When I left the apartment, I really had no idea where I would find River; I just knew I needed to find him. Yes, he had asked for alone time, but he’d had enough, dammit. I was getting worried now, so… too bad.
Wandering through the sleeping residential building, I cast out my mind in the hope that he would sense me looking for him and make it easy on me. No such luck, though.
It amazed me that no one had woken up and come to investigate what had been going on during Cole and Vali’s rumble with River’s demonic form, but perhaps it was normal to sleep heavily after being healed of a magical plague. I know I usually slept like the dead after healing myself. But I’d also never healed anyone without life-threatening injuries before, so it was all new territory.
“Come on, River. Where the hell are you?” I muttered, stepping out into the cool night air and peering into the darkness. “If I was River, where would I go?”
Of course, it didn’t help that the guys had spent years on this campus while I had barely survived a few months. I probably hadn’t even seen half of the places he might go for alone time. Still, I needed to try and think like River.
My one advantage was that I knew what his head must be looking like right now—probably just as fucked up as mine. The only difference was that I was maintaining surprisingly good control over the guilt.
Control. Of course!
River sought control over everything in his life. It was his constant, and the hellhound version of him had stripped that away. So where would he go to rebuild it? Where had I seen him most relaxed? Most in control?
A grin spread over my face as a memory formed, one of him behind the wheel of a dark gray Aston Martin, stroking the expensive upholstery and telling me that I was never allowed to drive his baby.
Was there a garage somewhere on campus? Surely there had to be. I hadn’t seen that car of his in months. Could it be here?
Hurrying to the front of the building, I searched for any sort of entrance to an undercover parking lot. Of course, there was an outdoor one where I had parked my Prius when we’d lived here, but any car of River’s would be secure from the weather.
“Bingo!” I cheered, spotting a driveway that disappeared along the side of the residential building and led up to a rolling garage door. Skipping over to it, I frowned at the magnetic swipe box that would open the door. I could break it, but hadn’t I done enough damage lately?
Glancing around, I searched for alternative options. Beside the rolling door, a nondescript service door held a simple deadbolt which would be easy to pick. Hopefully it would take me into the parking lot and not a maintenance closet.
Humming to myself, I took a couple of pins that were incorporated into the design of my shirt—a trick I had picked up from Austin—and used them to open the door in a matter of seconds.
Win! Still got it.
Sure, the same thing could have been achieved with magic, but I hadn’t really fine-tuned my small magic enough to get away without damaging the door. My magic, as it currently stood, was a little more brute force than subtlety.
Inside the dark parking lot, my heels clicked on the concrete floor. The sound bounced and echoed in a creepy, horror movie kind of way, and I would have been scared, had I not been the biggest and baddest thing around right now.
“If I were River’s car…” I muttered to myself, walking slowly down the line of cars and checking each of the badges on the back. This was definitely a parking lot for the higher-ranking agents. No recruit could have afforded the type of machinery stored within this lot.
“Aston Martin Rapide,” I read out quietly, pausing behind a jet-black car. “I bet I know who owns you.” Circling around to the passenger door, I opened it and slid inside.
The soft sound of the door closing was all the hello I needed, so I sat there and said nothing. I’d done the hard work of searching the whole fucking campus for him; it was his turn.
“How’d you find me?” River asked finally, not looking away from the steering wheel where his fingers traced the little silver wings of the car badge.
I shrugged. “It wasn’t hard,” I lied. “Is this one of yours? I haven’t seen it before.”
“Yep, this was my first Aston. I actually forgot I had it stored here until…” He trailed off with a sigh.
“Until you needed to reconnect with the old you?” I finished for him. “I get that. I just picked a lock the old-fashioned way, and it made me surprisingly happy.”
River’s mouth tilted up in a tiny smile, and he glanced over at me. “How are you doing so okay? After everything we did… everything I did…” A deep shudder ran through him, and I resisted the urge to hug him. Hugs weren’t going to fix the torment inside his soul.
