Chapter 11
Mason
The mate bond had been pulling all day.
Not gently. Not like a thought or a memory. It was a fist around my ribs, tightening every hour, every minute I couldn't see her, couldn't touch her, couldn't confirm with my own hands that she was safe and whole and mine.
I crossed the training grounds before Burke had even dismissed us. Didn't care. The day was done, and my body knew exactly where it needed to be.
"Easy, son. She's not going anywhere."
Rundel's voice settled into me. Pressure that said breathe before I'd even realized I'd been holding it in.
I was still getting used to it. Thalon spoke to Tess in riddles and dares, all fire and myth.
Rundel didn't do that. Rundel was bedrock.
He spoke like a man who'd seen enough to know that most problems were smaller than they felt—and the ones that weren't required a steady heart more than a sharp sword.
"She's fine. You'll see her in thirty seconds. Try not to tackle her in front of the whole grounds."
I almost smiled. Almost.
"No promises," I sent back.
"That's what I figured. At least aim for somewhere with fewer witnesses. I have a reputation to maintain."
My shoulders ached. My jaw ached worse—I'd been clenching it for hours while Burke ran us through drills with the precision of a man who'd rather be commanding an army than babysitting applicants.
Rundel had been a quiet presence in the back of my mind all day, occasionally offering commentary I hadn't asked for but somehow needed.
None of that mattered now.
I spotted her breaking away from her group near the edge of the field. Draven was saying something to her, one hand raised in a lazy wave. Anya walked beside her. Tess laughed at something—I couldn't hear what—and the sound went straight through me.
I was already reaching for her before I'd fully closed the distance.
"Hey—" she started, but I pulled her in, one hand at the back of her neck, the other at her waist, and her words dissolved against my mouth.
The bond settled. The tension in my chest released in a rush that left me dizzy, and I kissed her harder because the relief was too big, too much, and I didn't know what else to do with it.
She made a soft sound against my lips and her fingers curled into my shirt and—gods.
She'd been with Valen all day. Across the grounds, out of my reach, training beside a vampire who looked at her like she was something to be catalogued and dissected.
My hands tightened on her. I tilted her head back, deepened the kiss, tasted salt and the faint sweetness underneath.
Her back met a support post at the edge of the field. I hadn't meant to walk her into it, but I wasn't sorry. My thumb traced the line of her jaw. My teeth grazed her lower lip. She gasped and I swallowed it, pressing closer, needing—
"Ahem."
Rundel. The telepathic equivalent of a cleared throat.
"Not that I'm judging—okay, I'm judging a little—but you're about ten feet from the main path and approximately three seconds from giving the entire grounds a show. Just thought you should know."
I pulled back. Tess's eyes were wide behind her glasses, and for a second I almost didn't care that we were standing in plain view of anyone passing—
"Hi," she whispered.
I exhaled. Pressed my forehead to hers. "Hi."
"Missed you too," she said, and the corner of her mouth twitched.
I took her hand and led her to a quieter spot—a low stone wall half-hidden by a stand of trees at the grounds' edge. We sat close enough that our shoulders touched, and I kept her hand in mine because I wasn't ready to stop touching her yet. Maybe wouldn't be for a while.
"Tell me about your day," I said.
She did. Theron running them hard—introductions, assessments, the kind of first-day posturing that set the tone for everything after.
Her team finding its footing. Draven steady beside her, reading the room the way he always did.
Raze's energy keeping things from getting too heavy. Anya quiet but present.
Then her voice shifted.
"Valen was... cooperative," she said. "Polite, even. Which is worse."
My hand tightened around hers.
"He watched everything. The bonds, the dragons, how people reacted to each other. Like he was filing it all away." She paused. "I don't trust it."
"You shouldn't."
"And Draven's watching him," Tess added, reading my protectiveness before it could spiral. "And Raze. I'm not alone out there."
I nodded. Slowly. Because she was right, and it mattered—more than I could easily say—that she had people at her back when I couldn't be there. That Draven would catch what I'd miss. That Raze would put himself between her and trouble without thinking twice.
But the thing in my chest that said I should be there wouldn't quiet.
"What about you?" she asked, turning toward me. Her thumb traced a circle on my knuckle. "How was Burke?"
I exhaled through my nose. "Military. Cold. Everything by the book, no room for questions." I rolled my shoulder. "Feels like Silvius picked him for a reason."
"And Kane?"
The name landed heavy between us.
"Won't talk to me," I said. "Won't look at me. Does what's required and nothing else."
Tess didn't push. She just squeezed my hand, and I was grateful for that—for the space she left around the wound without pretending it wasn't there.
The anger was there—at Silvius, at the poison he'd dripped into Kane's head, at the way Kane had let him. But underneath it was something sharper. The sick suspicion that I'd failed him somehow. That I should've seen it coming. Should've fought harder to keep him when the fracture started.
I didn't have room for both right now.
"Selena's hovering around him," I added. Watched Tess's face carefully. "Constantly. Sits next to him in every session, touches his arm when she talks, laughs at things that aren't funny." My jaw tightened. "She never did that before. It's deliberate."
Tess's jaw locked, and hurt flickered behind her eyes before she could hide it.
I stopped. Pulled back. "Sorry. You don't need to hear—"
"No," she said quietly. "I do." But her voice was tight, and she wasn't looking at me anymore.
We sat with it for a moment. The distant sounds of the grounds settling into evening.
"The house is different," I said, quieter now. "Since the bonding. Silvius is... controlled. More than usual. And Kali feels it."
Tess leaned into me. Her shoulder pressed against mine, and her hand tightened around my fingers.
"She's smart," I continued. "Too smart. She knows something shifted and she's watching everything, trying to figure out what.
" My chest tightened. Fifteen years old and already reading the coldness in a house that used to feel steady but doesn't anymore.
"I don't like her being there without me during the day. "
"Mason..."
"Having Rundel changes things." I said it before I could second-guess it.
"A bonded Rider has standing. Real standing.
I'm not a ward anymore. Not a charity case Silvius can hold over my head.
" I paused. Let the words sit there, testing their weight.
"I want to get a place. For me and Kali.
Somewhere warded. Somewhere that isn't under his roof. "
Tess turned to face me fully. Her golden-brown eyes searched mine, and whatever she found there made her expression soften.
"You should," she said. Simply. Like it was already real.
The tightness loosened in my chest. Not all the way. But enough.
"About time," Rundel said. "You've been carrying that weight long enough. Let someone else hold the roof for a change."
I didn't answer. Didn't need to. He knew.
"Come on." I stood, pulled her up with me. "Let's go eat."
We walked toward the dining hall together, my hand on the small of her back, her warmth bleeding through the fabric into my palm. The bond hummed. Settled by proximity and touch and the sound of her breathing beside me.
But underneath it, my gargoyle instincts wouldn't quiet.
Tess was across the training grounds from me every day now. Valen was watching. Burke's team felt like a cage with a purpose I couldn't see yet. And Kali was under Silvius's roof for every hour I spent here, reading the danger in a house that smiled while it sharpened its knives.
I kept my hand on Tess. Kept walking. Kept the unease locked behind my teeth where she couldn't taste it.
But it was there. Growing. The certainty that being separated from the people I loved—in this place, with these threats circling—was going to cost us.
I just didn't know what yet.