Chapter 11 Comfort and Chaos #2
His eyes shift between mine. “Us,” he says. “It’s us. Holden’s looking through records to see if he can find out what it signifies, but Daire thinks it’s a recognition of sorts. Our souls recognizing each other.”
“Does it hurt?”
Griffin releases a silent laugh. “It might be the best thing I’ve felt in my whole damn life.”
I can’t breathe. Can’t blink. Can’t move.
Mate.
The word traces itself across my skin. Stamps across my thoughts. Tattoos itself to my heart.
His hand gently constricts around mine.
Nerves riot through my thoughts as I pull my hand back, the loss of contact jarring. “I—about the library,” I blurt. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Your emotions were running high,” he says quietly. “You thought one of your Mates was in danger. Your reaction was normal.”
Normal.
I try to swallow around the clunky word that threatens to get stuck in my throat. Nothing about this feels normal.
“Daire and I were able to help you recover a little.” His jaw feathers.
“Hopefully, you’ll feel normal by tomorrow.
We didn’t know if we could since the bond isn’t complete, but the imprint seems to have created a temporary, albeit more fragile, connection.
We think it’s why your thoughts pass so easily to me and why this happens.
” He glances at where my hand remains pressed against his chest.
“What do you mean, recover?”
“Think of your cindrel as a battery. If you use too much of your element, it weakens you. Once you start training, you won’t drain so fast. Rest, eating, and exposure to your elements all help with recovery, but bonds change that. Connection is the fastest way.”
“Connection?”
“Our souls are entwined. You can get energy and strength from us and vice versa.”
Because I’m a Keystone.
A smile tugs at Griffin’s mouth. “Exactly.”
“Does it weaken you?”
He holds my stare as he slowly shakes his head. “We’ll have to test it.”
I don’t know how to process his response, so I choose not to.
Griffin runs his top teeth along the line of his bottom lip, suddenly looking as unsure as I feel.
I have a hundred questions about Bryxton and being an Elemental, and even more about Vestras and Mates, but asking any of them makes me feel vulnerable in a way that magnifies how much I don’t know—another thing I learned too quickly allows others to take advantage of you.
“Come on.” He extends his hand to me fractionally, a question or maybe a suggestion. “Let’s get some food, and I’ll answer all your questions.”
It takes me a few moments to realize I’m famished. Usually, I’d be queasy, unable to eat anything for days.
When I don’t take his hand, he places it lightly on my back and says, “Contact will help you continue healing.” As though on cue, my muscles ease, and the exhaustion recedes further.
I don’t admit either.
“Where’s Scarlet?”
“In her room. You’ll see her soon, but there are a few more things we need to go over.”
We.
A thread of unease curls beneath my ribs as Griffin leads me down the lavish hall I recognize from last night to the same open corridor with broad windows, overlooking the lake. Large snowflakes fall, slow as ash against the backdrop of the lake and forest.
“Do you love the water as much as Scarlet?”
“I think all Water Elementals love the water. The rush of power, the control, the freedom…” There’s something unguarded in his voice that has me leaning closer.
“Can you create a sphere like Tarkan did?”
Griffin slows to a stop, and I do too. He raises a hand, palm up.
Without movement or a word, water molecules seem to gather from the very air, just as Tarkan had done yesterday.
Only Griffin’s is much larger. I don’t flinch as the water coalesces into a basketball-sized sphere above his palm, suspended as if gravity has forgotten its role.
The sight is mesmerizing, but even more surprising is how that place in my stomach where Daire insisted my cindrel resides, stirs in response.
“How are you containing it? Anytime I’ve created fire, it’s massive.” Consuming.
“I’m only drawing a small amount of power,” he says.
“Can I touch it?”
A smirk tugs at his features. “Oh, Bondmate. If you weren’t recovering from ten kinds of trauma, I’d be insisting.”
Heat flushes my cheeks.
He chuckles in reply, a rich and warm sound that settles my nerves entirely too fast.
He moves the orb closer to me, and with my breath caught in my throat, I slip my fingers over the shape. A mist sprays my face, and I squeak as I pull my hand back. Griffin’s laugh fills the hall—as well as a space in my chest that has always felt vacant.
The orb reforms, its glassy surface once more perfect and undisturbed, taunting me to try again. “Have you ever manipulated water? Made a big wave or a sudden, unexplainable downpour.”
