Chapter 20 #2
Ramona shuffled away from the curious looks they were getting, back down the hall toward her room. “We’re going to my room now. Please pretend this is normal.”
“Nothing about you two has been normal since day one,” Felix called after them. “Why start now?”
Ramona dragged Zara down the hallway and into her bedroom, shutting the door firmly behind them.
In the privacy of her room, after checking that the fox hadn’t returned yet, Ramona finally let herself really look at the thread.
It was beautiful, actually. The golden light pulsed gently, like a heartbeat or a breath. Where it disappeared beneath her sternum, she could feel a warmth that wasn’t uncomfortable. Just… present.
“Can I try something?” Ramona asked.
“What?”
Ramona reached out and very carefully and determinedly wrapped her fingers around the thread.
This time, instead of passing through, her hand closed around something solid. Warm and smooth, like sun-heated metal, but alive somehow. Pulsing with energy.
“You’re touching it,” Zara breathed.
“I can feel it.” Ramona tugged gently.
Zara gasped, stumbling forward a step. Her hand flew to her chest.
“Sorry!” Ramona let go immediately.
“No, it’s—” Zara’s eyes were very wide. “Do it again.”
Ramona gripped the thread again. Pulled, just slightly.
Zara moved toward her like she was being reeled in. Not forced — there was no resistance, no struggle. Just smooth, inevitable motion until they were standing close enough that Ramona could feel the supernatural heat of Zara’s skin.
“Does it hurt?” Ramona whispered.
“No.” Zara’s voice had dropped, her hands finding Ramona’s hips.
Ramona tugged again, more firmly this time.
The golden tether didn’t just pull Zara closer.
It seemed to contract, the light thickening until the distance between them evaporated.
Zara let out a jagged breath, her hands sliding from Ramona’s hips to her waist, squeezing with a possessive strength that made Ramona’s head light.
The air in the bedroom was suddenly too heavy to breathe. The familiar scent of Zara — smoke and a heady, dark oud — swirled around Ramona, thick enough to taste. She angled her face up to watch Zara’s concentration break.
“Ramona,” Zara warned, her voice a low, vibrating growl that settled deep in Ramona’s belly. She leaned down to claim Ramona’s mouth in a deep kiss, pulling Ramona’s lower lip into her mouth with her teeth.
After a moment, Ramona broke away and looked at the golden cord, then back at Zara’s curious, open expression. “You said it was a trust exercise, right?”
Ramona backed Zara toward the bed, and Zara went willingly, her eyes never leaving Ramona’s. When the back of Zara’s knees hit the mattress, she sat, and Ramona was over her in an instant, straddling her lap.
The tether was coiled between them now, a glowing, pulsing mass of energy. Ramona grabbed the slack. Her heart was hammering, but her hands were sure. She took the golden light — this physical manifestation of the mess they’d made of their lives — and looped it around Zara’s wrists.
“What are you doing?” Zara asked, her breath hitching as Ramona pulled her arms upward.
“Testing the bond,” Ramona whispered. She pulled the cord taut, knotting it around the wooden slats of the headboard. To her shock, the magical light behaved exactly like rope. It knotted with a firm, golden glow, anchoring Zara’s hands above her head.
Zara tested the restraint, her muscles rippling beneath the skin of her arms. The headboard creaked ominously. “You’ve tied a demon to your bed with her own tether, Mortal. Bold choice.”
“You like it,” Ramona countered, leaning in until their noses brushed. She began to grind her hips against Zara’s thigh, the friction of their jeans a torturous barrier.
Zara groaned, a sound wrenched from her chest.
They moved together in a frantic, messy rhythm.
Ramona’s hands were everywhere — mapping the heat of Zara’s neck, pulling at the hem of the hoodie, tracing the sharp lines of her collarbone.
Zara was bucking beneath her, her bound hands straining against the golden light, her teeth bared in a grin.
The heat radiating from Zara was staggering now, a dry, searing fever that seemed to melt the very air.
But the friction wasn’t enough. It was never enough.
The heat coming off Zara wasn’t just physical anymore. It felt like standing too close to an open furnace. As Ramona slid down the bed, her knees hitting the floor with a soft thud, the golden tether stretched taut, humming a low, resonant note that vibrated in Ramona’s very bones.
Zara’s head hit the pillow, her throat arched, exposing the frantic pulse jumping under the skin of her neck. “Ramona,” she said.
“You can’t stand the idea of not being in control,” Ramona teased as she pulled off Zara’s pants. “But I bet you’re soaking wet from it anyway.”
She parted Zara’s legs, her hands running up the length of Zara’s calves and thighs. Zara’s inner thighs radiated a deep, core-level heat that seemed to pulse in time with the golden cord above.
“You’re stunning,” Ramona said, leaning in to draw her tongue over Zara’s slick heat.
When Ramona finally made contact, the world narrowed down to the taste of salt and electricity.
Zara’s entire body jolted, a jagged, broken sound tearing from her throat.
It wasn’t just a physical reaction — the golden tether flared a brilliant, blinding white, illuminating the room in sharp, flickering bursts.
