Page 39 of Eternal Storm
He watches me, his eyes doing the thing where they see through every wall I try to build.
“Whatever you’ve been turning over in your head since Ruby’s story, ask me,” he says. “I’d rather hear it from you than watch you spiral.”
“I already asked you on the ship.” I pull my knees up onto the bed and wrap my arms around them. “I told you a blood bond wasn’t going to make a difference.”
“And now?” The guarded pain in his eyes is so heartbreaking I can barely breathe.
“Now I just sat across from a girl who spent weeks thinking she was so in love with a vampire that she chose him over her fated mate.” My electricity crackles against the quilt, and I press my palms flat to stop it. “I can’t get her face when she talked about not being able to trust her own feelings out of my head.”
He’s quiet. The wards hum outside the window, a dog barks in the distance, and the normalcy of it makes everything inside this room feel more wrong than it already is.
“You’re not Ruby,” he finally says.
“I know I’m not Ruby.”
“And I’m not Tristan. He used an enchanted necklace on top of the blood bond. He manipulated her attraction from multiple angles. I’ve never—”
“I know.” My throat tightens. “I know the situations are different. I know I loved you before you ever bit me, and I chose to be okay with it.”
“Then what changed?”
“Ruby made it real.” The words come out quieter than I intended. “I watched her describe what it feels like from the inside, and all I could think was, what if that’s me?”
Logan doesn’t answer immediately, and the fact that he doesn’t rush to reassure me makes it worse. Because Logan always has an answer. Logan has contingencies for his contingencies, and a time travel safety net that means he’s never caught off guard.
The silence is going to eat me alive if I don’t fill it.
“I knew what you were when I let you bite me,” I finally say. “I knew about the blood bond being a risk.”
“You did,” he says carefully.
“And ever since you fed from me, I’ve been weirdly okay. I lied to a star touched champion, ate mediocre pizza in a kitchen with people who would kill you if they knew the truth about you, and I handled all of it with an ease that should scare me.”
Logan crosses the room and sits on the edge of the bed. He doesn’t touch me, and the gap where his hand should be feels like the loudest thing in the room.
“What if the reason I’ve been so steady since the ship isn’t because I’m brave?” I continue, my electricity dying against the quilt. “What if it’s because you fed from me right after I found out what you are, and the bond is holding me together?”
He looks at the floor, and his hand presses against the rings at his neck, as if my words are daggers in his soul. Although I suppose his soul isn’t inside him now—it’s in those stupid rings—which is why he’s clutching them like a lifeline.
“I won’t feed from you again,” he says, and his voice is raw in a way I’ve only heard in the black fire pocket on the ship, when he told me he couldn’t promise he’d love me without the ankar token. “I’ll find another way.”
“What other way?” I snap. “Callie’s gone, and you can’t exactly ask Connor to bring you one of his shifters so they can open a vein for the friendly neighborhood Revenant.”
“Then I’ll go without.”
“For how long?” I hold his gaze. “You told me on the ship that you need supernatural blood. That human blood and animal blood are temporary fixes. So, what happens when the temporary runs out and you’re trapped inside a wolf sanctuary with no source?”
He doesn’t answer, which tells me everything I need to know about how bad that scenario would be.
“I don’t want you to stop,” I tell him. “I couldn’t live with myself knowing I have what you need and refuse to give it to you. It would break me faster than any bond.”
His eyes come up to meet mine, and the love in them nearly breaks me right here.
“But I need you to understand that I’m scared.” My throat is so tight that the words barely make it through. “I’m scared that I’m handling this too well. I’m scared my calm might not be mine. I’m scared because Ruby was sure about Tristan, and she didn’t figure out the difference until the bond faded and everything she thought was true turned out to be lies built on magic.”
“She was sure because of the enspelled necklace,” he reminds me. “Not because of the bond.”
“That doesn’t—“
