Chapter 16 #3
“Have you seen how our marks react when our fields synchronize? We literally illuminate each other.” I gestured at the faint glow that surrounded our clasped hands. “It’s going to be pretty obvious if anyone’s watching.”
“Then we’ll make sure no one’s watching.” He placed a gentle kiss against my cheek. “Sidney, after everything we’ve been through, a little bioluminescence during intimacy is probably the least of our concerns.”
He was right, of course. We’d merged our consciousnesses through phoenix fire, survived dimensional burns, and channeled energy that shouldn’t exist in normal reality. A little glowing during sex was hardly the strangest thing about us anymore.
“Take me to bed,” I said. “Let’s see just how much we glow.”
Ben’s eyes darkened with need, and I could feel how his electromagnetic signature throbbed with enough desire to make my breath catch.
Still, he hesitated. “Are you sure you’re healed enough?”
“The unicorn’s been treating us for five days. Everything’s not much more than a dull ache.” I rose from the porch steps and pulled him along with me. “And I need to know we’ll work together, that the changes didn’t make us incompatible somehow.”
He sent me a serious look. “Sidney, we’ll always work.”
But he didn’t say anything else and instead let me lead him inside, up the stairs to my bedroom — the place where we’d been sleeping together ever since we returned, only not in the way I now planned.
I’d thought about this moment for days, ever since the pain had subsided enough to let me consider the future. I’d been worried that the merge had changed me so fundamentally that intimacy would feel different, wrong, something this altered body of mine would no longer need.
But as Ben pulled me close, as his hands found the hem of my shirt and carefully lifted it over my head, I felt only anticipation.
And desire.
He paused when he saw the marks fully — the delicate patterns that traced my forearms like frozen flames, glowing faintly in the reflected light from the sconces in the upstairs hallway.
“You’re marked,” he said quietly, his fingers hovering over the patterns without quite touching them.
“So are you.” I reached up to trace the faint scars on his chest, following the pathways that the dimensional energy had burned into his flesh. “I suppose we match.”
He laughed softly, and then he was kissing me, his electromagnetic signature merging with mine. Yes, I’d been right. We absolutely illuminated each other, our bioelectric fields synchronizing so perfectly that the dimensional marks on our skin glowed brighter.
Faint light danced across our skin as we undressed each other carefully, mindful of burns that were still healing. Ben’s hands traced patterns on my back, and I explored the marks on his chest, feeling how the dimensional energy had subtly changed the texture of his skin.
We were different now — but we were still Sidney and Ben.
When he finally moved over me, when we came together with the kind of desperate gentleness that spoke of how close we’d come to losing this, our electromagnetic fields merged completely.
I gasped as Ben’s consciousness flooded through our connection.
Not just his emotions, even though I felt those as well — love and desire and fierce protectiveness tangled together.
No, this was his actual awareness, his thoughts…
his sensations. What it felt like to touch my skin, to be inside me, to experience this moment from his perspective.
Shared consciousness. Just like during the merge, only voluntary this time.
“Ben.” I managed to get out his name, although speaking was difficult when I could feel what he felt. “Can you — ”
“Feel you? Yes.” His voice sounded hoarse, and I could sense his shock and wonder. “Sidney, I can feel everything. What you’re feeling…what you’re thinking.”
“Is it too much?” I didn’t want to pull away, but I would if that was what he needed to preserve his sanity, his sense of self.
“No.” He shifted, and the sensation doubled — what it felt like for me and what it felt like for him, pleasure cascading through our merged consciousness. “God, no. It’s perfect.”
We moved together, our electromagnetic fields creating cascading waves of soft light that lit up the bedroom. I was aware of my body and Ben’s simultaneously, experiencing intimacy from both perspectives. Feeling what he felt when he touched me, sensing what I felt when he moved inside me.
It was overwhelming…transcendent.
Absolutely right.
And then we came together, our electromagnetic fields pulsing in perfect synchronization, light dancing across our skin.
For a single breathless moment, we were one consciousness, one awareness, experiencing this moment as a unified entity rather than two separate people.
Then we separated slowly, our fields gradually distinguishing themselves while remaining connected. I collapsed against Ben, both of us breathing hard, our marked skin still glowing faintly in the aftermath.
“Well,” I said when I could speak again. “That was different.”
Ben laughed, the sound breathless in the quiet space. “Understatement of the year.”
