TWENTY-EIGHT IMARA
TWENTY-EIGHT
IMARA
We read in comfortable silence.
Or rather, I read. Kharvek sits beside me, one hand maintaining constant contact—sometimes on my thigh, sometimes on my lower back, sometimes just our shoulders pressed together.
He’s not a scholar; the theoretical texts bore him.
But he stays close anyway, watching me work, occasionally pressing his lips to my temple or the curve of my shoulder.
Each touch sends ripples through my awareness. Pleasure. Warmth. Want. The arousal from this morning hasn’t faded—if anything, it’s building, fed by every casual caress, every brush of skin on skin.
“You’re making it hard to concentrate,” I murmur, not looking up from the book.
“Good.”
“Kharvek.”
“Imara.” He mimics my tone perfectly. Then his mouth finds the sensitive spot below my ear, and I lose track of the sentence I was reading.
“The books talk about bloodline compatibility,” I manage, forcing myself to focus.
“Certain magical lineages that resonate with each other, amplify each other’s power when brought into contact.
” His hand slides higher on my thigh, and I press on before I lose the thread entirely.
“What if our bloodlines are so compatible that even basic healing magic creates a resonance?”
He’s quiet. I sense him working through the implications—not just intellectually, but emotionally. The understanding dawns like a slow sunrise.
“The offspring she wants us to produce.” His voice flattens. “This is why she wants it so badly. Not just the channeling and the control. The bloodlines themselves would merge. Create something—”
“Unprecedented. Something that’s never existed before.”
The silence stretches between us. His hand has withdrawn from my thigh, both of us suddenly too aware of what our bodies could create.
“So the Matron was right.” His hands clench. “We could create something she’s been trying to breed for two hundred years. And now our blood knows it.”
The revelation sits heavy between us.
We should be disturbed. Should be pulling away from each other, creating distance, treating our bodies like the dangerous weapons they apparently are. The Matron wants to harvest what our bodies could create. Every time we touch, we’re proving her theory correct.
But Kharvek doesn’t pull away.
Instead, he takes my hand again. Brings it to his lips. Presses a kiss to my knuckles with a tenderness that makes my heart clench.
“This doesn’t change anything.” The words come out quiet, careful.
“It changes everything.”
“No.” He turns my hand over, kisses my palm. “The Matron wanted to use us before she knew about this. She’ll want to use us after. What’s between us—” Another kiss, this time to my wrist, right over the pulse point. “—belongs to us. Not her.”
“She can track us now. The resonance between us—it’s not subtle. To anyone sensitive to blood magic, we must glow like a beacon.”
“Then we glow.” He pulls me into his arms, settles me against his chest. “Let her see. Let her know that we chose each other. That whatever she planned for us, we’re rewriting it.”
I should argue. Should point out the tactical disadvantages, the danger of being trackable, the hundred ways this complicates our already impossible situation.
Instead, I bury my face in his neck and breathe him in. Let his heartbeat steady mine.
“We need to figure out how to mask it.” I speak against his throat. “Or how to use it as a weapon.”
“Soon.” He tilts my chin up. Makes me meet his stare. “But first—there’s something else you should know.” He nods toward the book in my lap.
I find the passage he means. When bloodlines of sufficient compatibility join, the resonance doesn’t hold still—it deepens with continued proximity and magical contact, setting layer by layer until it becomes permanent.
There is no ritual to hasten it. There is no clean severance once it has taken root.
It grows whether both parties will it or not.
“Bad news?” Kharvek’s voice is quiet against my temple.
“No options. Just… what it is.” I set down the book. “The resonance isn’t waiting for our permission. The more time we spend together—the more our magic touches—the deeper it sets. Eventually it will be permanent. Linked for life, Kharvek. Every emotion shared.”
“That bothers you.”
“Doesn’t it bother you?”
He’s quiet. His hand strokes my hair, the repetitive motion soothing.
“I’ve never had anyone who could see inside me.” The admission costs him. “Yesterday, during the healing—you were the first. You saw everything. The kills. The blood. All the worst parts of what I am.” He tilts my chin up, makes me meet his stare. “You didn’t run. You took me to bed instead.”
Heat floods my cheeks. “That’s one way to put it.”
“So if this makes that permanent—if you’re always seeing inside me, and I’m always seeing inside you—” He shrugs. “I’ve already been seen. The rest is just more.”
The simplicity of his logic should frustrate me. Instead, it makes something loosen in my chest.
“You’re not worried about losing your independence?”
“What independence?” A harsh sound escapes him—almost a laugh.
“The clan owned me since birth. The Matron saw everything I did, controlled everything I felt. This is different. You’re not trying to control me.
You’re not using what you sense as leverage.
” His thumb traces my lower lip. “You’re just… mine.”
Mine. The word sends a shiver down my spine.
“Give me time to think.” I sit up, put a little distance between us. My body protests the loss of contact. “I want this, but I want it chosen properly. Not grabbed at in a farmstead with hunters closing in.”