“I’m not okay. Not by a long shot,” I admitted. “But I think the bonds are helping me. Dulling the… madness. You know?”
He nodded slowly, turning his attention back to the logo on the steering wheel. “That makes sense. You’re lucky to have that. I don’t.” He sucked in a deep breath and blew it out, his shoulders slumping. “I’ve blended with the hound, and now I no longer feel like me. There is this lurking crazy in the back of my mind, making me feel just unpredictable. Totally out of control, like the second something angers me, I might snap and turn into him again.”
“He is still you. I don’t think you’ll have the same thing happen again, even if you did shift. The whole mass murder spree in hound form situation, I mean.” I studied the side of his face, clenching my fingers to keep from reaching out and touching him. “My half-baked theory is that you’ve got two forms. The white wolf, and then the hellhound. I have no idea how that works, but I assume you’ll be able to choose depending on situation.”
River murmured a sound of acknowledgement, but still seemed a bit lost in thought.
“But as for how the bonds are helping me stay afloat from the pool of despair you’re paddling around in, it can help you too.” This grabbed his attention, and he shot me a sharp look. “You need to bond with me, River. A problem shared is a problem halved and all that? Well, I have a weird feeling that when you bond to me, it will create kind of a secondary bond between all of you guys. You’re my sixth dianoch; you’re the missing link.”
“And what, share my crazy with them all? I can’t do that.” He shook his head, but I could see the glint of hope in his eyes.
“They all share mine right now, and it doesn’t seem to be affecting them.” I shrugged and fiddled with the knobs on the dashboard. “Yes, I’m aware that is a very naïve statement, but we are sort of flying by the seats of our pants, aren’t we? We don’t have the luxury of time to run experiments. We just need to take some calculated risks and cross our fingers that they will work out. You know?”
“I know,” River agreed. “But that doesn’t make me okay with dumping my crap on their doorsteps.”
“Would you rather stay like you are right now? Conflicted and guilt ridden? River, I need you. Now more than I ever have before. I can’t face Bridget until we are a united unit. That’s something I am so totally sure about. If we go to her incomplete, we will lose.” I dropped my gaze to my lap, feeling awful for asking so much of him but not knowing what else to do. “More than that, I just want you. I’m so stupidly in love with you and the idea that you might still walk away from us makes me sick. So please, River, please. Please bond with me.”
The tension inside the confined space was almost suffocating as I waited for his response, but I couldn’t push any harder than I already had. Fate of the world or not, it still needed to be his choice.
“Okay,” he finally said, and the air gusted out of me with relief. “For the record, I think this is dangerous and risky as hell. But I also think you’re right. We need to be united in every sense of the word if we are to take on Bridget and whatever army she has at her back.”
Excitement and appreciation choked the words of thanks in my throat, so instead I just handed him the lancet I had borrowed from Caleb earlier.
“Let’s do it outside the car,” he suggested, taking the little pricker from me with warm fingers. “Just in case those runes damage the interior.”
This pulled a broad grin from me, and I hurried out of the car to meet him in front of the hood.
“Do you know the verse?” I asked him, tugging on a piece of my hair nervously. Bonding hurt. There was no two ways about it. But I’d been in love with River for so damn long already I couldn’t wait to take this next step in commitment. Or, it was probably the big step in commitment, wasn’t it? Something told me that bonding to someone for all eternity—especially when you were immortals—was a bit of a step up on traditional marriage.
“I do. We all memorized it, just in case.” He looked almost shy as he admitted this, but it made my heart swell.
Wordlessly, I held my hand out, and he took it in his own, rubbing his thumb over the surface of my Ban Dia ring and frowning just the smallest bit. When he didn’t make any move to start the spell, I touched his cheek with my other hand.
“You okay?” I asked in a soft voice, “We don’t have to do this if you’re not sure or, um, changed your mind.” I was trying really hard not to let my own insecurities seep into my voice, but they were there nonetheless. Had everything we had done recently changed his view of me? Was he no longer committed to us? No longer in love with me?
