Six
Maelor’s laughter follows me all the way out of the cave.
Not a rumble. Not amusement hidden beneath a terrifying exterior. Actual laughter. The sound catches me so off guard that I nearly walk into a rock. “You’re laughing at me.” I turn to look at him as he joins me.
His gaze drops to where I’m navigating uneven ground while trying to maintain some shred of dignity.
“You asked where to relieve yourself.”
“I asked a perfectly reasonable question.”
His eyes gleam.
The bastard.
The discovery that Maelor possesses a sense of humour feels deeply unfair.
I’d spent the better part of twenty-four hours convincing myself he was an ancient, mysterious creature wrapped in shadows and secrets.
Now I know he worries if I eat breakfast, sits beside beds all night, and apparently finds bathroom-related emergencies hilarious.
None of those facts should make him more attractive.
Yet somehow they do.
The spring lies beyond a cluster of rocks overlooking the valley. At first I hear it before I see it, the steady rush of water echoing between the stone walls. Then we round a final outcrop and my breath catches.
The pool is fed by a waterfall spilling from the mountain above.
Crystal-clear water gathers in a basin carved naturally into the rock before continuing down the mountainside.
The strange silver-blue vegetation covering the valley stretches below us in every direction, while distant snow-capped peaks shimmer beneath the green sky.
It’s beautiful. Wildly, impossibly beautiful.
For a moment, I simply stare. Then my bladder reminds me why we’re here.
Reality is rude like that.
“I’ll give you privacy.”
The words pull my attention back to Maelor.
Something unexpectedly uncomfortable twists inside me.
He steps back immediately, clearly intending to leave me alone, and the reaction catches me completely off guard. After everything that’s happened over the last day, the idea of him simply disappearing behind the rocks shouldn’t bother me.
It does.
The bond notices the distance instantly.
Not painfully or dramatically. Just enough to feel wrong. Like reaching for something familiar and finding empty space instead.
The sensation unsettles me far more than it should.
“Wait.” The word leaves my mouth before I can stop it.
Maelor stills immediately. His attention snaps back to me, and I clear my throat, suddenly unsure why I’d spoken at all.
“I just...” I wave vaguely at the surrounding wilderness. “Maybe don’t go too far?”
His expression softens. “I will remain nearby.”
Relief washes through me before I can hide it. Wonderful. Apparently, I’ve become attached to the giant shadow monster.
That feels healthy.
A short while later, with considerably fewer urgent biological concerns and marginally more dignity, I make my way back towards the spring.
The water is cool enough to make me hiss when I crouch beside it, but after a day spent covered in dirt, blood, and whatever dimensional travel leaves behind, I don’t particularly care.
I splash water across my face, then my arms, then the back of my neck. The relief is immediate.
When I glance up again, I find Maelor exactly where he’d promised he’d be.
Waiting.
Not watching me.
Not hovering.
Simply there.
The sight settles something inside me.
This seriously is so fucking dangerous as this is how it starts. Not with grand declarations or with fate. Not even with the bond. It starts with someone keeping their promises. Every single one of them.
I sit on a sun-warmed rock near the edge of the spring, stretching my legs out in front of me while the mountain breeze plays with the loose strands of my hair.
Since arriving in Terrafeara, there’s nowhere I need to be.
No emergency department. No patient charts.
No alarms sounding somewhere in the distance.
No exhausted nurses chasing me down hallways.
Just silence.
Well.
Almost silence.
The waterfall continues its steady rush behind me while Maelor remains a short distance away, his attention fixed on the valley below.
I watch him for a moment. Then another. Then several more. Honestly, if he catches me staring, that’s on him for being so stare-able. The thought makes me snort.
Maelor immediately glances over. “Something amuses you?”
I wave a hand. “Nothing.”
His expression says he doesn’t believe me.
I wouldn’t believe me either.
The comfortable silence returns. It should feel awkward. We’ve known each other for barely more than a day. Instead, it settles around us with surprising ease. The sort of silence that doesn’t demand to be filled because neither person is worried about what the other is thinking.
The realisation catches me off guard.
I’ve spent years surrounded by people. Patients. Colleagues. Specialists. Administrators. Entire shifts passing in a blur of conversations and decisions and constant human interaction. Yet I can’t remember the last time I’d simply sat with someone.
Not working.
Not helping.
Not needed for something.
Just... there.