I don’t have to think about it. “No.”
“There’s a chance you also have a water element.” He tips his hand, and to my shock and glee, the sphere floats above my hand before disappearing into nothing.
I feel like a child at the circus, wanting to clap and ask him to do it again, but once more I shove down that instinct and slowly close my fist and lower my hand, continuing to the stairs.
“Do you have more than one element?”
“I have all of them.” His answer tips a domino in my thoughts and nearly has me missing a step.
Griffin’s hand shoots out, catching me easily. Too easily.
“All of them?” I repeat.
He nods, keeping his hand securely around my arm as we go down the remaining stairs. “Water is my primary.”
I wonder if fire is mine.
In the foyer, we take a different hall than the one that led to the library, passing into a large, spacious kitchen where Lief and two others are bustling around, talking as the scents of warm spices greet us, making my stomach growl.
Conversation stops as they turn toward us, snapping me back to reality. Their smiles are warm, but my gut tightens. New faces mean new variables.
To my surprise, Griffin wraps an arm around me, and rather than hide his imprint, he seems to show it off. “Brielle, do you remember Lief?”
Lief beams at me. His smile is so warm and inviting that it draws one from me in return.
“This is our chef and head alchemist, Gwen.” Griffin gestures to the woman with light brown hair and dark eyes, stirring something at the stove. “And Chandler.” He nods to the slight man with sandy-brown hair, chopping a small mountain of vegetables.
Chandler does a small bow that catches me even more off-guard than my near missed step on the stairs.
“You’ll keep them on their toes,” Gwen says before laughing robustly.
It’s a great sound, musical even. It feels like years since I’ve heard such genuine and open laughter, and it has me liking her instantly.
Still, her comment steals my reply. I don’t want to keep anyone on their toes. I want answers. I want freedom.
Griffin’s hand slips down my arm, taking my hand. I try not to obsess about the warmth and gentle pressure as his fingers weave with mine.
“Lunch is just about ready,” Lief says with a gentle smile.
Griffin nods. “Thank you.” He guides me into an adjoining dining room that is both smaller and less formal than the one we passed through last night, but like all the other rooms I’ve seen, it appears unlived in. Perfect.
“We don’t spend much time here,” Griffin says. “Work keeps us away.”
Surprisingly, I can relate. Before prison, my days were an endless loop of classes, thesis research, and back-to-back shifts at the grocery store and library to afford the apartment that I had no time to enjoy.
It feels like a lifetime ago.
I swallow, working to recall the normal beats of conversation again. “You’re in the military?”
“I am.” He pulls out a chair for me, and I focus entirely too hard on each of my movements as I experience another first that I thought only existed in older films.
“Do all dimensions have a military presence?”
As soon as the question leaves my mouth, Daire, Kai, Lochlan, and Holden enter the dining room from the opposite doorway.
Lochlan’s wearing a navy suit, the collar of his white shirt open at the throat, while the others are in jeans and tees.
“There are infinite dimensions,” Holden says, once again forcing me to realign where I fit into space.
Silence swallows my questions along with every inch of space, as survival instructs me to memorize both doorways.
Daire drops into the seat beside me, so close that our thighs touch.
Holden clears his throat as he folds into the seat across from us. “We figured you’d have questions.”
“And we have several more for you,” Lochlan adds, sitting beside him.
“Also, for the record, this is extremely flammable.” He knocks on the wooden table as a whisper of restraints slips over my wrists before vanishing.
It happens so fast that I can’t tell if it was real or if I merely imagined them.
Griffin mutters a threat. Daire seethes.
Unease creeps down my spine.
“We’re going to have to work on shielding before she can set foot into Thornhurst,” Kai says.
“Kandi’s going to be a problem, too,” Daire adds.
Something in my chest preens at the way he spits her name.
Griffin nods. “We definitely need to keep Kandi away from here.”
“One thing at a time,” Lochlan drawls.
Before he can take over the conversation, I do. “Will shielding keep me from sharing my thoughts with Griffin?”
“One can hope,” Lochlan says.
Confusion and panic tie up my lungs as dozens of my old memories start playing simultaneously like a wall of TVs in my mind—only I’m not the one who called on a single one of them.
Worse, I can’t stop them.