Chapter 12
Ryker remained in human form when I walked into the kitchen the next morning. Something had changed in the compound's atmosphere without anyone announcing it. He took up space at the table, done avoiding me. He was committing to being here in a way he hadn't since the bond had rejected him.
I made myself move like it was a normal morning, which was harder than it should've been. He looked barely held together, jaw set, eyes fixed on some point in the middle distance that probably wasn't there.
I couldn't sit straight down at the table with him. That would tip whatever balance he'd struck just by showing up. So I went to the counter and built my coffee the way Kearan would have. Same steps, but it never came out quite as good when I was the one doing it.
Once it was ready, I grabbed a chair and sat down close enough that Ryker would know I was choosing to be there with him.
"Morning," I said, and took a sip. Close enough to right, cool enough to cut the static in my head, sweet enough to take the edge off a few hours of bad sleep.
Ryker didn't answer with words. His fingers loosened on his fork. That was the answer, that small drop in tension.
Then Mephistral darted in like he'd been waiting for the exact second we settled into peace.
He landed on the table with the grace of a dropped brick and the self-regard of something that had never met a concept it didn't like, moving too fast, reaching straight for Trux's plate and lifting a strip of bacon off it.
Trux's reaction was the thing.
It came fast and it came wrong. His whole body went rigid, the calm Seph had spent hours building daily snapping back into something tight and dangerous.
His shoulders braced as his hand moved toward the imp with a speed that was too quick.
The force behind it was too much, and for a second I thought he was going to actually hurt him.
The flash behind his eyes wasn't anger. It was older and further down than that, the Hesolga deciding it was done hiding.
Seph moved before anyone else could process it, out of her chair and at his side, her hand settling on his shoulder. She had this skill, making contact land as an anchor. "Hey," she said, low enough that only he really heard it. "You're here. I'm here. We're in the kitchen. That's it."
The fuss she didn't make was what worked. She didn't ask if he was okay, didn't demand an explanation, didn't treat the flash of wrongness like a crisis to be managed. She stood there with her hand on his shoulder until he remembered he wasn't actually about to gut an imp over bacon.
Mephistral still had the strip dangling from one hand, clearly unaware he'd just tripped something that could have gone very differently. "Well," he announced, "that was more response than bacon warrants."
Nobody laughed. That's when I knew it was bad, because we always laughed at Mephistral. He somehow always made us laugh, even if it was after a brief threat of bodily harm.
Trux's breathing slowed, the rigidity easing as Seph's presence worked on him. His hand dropped. "I'm fine," he managed, rough, and the lie was so obvious I almost felt bad for him having to say it.
I drank my coffee and said nothing about the deterioration. I knew, though. I was watching a man come apart quicker than anyone wanted to admit was possible.
Mephistral finally caught on. He set the bacon back on the plate, gentle, his small body going still. "Well," he said quietly, which was probably the most responsible sentence I'd ever heard out of him. "That's not great."
Zandia filled the doorway without knocking, the way she did when she wanted to be impossible to ignore. She didn't look at Trux, Seph, or Mephistral. She looked straight at me, and the flatness of her face told me this wasn't social.
"The traitor and whatever holds your father," she said, no preamble, "are connected at the source."
The words landed heavy and specific. Seph's breath caught, the sharp intake of someone who'd already done the math. Ryker's fork went white-knuckled.
"Ask yourself why a berserker is more useful than a bonded beast," Zandia went on, the words chosen to detonate in the quiet. "Why the bond rejected Ryker when both of you were wanting and willing."
I watched the picture clarify. The accelerated decline wasn't Trux's body failing on its own.
Seph snarled, "Someone was breaking him down, making him a berserker. They want him dangerous and unpredictable instead of bonded and strong. A berserker can't be commanded or trusted. They're basically a weapon you point at your enemies and pray you can aim away from your own people."
Someone wanted Trux broken and wanted us fractured and snapping at each other while the real threat moved underneath, patient and untouchable.
"Except Trux isn't the only one, is he?" Zandia didn't wait for a response. She turned and left, her presence just ceasing to fill the space, except the weight of what she'd dropped stayed in the air, pressing on all of us.
I looked at Ryker. His eyes were on that middle-distance point, but I could see the understanding moving behind them.
Whatever distance he'd been building, whatever careful gap he'd kept between himself and the bond, just got rendered useless by knowing they were running out of time on purpose.
That someone intentionally blocked him instead of the bond rejecting him.
Trux had gone very still, Seph's hand still on his shoulder but the anchor weakening against the realization that his decline wasn't bad luck. Every loss of control, every flash of wrong behind his eyes, had been somebody's design.
"We need to move fast." Seph's voice had the edge it got when she moved from understanding into action. "If someone's pushing the deterioration, there will be other attempts to block us."
"The bonds." Ryker's voice came out rough. "We complete them now."
He wasn't looking at me, but the words landed square in my heart. The change in him from avoidant to absolute, the moment bonding stopped being an option and became the only road forward. Whatever fear had kept him at that distance, had just gotten a lot smaller.
Trux made a sound that might've been a laugh or might've been something breaking. "I'm fine," he said, the biggest lie anyone had told all morning. "But if preventing the bonds are the play, we must be strategic about it. We have no idea what they'll do to block us."
"It'll work," Seph said, flat certainty. "It has to. Because the alternative is letting whoever set this up win."
I knew what she meant. The alternative was Trux fully consumed with no human left to bring back. Then I'd have to watch the same change consume Seph, Rhiot, and Grayson. The alternative was somebody else's plan running exactly as designed.
Mephistral crept back and picked up his bacon strip, examining it. "For what it's worth," he announced, "this plan is stupid. Bonding during active sabotage is never a good time. However, the sabotage is definitely happening, which means your option to choose better timing has expired."
Nobody argued. There was nothing to argue. Someone was breaking Trux down on purpose, keeping the bonds open on purpose, playing a long game against our desperation. Now we had to make a choice.
"There's never a bad time for a threesome." Mephistral grinned as he comically raised his eyebrows.
Seph threw a biscuit that smacked Mephistral right in the face, melting butter ran down the imp's face. "Seriously?"
He shrugged as he grabbed the biscuit and placed the piece of bacon on top. "What? I'm a demon. Chaos is my love language." Then he took a huge bite of the biscuit.
I finished my coffee, the cold caramel sliding down, and understood Zandia had been right that Ryker wouldn't be hesitant anymore.
The deliberate cruelty of it had clarified exactly what mattered.
If the price was moving faster than anyone wanted, making commitments before anyone was ready, then that was the price.