that my body shook.