He was probably right. “And the glowing was pretty obvious.”
“Worth it.” He pulled me closer, taking care even though I’d assured him that my burns weren’t bothering me too much anymore. “Sidney, that was…I’ve never experienced anything like that. Feeling what you felt, being inside your consciousness while we — ”
“I know.” I pressed my face against his chest, feeling the strong beat of his heart against my cheek. “The electromagnetic connection created some kind of shared consciousness. I suppose we merged.”
“Not as deeply as you merged with the phoenix, but still.” His hand stroked my hair. “Is it always going to be like that?”
I reached out with my expanded abilities and sensed our electromagnetic fields. They were still synchronized, still resonating. The marks on our skin glowed faintly, although the glow was fading now that the intensity had passed.
“I think so,” I said. “I mean, this is just an educated guess, because I don’t think anyone truly knows all the ramifications of what we experienced. But when we synchronize, when we connect that deeply, we’re going to merge consciousness every time.”
He pressed a kiss against the top of my head. “I can live with that.”
“Me, too.”
We lay together in comfortable silence, our marked bodies fitting together like two pieces of the same puzzle. Somewhere beyond the window, over at the edge of the forest, the unicorn was maintaining its patient vigil.
“Do you think the unicorn knows what we just did?” I asked.
Ben laughed again. “An ancient, mystical creature with heightened senses? It definitely knows.”
Heat touched my cheeks. “Well, that’s embarrassing.”
“It’s probably seen worse over the centuries.”
Well, he had a point there.
I shifted so I could prop myself up on one elbow and gaze down at him. The faint marks on his chest caught the light, beautiful in their own terrible way.
“Thank you,” I said quietly. “I know they’re only two words, but still. Thank you for taking that weapon blast and anchoring me through the merge. For surviving everything with me.”
“You don’t need to thank me for that.” His hand found mine. Our fingers laced together, and a golden glow surrounded them. “I made a choice, Sidney. That choice included throwing myself in front of Rosenthal’s weapon if it meant keeping you alive.”
“Still, you almost died.”
His shoulders lifted. “So did you. It’s like you said — we’re partners. We face the impossible as a team. That’s what we do.”
I kissed him, putting everything I couldn’t say into the connection between us, gratitude and love and a fierce determination that we would face whatever came next together.
When we finally pulled apart, I could see the moon beginning to rise beyond the forest. Time had slipped away while we were wrapped in each other, and twilight had faded into deep night.
Dinner had been long enough ago that I was hungry again, so we dished ourselves some ice cream and headed back out to the porch.
The night air was chilly, promising that summer was on its way out and autumn right around the corner, but it still felt good to sit there and eat, to let the cold richness of that chocolate mint chip ice cream slide down my throat and cool the lingering phoenix fire.
The unicorn moved closer as we sat, positioning itself near the porch steps but with its head angled toward the forest. Now it was close enough to be obviously present but still far enough back that it could disappear into the trees if anyone approached.
“Ready for whatever comes next?” Ben asked.
I wasn’t sure how to answer that question. I wanted to believe we’d vanquished Sonya Rosenthal once and for all, but I couldn’t know that for sure. And even if she proved to no longer be a threat, we still had to figure out a way to finally bring my mother and grandmother home.
“No,” I said frankly. “But whatever it is, we’ll face it as a team.”
Ben’s hand found mine, and our connection strengthened. Soft light pulsed faintly where our marked skin touched, visible even in the darkness.
The unicorn turned its head to regard us with those ancient eyes, and I felt approval through our electromagnetic connection, a recognition that we’d survived what should have been impossible. That we would continue protecting Silver Hollow despite our changes — or perhaps because of them.
We sat together as the night wore on, the unicorn maintaining its steady vigil beside us.
This was our new normal. Dimensional burns that glowed faintly, abilities expanded beyond what any guardian had experienced, a partner whose consciousness I could merge with whenever we connected deeply enough.
We might have been changed, but we were still Sidney and Ben, partners facing the impossible as a team.
The unicorn settled into a resting position, its horn dimming but still faintly luminous. It would continue to guard us for as long as it thought necessary.
And despite everything we’d survived, despite the costs we’d paid and the changes we’d endured, I experienced something then that I hadn’t felt since the moment Sonya Rosenthal’s team had rolled into Silver Hollow more than a month ago.
Peace.
I prayed it would be a lasting one.
The Legendary series concludes in Here Be Dragons.