Ramona gripped Zara’s hips, her thumb digging into the soft dip of her waist to hold her steady.
She was methodical, her tongue tracing the heat of Zara’s center with a persistence that bordered on worship.
Every time Zara bucked, her heels digging into the mattress, Ramona pressed closer, drinking in the low, guttural moans that were starting to sound less and less human.
The air in the room felt charged, static raising the fine hairs on Ramona’s arms. She could feel dark magic bleeding out of Zara, a wild, unrefined energy that tasted like smoke on the back of her throat.
She quickened her pace, her tongue swirling in a demanding rhythm that forced Zara’s breath into short, sharp hitches.
“Ramona — please,” Zara choked out, her fingers curling into useless claws against the wooden slats.
Ramona didn’t let up. She pushed Zara further, her movements becoming more urgent as she felt the demon’s internal fire reach a breaking point. The tether above them began to hum a high, piercing frequency, the light turning molten.
With one final, desperate surge, Zara’s back arched completely off the bed. A low, vibrating growl erupted from her chest — a sound of pure, celestial ruin — as she shattered.
At the same time, the bed shattered, too, the spindles of the headboard splintering around the tether, the frame crashing to the floor. Ramona gasped, holding onto Zara’s body, but Zara hardly seemed to notice, slumped back against the pillows, her breath coming in ragged, uneven sobs.
Ramona stayed where she was for a moment, her forehead resting against the curve of Zara’s thigh, listening to the frantic, irregular thrum of a heart that beat much faster than a mortal’s.
Slowly, Ramona looked up. Zara’s eyes were heavy. She looked utterly undone.
Ramona moved to gently undo Zara’s ties, rubbing the demon’s wrists to make sure they weren’t too sore from tugging against their restraints. The golden tether lay draped across them like a discarded ribbon, pulsing with a slow, contented light.
“I think… I think the roommates heard that,” Ramona said in a breathless whisper.
Zara, her face buried in the crook of Ramona’s neck, let out a low laugh that vibrated through Ramona’s entire body. “Let them listen. I’ll charge them a consulting fee for the education.”
“You broke my bed,” Ramona said with a laugh.
“We broke the bed. I believe you had a hand in it,” Zara panted, a wry smile on the edge of her mouth. “Or at least a ton—”
“Zara,” Ramona scolded, her cheeks heating. She threw an arm over her eyes in embarrassment but couldn’t help laughing anyway. Even after Zara had waved a hand and transformed the wreckage into a sturdy frame with a wooden spindle headboard.
After a quiet moment, Ramona ran her fingers through Zara’s hair. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything, Mortal.”
“Is this…” She gestured vaguely between them. “The energy. The pull. Is it just the binding? The false connection Theron mentioned?”
Zara went still beside her. Then she propped herself up on one elbow, studying Ramona’s face with that an intensity that made Ramona want to hide and be seen all at once.
“I don’t know,” Zara said finally.
“You don’t know?” The disappointment bled through before Ramona could stop it. She’d expected… something. Certainty. Denial. Not this.
“I think many things can be true at once.” Zara’s thumb traced idle patterns on Ramona’s shoulder. “I think the binding influences how we feel. I think we have four weeks left together. I think that means we should enjoy this without worrying about what it all means.”
Rationally, Ramona knew she was right. Whatever this was between them had an expiration date.
Zara would go back to Hell. Ramona would go back to selling crystals to tourists who thought sage could fix their problems. And she’d never know for certain if this desperate, consuming thing between them was real or just magical coercion with good marketing.
Who was she kidding? Did she really think a corporate demon was her soulmate?
The thought was so absurd she almost laughed. Almost.
“Hey.” Zara’s voice dropped lower. Softer. “Talk to me. I can feel your distress through the tether.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Ramona.”
Zara’s hand slid along her jaw, turning her face with gentle insistence. Her thumb brushed over Ramona’s bottom lip, and every uncomfortable feeling churning inside Ramona’s chest softened at the edges. Not gone. Just… quieter.
Zara leaned down until their foreheads touched. Close enough that Ramona could feel her breath.
“I’m here,” Zara whispered. “Right now. In this moment. And I very much enjoy being with you.” Her thumb continued its slow trace across Ramona’s mouth.
“I think you might enjoy it, too. And if it’s the tether — if it’s all just magical compulsion and proximity and coincidence…
” She pulled back just enough to catch Ramona’s eyes.
“Who cares? It doesn’t make this feel less real to me. ”
Ramona’s throat closed. She nodded, not trusting her voice.
“Does it feel real to you?” Zara asked.
“Yeah,” Ramona managed. “It does.”
And she knew, in that moment, with Zara’s weight warm against her side and the tether humming steady between them — she knew that losing this would break her in a way that losing Simone, her coven, her position at Thornwood never had.
The thought should have terrified her.
Instead, she wrapped her arms around Zara’s neck and pulled her down into another kiss. Because even if they were sprinting toward a cliff’s edge, even if this all ended the moment the binding broke…
She wanted to fall without a single regret.