The awareness leaves me unexpectedly thoughtful.
“Do you ever miss it?” The question slips out before I’ve fully considered it.
Maelor turns his head. “Miss what?”
“Your world.”
His gaze drifts towards the distant mountains. For a long moment, I think he might not answer. Then he says quietly, “Parts of it.”
The response surprises me. I don’t know why. Perhaps because I’d assumed his loneliness had eclipsed everything else.
“What parts?”
A faint smile touches his mouth. “The night skies.”
The answer catches me completely off guard. Of all the possibilities I’d considered, that wasn’t one of them.
“The stars?”
“Yes.”
The simple response paints a picture in my mind. A younger Maelor standing beneath an unfamiliar sky before the lightning took him. Before years of solitude. Before a world that feared him.
The image hurts more than it should.
“What were they like?”
His gaze returns to me. “They were beautiful.”
The words emerge so quietly that I almost miss them. My chest tightens because this male doesn’t waste words. If he calls something beautiful, he means it.
The silence that follows feels different somehow. Softer. More intimate. The sort of conversation people have when they’re no longer learning facts about one another and have started learning the things that matter.
Dangerous territory.
The best kind.
Without really thinking about it, I shift closer along the rock. Not enough to touch but enough to matter.
Maelor notices immediately. His gaze flicks briefly towards me before returning to the valley. He doesn’t move away, and the bond hums softly beneath my ribs. It’s warm, content. The sensation makes me smile.
Then frown.
Then smile again.
Which is probably concerning.
“What’s wrong?” The question is immediate.
I glance over. “Nothing.”
The look he gives me is remarkably similar to the one I use on patients who are very obviously lying. The irony isn’t lost on me.
I sigh dramatically. “I was just thinking.”
His attention sharpens. Again, so bloody dangerous as Maelor treats my thoughts with the same seriousness most people reserve for natural disasters.
“And?”
I hesitate as the truth feels bigger when spoken aloud. Finally, I say, “Yesterday morning I was worried about making it through another shift without coffee.”
The corner of his mouth twitches, so I can only assume he’s discovered coffee. Hell, maybe they have the best coffee in the universe in his world.
Encouraged, I continue. “Now I’m sitting on a mountain in another dimension beside a shadow-travelling Hendroy who’s apparently my soulmate.”
The twitch becomes a genuine smile. It’s brief and small and absolutely devastating.
My heart stumbles.
The bastard.
The unfairly attractive bastard.
“I didn’t expect this.”
His gaze settles on me fully now.
Neither of us looks away.
“No,” he says softly. “Neither did I.”
The air shifts. The space between us suddenly feels charged with things neither of us has said.
The bond.
The loneliness.
The relief.
The growing certainty that something important is happening between us. My pulse quickens when Maelor’s gaze drops briefly to my mouth.
The movement is tiny. I notice anyway.
The realisation sends warmth flooding through me because suddenly I’m very aware that I’m not the only one feeling it. Not the only one wondering. Not the only one imagining.
The silence stretches, but neither of us moves. Neither of us seems particularly interested in breaking whatever this is.
Eventually, I lean back against the rock and stare out across the valley. A few moments later, warmth settles against my shoulder. I freeze, then slowly turn my head.
Maelor is sitting beside me. Not touching, not quite. Just close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from his body. Close enough that if I wanted to lean into him, I could.
The invitation sits quietly between us.
Unspoken.
Patient.
My chest tightens. Then, before I can overthink myself into another dimension, I let my shoulder rest lightly against his arm.
The relief that flashes across his face nearly undoes me, as though this tiny gesture means everything. Maybe it does.
The bond hums warmly beneath my ribs.
And somewhere deep inside, something clicks into place.
The warmth humming beneath my ribs settles into something deeper. The sensation is strange enough that I find myself frowning at it.
Beside me, Maelor goes very still. The shift is subtle. Most people wouldn’t notice it. After spending the last day obsessively watching this male, I notice immediately.
His gaze drifts towards me.
“What?” The question leaves me before I can stop it.
For a moment, he simply watches me. Then his attention shifts briefly to where my shoulder rests against his arm.
Understanding dawns.
“Oh.”
I straighten slightly. “That was something, wasn’t it?”
The corner of his mouth twitches.
The bastard. It absolutely was something.
The certainty in his expression confirms it before he even speaks.
“The third bond.”