Chapter 5
Kit
Ican’t say I expected my day to start with a visit from my favourite little smuggler. But I also can’t complain. Life with Reva around is never boring.
“Does it say anything about how the bond forms?” Reva asks, pushing her mane of hair behind her shoulder and leaning closer.
I fight the urge to shift slightly and sniff her.
I’m human... mostly, a cursed human, but human all the same.
And while I might not have an animal inside me, unlike my brother and his crew, as soon as I touched her skin, something started pulsing inside me.
It’s pushing some strange and unfamiliar urges to the surface.
“You’re taking this very well,” Reva says.
“I am, aren’t I?” I reply blithely.
If you’d asked me yesterday how I’d feel about having a sudden mate bond thrust upon me, I’d have laughed incredulously and asked what you’d been smoking.
But right now, I feel strangely giddy at the concept. Perhaps that’s my body reacting to the appearance of a second heartbeat, and all the wild sensations shooting through me. Mostly though, I think my current giddiness is thanks to the person at the other end of this bond, tethering us together.
Reva.
She’s been a rainbow that appeared in my life a couple of years ago and pops up at irregular points, brightening up my day every time.
I have something of an obsession with getting to know people, and Reva has been a tough nut to crack.
She’s someone with walls that are almost impossibly high to scale, but somehow over the years I climbed inch by inch.
Every little piece of information I’ve gleaned about her has felt like a little gift, and when I discovered she’s got a very sweet centre behind those walls, it felt like a victory.
For years now, she’s been coming to me with goods that she’s not certain of, either because they might need my cursebreaking skills or because she hasn’t got the right buyer lined up.
Whatever reason she uses to come by, I always manage to persuade her to stay longer than she expects.
More often than not, she agrees to stay in the back room of my shop so I can spend all my time between customers chatting her up.
I’ve been soft on her for a while now.
I briefly wonder how Finch is going to react to my new status. I suppose we’re not technically mated just yet. At least, not according to the book Reva’s still trying to pry from my grasp.
Reva puts a little more of her strength into taking the book from me, and it slips from my grasp instantly.
She gives me a dirty smirk that has me regretting not putting more clothes on when they first arrived.
If she gives me that look again, we’ll be in serious danger of my cock popping out to say hello.
“I think that might have to wait,” Frannie says, and my heart stops at the horrible thought I might have just spoken my thoughts aloud. “The research, I mean,” she clarifies. “Your man here looks like he’s not been fed in a while and he looks fit to keel over.”
Frannie’s clearly an observant one, although I’ve only met her a couple of times when I’ve popped over to return the visit to their cottage.
In unison, Reva and I both turn to look at the silent stranger. Aster, also known as my new brother... or possibly my fellow mate. His skin is bone white, and when he lifts his hand, I can see he’s shaking like a leaf.
Reva rubs at her chest, murmuring something to him in Valmorian. Another thing I’ll need to start reading up on if I’m going to be a good mate-by-proxy.
“His heart is pounding,” Reva says softly. “Do you have anything to eat?”
We both leap into action at the same time, almost smacking our heads together with our eagerness.
I snort and grab her shoulders, steering her toward the pantry while I head for the bread bin.
Frannie watches with an amused expression before jumping into the fray.
My kitchen isn’t exactly large and between the three of us, we quickly become a mess of movement and limbs.
“We need to get him some clothes too,” Reva mutters as she piles enough food to feed an army onto the wooden counter. “He’s soaked through. Must be freezing.”
Now that I look at him, I can see that there’s a layer of mud all over the floor, clumping over his bare feet. Poor bloke, I bet his skin’s itching like mad.
“You haven’t got a spare change of clothes you could lend him, have you?” Reva asks, biting her lip. “A shirt, a pair of trousers, some underwear if you can spare it.”
I nod, wondering what the hell happened to him to leave him in this state. He has the look of someone escaping from something. It would certainly explain the vaguely feral look he has.