“Yeah, there was just something I wanted to do first.” He met my eyes with a conflicted look in his eyes. “I don’t suppose you might be able to take us home first? There’s just something… And I didn’t imagine committing eternity to you in a darkened parking lot, you know?”
A short laugh bubbled out of me, and I nodded my understanding. “Yeah, I know what you mean. Let’s go.” Taking the lancet from him, I pricked my own finger and used the blood droplet to cast a rune portal back to our new house.
“This house is beautiful, you know?” I murmured as River linked his fingers with mine and we walked up the front steps. The doors weren’t locked, which was pretty normal for us these days. The house was so far into the middle of nowhere it was highly unlikely anyone would ever stumble across it, and our enemies weren’t really the type to be stopped by conventional door locks anyway.
“Thank you, Kitten.” He acknowledged the compliment with a nod, and I could tell it meant a lot to him that I liked it. “When I saw it advertised, I just knew it was perfect for us.”
With our fingers still linked, he led me up the main stairs and down to his bedroom, which was at the opposite end of the hall from my own.
“I’ll be quick,” he assured me, seeming almost… nervous? That didn’t seem like River at all, but he had been through a lot. It stood to reason he might be acting a bit off. “I know the guys will start freaking out if you’re gone for too long. Especially Cole. For all his tough exterior, he is such a marshmallow inside, constantly worrying about everyone.”
“River?” I said, squinting at him as he opened the top drawer of his neatly organized dresser, “Are you okay? You’re being really, uh, chatty.”
His shoulders visibly tightened, and he spun back around to face me with a decidedly guilty slant to his mouth. “I’m fine, Kitten. Just feeling a bit off-balance.”
“That’s pretty understandable,” I sympathized. “I think the bond will help. I really do. So, what are we doing here, anyway?”
River shuffled closer to me, shoving the drawer closed behind him. He kept his hands behind his back and seemed to fiddle with something. “Before we did the bond, I wanted to give you something.” He paused, sucking in a breath that seemed to help him regain a bit of himself. “Obviously, I understand that the Ban Dia-dianoch bond is forever. For all eternity if we live that long.” I nodded, getting a sick feeling in my gut. He was having second thoughts! “Well, call me old-fashioned, but I wanted to make this small gesture before we bonded. It was something that had been on my mind a lot before we… you know…”
“Went dark?” I supplied, and he gave me a half smile, meeting my eyes with his own golden ones.
“Yes, let’s call it that. Before we went dark. Anyway, I know things are a bit unconventional with the guys but”—he pulled his hand out from behind his back and presented a small, leather jewelry box to me— “I would be honored if you might consider wearing this anyway?” He cracked the lid open, and I sucked in a sharp gasp.
Nestled on the velvet bed inside was a stunning and very antique diamond ring—very much like an engagement ring.
“River, is this—”
“It was my mother’s engagement ring. Obviously traditional marriage is sort of redundant when we are all bonded to you through magic, but I have been obsessing over giving you this for months. Will you accept it? And know that magic or not, I belong to you. Heart and soul for however long we have left, be that one week or one millennia.” His gaze was steady on mine, even though I felt like I was having a heart attack. My pulse was racing so damn hard I wouldn’t have been shocked if I’d passed out for a split second while I stood there dumbfounded.
“I—” I had no perfect words for this. So many little girls dreamed of this moment, but never me. Even as a child I’d suspected I would never have my own happily ever after. But standing there and extending a shaking hand to take the ring, I couldn’t help but hope for a different sort of fairytale ending. Could we make it through this? All of us? Settle down in our beautiful house and enter domestic bliss? “Y-yes,” I finally replied, nodding frantically and feeling wetness on my cheeks.
River grinned at me then, giving me that heart-stopping, panty-melting smile that I had only seen a handful of times before. Thank fuck, too. If he kept flashing that smile around, I would never get anything done.
