Chapter 67: The Bonding Heat Begins
Rhys awoke to a foreign sunrise inside his own skull.It wasn't pain.It was pressure. A second heartbeat thudding in sync with his own, a whisper of emotion not his own threading through the static of sleep.Panic, cold and slick, coiled in his gut. He stared at the water-stain pattern on Aurora’s ceiling, the reality of the bite, the bond, the permanence of it, crashing down like a engine block dropped from a lift.Fuck.
He’d marked her. Knotted her, yes, that was one thing—a biological function, a temporary lock.But the claiming bite was forever.It was a brand. His ex had begged for it for years, and he’d always refused, some instinct holding him back. With Aurora, in the blinding, scent-drunk crucible of her climax, it had felt as inevitable as breathing.Necessary.Now, in the washed-out grey morning, it felt like a catastrophic error.
He was a mechanic.He fixed broken things.He didn’t own them. This bond was a chain, a claim of ownership.He’d sworn he’d never be that vulnerable again. His muscles tensed, a flight response firing in his nerves.A soft sigh brushed his chest. Aurora stirred, nuzzling blindly into the hollow of his throat. A wave of pure, unguarded contentment—hers, not his—washed through the nascent bond, so potent it made his breath catch. It was warm honey spilled in his veins, a sense of rightness so profound it felt like a physical anchor.He looked down. She was a tangle of sleep-soft limbs and blond hair against him, the fierce, bruising mark on the join of her neck and shoulder stark against her pale skin.Her scent was different now. Still vanilla and lavender, but underscored by something dark and wild—him.His scent was woven into hers. The proof of the bond was literally in the air.His panic curdled into a sharp, familiar ache.Guilt.
She’d trusted him.Completely.And he was lying here thinking of her as a mistake.
He tried to disentangle his arm, moving with glacial care.Her eyes fluttered open immediately. Hazel, still hazy with sleep and the lingering dregs of her heat, but the moment they focused on him, they lit up.A shy, radiant smile touched her lips. “Hi.”
The single word, sleep-roughened and tender, lodged in his ribs.
“Hey,” he managed, his voice gravel.
She stretched, a tiny, feline movement that pressed her body more firmly against his side. The heat was simmering now, a low banked fire, not the inferno of the night. But the movement, the feel of her soft skin, still sent a jolt of raw desire straight to his groin.He ignored it.
“I can feel you,” she whispered, her fingertips tracing idle patterns over his tattooed pec.“Not all the way. Just… a hum. Like you’re in the next room with music playing.” She looked up, wonder in her eyes.“Is that the bond?”
“Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “That’s it.”
She studied his face, her smile fading slightly. The warm-honey feeling from the bond dimmed, clouded by a tendril of uncertainty.His own tension was bleeding through. “You’re… worried,” she said, not a question.
He couldn’t lie to her.Not now.The bond wouldn’t let him, not completely. “It’s a big thing, Aurora.”
“I know.” She bit her lip, her gaze dropping to his collarbone.“I wanted it.I asked for it.”
“You were in your heat. You weren’t–”
“I was me,” she interrupted, her voice soft but firmer than he’d ever heard it.She looked up, meeting his eyes. “Maybe it makes things more intense, but it doesn’t change what I want. I knew what I was asking for.” Her hand stilled over his heart. “Do you regret it?”
The question hung in the silent room.He could feel her heart beating faster through his own senses. He saw the fragile hope in her eyes, ready to shatter.He didn’t regret the bite. He regretted his own weakness, his own history, the way it poisoned this clean, new thing. He thought of the chat site, the anonymous void where he’d sought a simple, physical release. He’d found a nuclear reactor instead.
“I don’t regret you,” he said finally, the words feeling inadequate.It was the truth, but not the whole truth.
She searched his face, her omega instincts reading the subtext in the set of his jaw, the distance in his eyes. The warm-honey feeling in the bond turned cool, tinged with a sadness that made his chest hurt.
“But you’re scared,” she concluded softly.She shifted, pulling away slightly. The loss of her warmth was immediate.“Because of before. Because she cheated.”
He sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the nest, his broad back to her. He ran a hand over his face. “It’s not about you.”
“Isn’t it?” The question was barely audible.He looked over his shoulder. She’d drawn the blanket up to her chin, looking small and too young, the claiming mark a violent contrast. The bond screamed at the distance, a physical discomfort.He hated it.Hated the need, the pull.
“I fix cars, Aurora,” he said, his voice rough. “I know how to take them apart and put them back together.I know what’s broken.People… they’re not like that. You can’t torque-test a feeling. I don’t know how to do this.” He gestured vaguely between them.“The bond… it’s forever. What if I fuck it up?”
There was a long silence.Then the rustle of sheets.Small, bare feet padded across the floor. She came around and knelt in front of him, her blanket draped around her shoulders like a shawl. She took his much larger hands in hers.“You won’t,” she said simply.
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.” She looked up, her hazel eyes clear and certain. “Because you’re the one who stayed on the floor when I cried. You’re the one who asked me to use my words. You’re the one who stopped when I flinched.” She squeezed his hands. “You’re already not fucking it up.”
Her faith was a weight.Heavier than any engine block.It pinned him in place.
A faint, familiar warmth began to pulse from her again, seeping into him through their joined hands and the silent channel of the bond.It wasn’t the delirious happiness of before.It was steadier.A quiet resolve.
Her stomach growled, a loud, incongruous sound in the tense room.
A surprised laugh punched out of him.The sound felt strange in his throat.A blush stained her cheeks. “I’m hungry.”
The domestic normalcy of it was an anchor.Food. Something he could do.“Alright,” he said, standing up, pulling her with him. “Show me your kitchen. I’ll see what I can fix.”
He kept her hand in his as he led her out of the bedroom, the fledgling bond humming between them, still fragile, still terrifying, but tethered now by something new—a choice, however shaky, to face the morning together.