Chapter 14
fourteen
Kaiden
I held my breath all the way to the kitchen.
I felt her irritation and expected it, but I wasn’t sure if it would lead to another chase across the parking lot.
I fucking hoped not. It wasn’t a lie that I hated running first thing after waking, especially today.
My heart got enough of a workout when I woke to find my bond missing from my bed.
Eryn sat silent at the large island, looking sexy as fuck in my shirt.
Her emerald eyes tracked my every movement as I gathered the ingredients to make breakfast. I wasn’t trying to show off, but I made a mean omelet, among other things.
Cooking wasn’t too different from preparing a spell, and I was proficient at both.
Once the cheese melted enough, I folded the egg over the ham and peppers, slid it onto a plate, and set it before the enchanting woman still glaring at me.
Her eyes widened at the sight of my latest masterpiece, and her stomach grumbled its demand that she dig in.
I chuckled at her expression—a mixture of hunger and stubborn denial—and added a tall glass of water next to the plate.
“Eat up,” I said. “We have a lot to figure out.”
“It’s huge.” Her scowl was adorable, more of a pout in my opinion, but I didn’t voice that out loud. My smirk only fueled her irritation, and she dug in before I could play off her words. “Shut up.”
“You’ve had nothing but antidote in your stomach for twenty-four hours. You have to be starving.”
She didn’t deny it. She also didn’t say anything about how awesome the omelet tasted, but that was okay.
I knew it was. I went to work on my own breakfast, and finished before she even made it halfway through hers.
Pushing the plate away, she leaned back in her chair with a slightly less intense stare.
“Keep going,” I demanded, and instantly, her scowl returned. Tough shit. She needed to eat. “I won’t tell you again,” I warned. “Next step is feeding you myself.”
There was a hint of curiosity from her side of the bond.
It was smothered in fury, but there. She was beyond stubborn…
and apparently liked it when I got bossy.
Interesting. Also good for me, because I had a feeling she’d call me that more than once in the near future, and not just about her eating habits.
I grinned. There was nothing I’d love more than to boss her around the bedroom…once she let me cross that line. Perhaps that line was closer than I thought if she kept sneaking glances at me like that.
“I literally came back from the dead less than twelve hours ago. Give me a break.”
I glared, but she glared right back, the magick in her gaze flaring. Sexy as fuck. After a tense stare-down, she picked up the glass and drained the water. Better, but we’d work on it.
“You will finish your lunch.”
She scoffed. “What makes you think I’ll still be here for lunch?”
I stiffened, knowing I had a battle ahead of me.
There was no other option. This was the only plan Ez and I could agree on that would actually work.
She was going to hate every part of it. I eyed the front door, hoping she didn’t bolt again, and Ezra took that moment to come yawning down the stairs in nothing but a ratty pair of basketball shorts.
If he noticed the tension in the kitchen, he didn’t comment on it. He did, however, help himself to Eryn’s half-eaten omelet.
“Dude.”
He stopped, his fork halfway to his mouth, and blinked up at me. “Wha?”
“It’s fine,” Eryn said. “I told you I was done.”
Ez went back to eating like he hadn’t just stolen my bond’s breakfast, finished or not.
I sighed and planted my hands flat on the island.
Hopefully, with Ez here, we could contain her rage.
Half asleep or pumped with adrenaline, Ez was a force to be reckoned with and great backup.
I gave Eryn my full attention once more, and she straightened in her chair.
“Back to what I was saying.” From the corner of my vision, Ez slowed his eating, finally clueing in to what was happening. “You’ll be here for lunch, dinner, and every meal thereafter because you live here now.”
Dead silence. I don’t think I heard her breathe for a good twenty seconds. And then…
“What! You can’t decide where the fuck I live, Kaiden.”
“I can. And I have.”
Ez snorted, but I ignored him. Eryn had my full attention. I sensed the absolute storm surging on her end of the bond. Confusion. Fear. Anticipation. Desperation. And through it all, a clean slice of rage.
“Well…No,” she sputtered, and my head cocked. I expected more than that.
“No?”