Taking the ring from the box, he slipped it onto my empty ring finger so that it mirrored my Ban Dia ring. It was a perfect fit, too.
“How…” I trailed off, frowning at the ring. Why minor details like this always seemed to get me hung up, I had no idea. But it was odd, wasn’t it?
“I might have stolen your ring measurements while you slept and had it resized,” River admitted with an unapologetic shrug. “Now, bond?”
“Uh-huh,” I mumbled, unable to tear my eyes off the glittering diamond on my hand. It had been his mother’s, he had said. What was the story there? I knew his parents were long since deceased, but she must have meant a lot to him for him to make a sentimental gesture like this.
“Come on, Kitten, the boys will be getting their knickers in a twist soon. Give me the little stabby thing,” River coaxed me, dropping my newly sparkling hand and picking up the one holding my magical bonds. Wordlessly, I handed him the lancet, which he used to prick his thumb and squeeze a droplet of his blood onto the stone.
I barely even heard his spell verse, but my mouth reciprocated with my own half of the spell without consciously thinking about it. When it was done and River’s magic rushed into me like a tsunami, I forced myself to hold his gaze as long as I could.
My teeth ground together so hard they could have cracked, and my whole body shook with pain as the sixth borrowed magic to enter my soul kicked down doors and flipped tables. It was always such a fight for dominance with all the guys’ magics, but eventually it would settle. They all did.
When I couldn’t bear it any longer, my eyes snapped shut, and I screamed with the pain, crumpling to the ground but never hitting the carpet. Instead, strong arms caught me and placed me gently on the bed as lips met mine.
River’s kiss then was like a cool glass of water when I’d been stranded in the Sahara for weeks. It soothed me instantly, so much faster than any of the previous bonds. But even as the pain abated, the magic continued to flow between us, back and forth, searching for the right levels of power.
“Is that normal? For the magic to still be flowing between us?” he asked me, pulling back from our kiss with a shocked expression. “It feels… I don’t even know how to describe it. Is it hurting you?”
I shook my head. “No, not yet, anyway. And no, it hasn’t happened before. Maybe because our unit is now complete? You better keep kissing me, just in case the pain comes back.”
Hah, good one Kit. Smooth.
River didn’t really need my bullshit excuses though, as he eagerly rejoined his lips to mine and coaxed my mouth open to deepen his kiss. Reaching up, I gripped his short hair and pulled him closer until he was lying on top of me, my legs wrapped loosely around his waist.
He pulled back from our kiss then, catching my hand in his and turning it over to kiss the heirloom ring on my finger. “I love you, Kit Davenport,” he whispered in a husky, emotion-filled voice. “I’ve loved you from the moment I laid eyes on you outside that bar in Cascade Falls.”
“Liar,” I snorted. “I don’t believe in love at first sight. That’s the stuff of fairytales.”
He crooked a grin at me and raised an eyebrow. “Kitten. You have dragons, werewolves, wizards, and uh, whatever the fuck Wesley is. You have six knights in shining armor ready to lay down their lives for yours, and we are battling a wicked witch. What more do you need to believe we are living a fairytale?”
I grinned back at him. “Well, when you put it like that, it does sound a bit like something out of a story.” Still, even with all of that, I found the idea of love at first sight hard to swallow. Even if I was more than willing to plead lust at first sight. “I love you too, River Morgan,” I whispered back to him, dropping the teasing. “Thank you for trusting me.”
I was referring to so much more than just the bond, but I knew he understood as he kissed me with a tenderness I hadn’t known he was capable of. This time when our kiss deepened, neither of us were stopping for words. Our hands roamed each other’s bodies frantically, searching and reacquainting ourselves with one another, and the odd sensation of magic running between us was quickly forgotten as our clothes were shed.
More and more, the old River was returning, and when he pinned my wrists to the bed—holding me immobile—I grinned against his mouth.