What feels like a lifetime ago, I was in the same boat, and I’d have given my right arm to have anyone extend a hand without it being a slap.
“Come on,” I say, putting a hand under his elbow to help him to his feet.
I then lead him through to the bathroom where I hesitate for just a moment before laying out a razor and soap, along with a clean towel and a fresh outfit.
I’ve spent a lot of my life having to make snap judgements about people, and none of my instincts are telling me he’s anything to worry about.
Worry for, maybe. He looks like he’s not had a good meal or slept properly in a long time.
Half an hour later, after much splashing followed by long periods of silence, Aster steps out of the bathroom.
He’s tied his hair back and his face is now clean-shaven.
My shirt is gaping on him, revealing long white scars that look to be scratched directly over his heart.
He’s also skinny in a way that looks like he hasn’t had enough food in a long time.
We stare at each other silently for a moment. Without all the hair in front of his face, he looks less like a wild man and more like a...
“Well, you’re a handsome devil, aren’t you?” I grin at him, earning myself a mystified look.
As soon as we step into the kitchen, both Frannie and Reva freeze in what they’re doing—which seems to be attempting to make the world’s largest omelette.
Reva’s cheeks go bright pink, and she seems momentarily lost for words. Then Aster takes a step forward, stumbling over the hem of my overly long trousers as they tangle around his legs.
Well, that seals it. We clearly have reason to worry. Aster seems like a significant threat to all of our safety.
“I can’t say I’m a prolific sewer,” I tell him. “Unlike Torin, that’s one of my brother’s closest crewmates, so we might have to invest in a better belt for you.”
“Handsome devil, isn’t he?” Frannie says.
“That’s exactly what I said.”
“Not much left in the larder,” Frannie continues as she slides plates onto the scrubbed wooden table, pushing one of the chairs out for Aster.
He drops into the seat and starts eating as soon as the plate is put in front of him. Meanwhile, I set about pouring strong cups of tea and handing them out before heading to the table. By the time I’ve sat down and the rest of us are starting to eat, Aster has already cleared his plate.
“Guess he really was hungry.” Frannie takes the last bite of her food before pushing her plate away. “You think he wants more?”
Reva asks him a question, and I watch her lips as she forms the words. Her pink, perfectly formed lips.
I pull myself out of my head before I can devolve into fantasies of feeling those lips on mine.
Aster shakes his head, reaching out and tracing something on the skin of Reva’s forearm. Whatever he says, she pauses for a moment before giving a jerky nod.
“He, er, hasn’t eaten much recently. Thinks it’s best not to risk it.”
“Could you ask him what happened to him?” Frannie asks quietly.
Reva nods before softly relaying the question. Aster only hesitates for a moment before he begins tracing more and more words onto Reva’s skin. She clears her throat, meeting his eyes for a moment before she translates for the rest of us.
“Where I was before, I didn’t exactly get out much,” he says.
“Were you... there by choice?” Reva asks.
He chuckles silently, wrapping his arms around his stomach, and Reva blows out a long shuddering breath as he shakes his head.
“No one sane would be there by choice.” He pauses, closing his eyes before continuing, “I was an idiot. They came to my little village, recruiting people for a job. There wasn’t much work or much food back home, so I went with them willingly.
” He shrugs. “I wound up hundreds of miles from home in a basement with at least a dozen others, with no money, no papers, and no way of getting out.”
I swallow hard, meeting Reva’s eyes as she glances up. “Can you ask him who they were? Where was he held?”
What did they do to him? That’s the silent question that hangs over us, the one I don’t want to give voice to. Not while he looks like a strong breeze could knock him down.
“He doesn’t know where he was held,” Reva says. “They moved into a new place a few weeks ago, but it’s difficult to tell how far he managed to travel when he got away. They decided he was too weak, so they left him alone for a couple of days, and he found a way out.”
“Who was it, sweetheart?”
Reva swallows hard, and the fear in her eyes is like a punch to my gut. “Sorcerors.”