“Fuck, no. You don’t own me, and I refuse to stay here a second longer while you spew this bullshit.”
She vaulted off the chair and sprinted for the door.
There it was. I was only mildly surprised.
She was no match for the both of us, so running was her only option.
And her forte. She wrapped her hand around the doorknob and yelped, yanking it away, then spun and glared at Ezra, who was whistling while putting his plate in the dishwasher.
My lips fought a smirk. He didn’t have to freeze it.
“You could have phrased it a better way, man,” he told me, and I shrugged.
“I prefer the direct approach. There’s no room for confusion.”
“I’m still plenty damn confused!” Eryn shouted, hands on her hips, which lifted my shirt high enough to give us a glimpse of her panties.
Fuck. What was it about the top of a woman’s thighs that was so damn attractive? I glared at my cousin. He grinned but respectfully looked away.
“What about this confuses you?” I asked her. I truly thought I was being straightforward enough.
“The part where you get to decide all on your own any bit of my future!”
Ez laughed and clapped me on the back. “I’ll let you handle this. I’ve got patrol.”
He dipped back upstairs without another glance at my half-naked bond.
Smart man. She was absolutely delectable right now, all pissed off and puffed up like a feral kitten.
Her cheeks were rosy, and her eyes sparked with a subtle green glow.
And those legs. Fuck me, I loved it. If she thought her anger a deterrent, she couldn’t be more wrong.
I subtly adjusted myself behind the island.
“You almost died,” I said. “Someone poisoned you, somehow, in front of the entire Greek society, and me. And. You. Almost. Died.”
“And?”
Was she fucking serious?
“And? You may have no sense of self-preservation, but I have enough for the both of us. You’re not leaving this apartment until I know we can keep you safe. If I have to lock you in my bedroom to make sure that happens, so be it.”
Oh, that really set her off. Power surged down our bond, but it didn’t affect me. I was glad Ezra chose to go upstairs, though.
“I have classes!” she screamed, dousing the air with the scent of her magick. “A roommate. A life! I can’t just disappear, there will be questions.”
We’d already thought of all that, and temporarily, it wasn’t a problem.
“Then I guess it’s a good thing spring break just started, and we have a week to figure it out.”
With a disgusted sound, she stomped away from the still-frozen door and up the stairs.
I followed. We were far from done with this conversation, but she slammed the door to my room—my room—in my face.
I sighed and rested my forehead against the wood.
She needed space to calm down. I could give her that at least. Trudging back to the living room, I readied myself for a long wait.
The afternoon passed in quiet torture. I roamed my apartment like a zombie; barely cognizant, but highly aware of my prey nearby.
Shuffle into the living room, straighten up the coffee table.
Shuffle to the dining room, clean another table.
Back to the living room to clean under the couch cushions.
By the time I wiped down the counters in the kitchen and started dinner, I was ready to bound up the stairs and demand my stubborn bond get her ass down here and stop acting like a child.
The hair on my neck rose as the wards around the front door activated. Ez strolled in, fresh from patrol and already salivating over the sauce I had simmering on the stove.
“Homemade lasagna?” He smirked. “Trying a little hard there, cuz, don’t you think?”
I ignored his teasing and stirred the pot again so it wouldn’t burn. He wasn’t far from the truth. Only, I wasn’t trying to impress her this time.
“I was hoping the strong aroma would bring her downstairs,” I grumbled while draining pasta water.
She missed lunch and had only eaten half of her breakfast. If she allowed herself to grow too weak, she’d relapse. My worry was held in check only because I could sense her health through our bond. I tried to give her privacy, which was why I only snuck a few peeks.
“The cold shoulder. Harsh.” Ez swung onto the counter, ignoring the perfectly good stools on the other side of the island.
“It won’t last much longer,” I swore. “She will eat.”
“I’d take your quiet over the day I’ve had.”
I took in my cousin, assessing him for any injuries or signs that his patrol had gone awry. He’d call if things were too bad, but it was possible that with Eryn here, he had taken on more than he could handle.
“Relax, dude. There wasn’t a djinn to be found. Not even an illusion for some mild entertainment.”