“You can tie me up if you need to,” I offered in a breathless gasp, feeling his hardness rubbing against my aching crotch.
“Not this time,” he murmured in response, holding my gaze with his beautiful, wolf-like eyes as he shifted his hips to sink an inch or so inside me. “This time I just want you exactly like this.”
I groaned, arching my hips and encouraging him deeper inside, but I held his steady gaze like I knew he wanted me to. Or needed me to. Maybe it was a wolf thing? It was something to explore another day, at any rate.
“River,” I whimpered when he still didn’t give in to my body’s begging. “Sir, please…”
His eyes flashed, and through our new bond, I could feel his control slip just that little bit. He slammed his cock into me fully, drawing a cry from my throat. It made me realize something though.
“Don’t hold back. I don’t want your control here. Fuck me exactly the way you need to because I need it too.” I wriggled a wrist free and cupped his rough cheek so he could see the sincerity of my words. “I promise you won’t hurt me. I’m tougher than I look.”
Sweat beaded on his forehead and indecision flickered over his eyes, but he couldn’t hide from me. Not when we were so newly joined by our magic. I meant what I’d said, and he knew it.
With a gruff, defeated noise, he did exactly what I asked. Our bond allowed me a behind-the-scenes view as he relinquished the iron grip he held over his dual nature, letting the wildness creep into his psyche and blend with his own human wants and desires.
Even without sensing what his magic was doing, the results spoke for themselves.
River withdrew from between my legs, then in one swift movement had flipped me over onto my stomach and lifted my ass straight up in the air. Before I could even process the physics required for such a smooth movement, he was seated deeply inside me once more and my fingers were clutching at the pillowcase.
“Fuck yes, sir,” I groaned as he began thrusting into me, hitting my g-spot in just the right way that had me seeing stars in mere moments.
His movements were wild, exactly like I had pushed him to be. Though totally different from the River I already knew, I understood in my soul—this was the real River. He was placing so much trust in me by showing me his beast, and it was a stupid crazy turn-on.
His fingers flexed on my hips as he used his grip to pull me back onto his cock, intensifying his own thrusts and causing his balls to slap at my clit. Curses and incoherent noises of encouragement flew from my mouth, and when his palm cracked down on my ass cheek, I spiraled into an orgasm so intense I was left gasping and dry-mouthed, waiting for my vision to clear even as he continued pounding into me.
“Again,” I moaned, desperate for more, and he was all too willing to accommodate.
It only took five more sharp smacks before I screamed into another orgasm, followed by another, and then when he inserted two fingers into my soaking core alongside his cock, I thought I might pass out.
He was not done with me yet, though, as he withdrew those fingers and immediately began stretching out my asshole.
Holy fucking shit. Is it possible to die from over-climaxing? If so… fucking sign me the hell up!
“Yes,” I panted as his fingers in my ass matched the strokes of his thick cock in my pussy. “Yes, sir, give me more,” I begged.
Pulling his shaft from my punished cunt, he pressed the head against my prepped backdoor and breached that tight space in a hard thrust, making me howl. The initial pain faded fast as he pumped into me, stretching me and filling me even as he slipped his fingers around the front to flick my clit and finger-fuck my pussy.
I lost track of time then, crashing and shuddering through the insane, intense pleasure as he fucked me like the wild thing he was—deep down.
When eventually he came, it was with a guttural, animalistic noise, filling me with his hot seed and then collapsing on top of me in a sweaty, panting mess.
It took me a while to regain movement of my body, but when I could, I rolled over under his weight and wrapped him into a tight hug.
“That was mind-blowing,” I breathed into his ear, reassuring him that not only was I totally fine with meeting his beast, so to speak, I wanted to do it again. “I love you, River Morgan. In all of your forms. They’re all you and I love you.”
He said nothing in response but pressed a soft kiss into the bend of my neck and tightened his arms around me, like he never wanted to let me go.