“They’re waiting to see if the poison took,” I noted. “The second she’s spotted around campus, the attacks will resume.”
I began layering the lasagna. Pasta, meat, ricotta, sauce.
Pasta, meat, ricotta, sauce. It wasn’t calming me down.
Fuck. This was only a temporary reprieve.
They wouldn’t stop coming, not until the bond was complete.
Probably not even then, but she’d be harder to kill, and hopefully tucked away under the protection of the faction by then.
“She was right, though,” Ezra said, interrupting my internal panic. “We can’t keep her locked in here indefinitely.”
I knew that, but what else was I supposed to do? Even with our protection, she nearly died. My silence was enough to tell Ez what I was thinking. He knew me well.
“Let her go.”
Maybe not that well. I dropped the ladle of sauce, sending blood-red splatter across the stovetop. Fitting. His idea was guaranteed death for her.
“That’s the literal worst idea you’ve ever had,” I told him, vigorously wiping at the mess.
“I didn't say let her go defenseless,” he argued, humor drenching his tone. I was so glad he took this seriously. “We keep guarding her, of course, but closer than before, and with a crystal to warn her of poisons this time.”
That was more like it. Still a shit plan, though.
Lasagna stacked, I smothered it with cheese.
Ez let me think through his suggestion. It would allow her some freedom, but it was still dangerous.
Too dangerous for my liking. Unfortunately, unless we took out every djinn or the leader of their faction who sent them—which would declare open war—they’d keep coming. This was going to be a long four years.
“There’s one other problem,” Ez hinted. I slid the lasagna into the oven, set a timer on my watch, and then turned and braced myself. My cousin rubbed the back of his neck, a guilty look on his face. “Rani cornered me on campus and went all Rambo, demanding to know where her friend was.”
“She cornered you?” Yeah, that was hard to believe.
“Well, I allowed her to corner me.” I rolled my eyes. “What? It was the first time she willingly talked to me.”
“And how’d that go for you?”
He winced. “She accused us of kidnapping. Which wasn’t far from the truth.”
“Ez…”
“She said Eryn hasn’t been at the dorm, and with no cell phone, she has no other way to contact her.
We were the last ones to see her, and she basically accused us of holding Eryn captive.
She’s pissed, cuz. I tried telling her that you and her girl finally hit it off, but she’s not buying it.
” At my string of curses, Ez grinned. “She’s vicious. It’s kind of hot.”
My pulse pounded in my temples, a sure sign of an impending migraine.
I liked Rani for my bond. Her tenacity and fierce protection of Eryn was a giant green flag for me.
But in this instance, it was a big problem.
I wouldn’t put it past the redhead to take this to the dean and bring far more attention to our situation than was safe.
“Eryn needs to contact her roommate and sell the story,” I groaned. That wouldn’t be easy to convince her to do. I glanced at the timer on my watch. Just under an hour, plenty of time to convince her. I hoped. “Let’s go tell the princess to lie to her friend.”
My door was still shut. And locked. But it was my room, and if I wanted in, I was going to get in.
I broke the handle, with a little help from Ez, and prepared myself for a wave of her wrath.
Only, she was nowhere to be found. Across the room, the balcony door was open, the curtains swaying in the early evening breeze.
Ezra’s laughter couldn’t drown out my, “Are you fucking kidding me?”
She escaped. Again. And she scaled a three-story rose trellis to do so.
“Why isn’t there a ward on your balcony?” My cousin asked between more fits of laughter.
I thought I had a good enough reason.
“Anyone dumb enough to try and attack me in my space is asking for the consequences.”
Ezra turned purple he laughed so hard.
“Gods,” I cursed. “I never imagined she’d climb the fucking shrubbery to get away!” I spun and headed to my dresser, filling my pockets with anything I could need in case we had a fight with more than my bond on our hands. “How long has she been out there?”
It can’t have been too long if even Rani hadn’t seen her yet.
Ez sobered at the question. “They’re going to know she’s alive.”
Exactly. Fuck. I opened the door to my side of the bond, filling our connection with nothing but her. It was time to go hunting.