Casersis’s thumb ghosted along my cheek. I stared into his gorgeous cobalt eyes, fascinated as every emotion that passed through Casersis, I could almost feel it by looking into those soulful eyes. I felt like I was falling into them but couldn’t look away, even as I pressed my cheek more firmly into Casersis’s hand.
Then shit went weird. Everything seemed to fall away, or stand still, or something. Everything stopped like someone flicked the switch on a time machine and stopped the stream and flow of time. I couldn’t make any sense out of it. I really couldn’t.
I also couldn’t move. I tried. I fought to blink, to move my fingers, anything. Nothing would work. And in my peripheral vision, it looked like the fire stopped crackling in the hearth, the flames in suspended animation. It looked like the trees outside the window stopped swaying with the autumn breeze. It looked like Casersis had stopped breathing.
What the fuck was happening?
An indescribable panic started to bubble up in my gut. Nothing would work. None of my muscles, none of my attempts to break eye contact with Casersis. Nothing. I wanted to scream, but nothing would come out. I couldn’t even open my mouth. I fought. Fought to blink. To move. But I was pinned in place by Casersis’s body, and by whatever force kept me from moving or breathing.
It hit me like a ton of bricks. Casersis had told me that just looking into each other’s eyes could initiate a soulbond if we were fated. We were bonding, and it terrified the ever-loving shit out of me. I couldn’t stop it, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to. But Casersis said he didn’t want it to happen on accident. He wanted it to be planned. Unfortunately, it looked like we’d failed there. It was both of our faults, too. I couldn’t blame him and didn’t want to. So, while the world held still for however long it would, I tried to keep the panic at bay and relax into it.
Then my solar plexus roared with a sudden heat that rivaled the surface of the sun. It rocketed up through my chest and made it feel like I was engulfed in a wildfire. Something blinded me, like lightning shooting between my eyes and Casersis’s. It punched a hole in my head, feeling like I got shot at close range by an ancient style pistol. Then suddenly, an explosion knocked the wind out of me as that electricity struck back, stronger than before, through my eyes, down my neck to that place in my abdomen just below my chest before forking out to my fingers and toes, and up through the crown of my head.
I worried that I might be having some kind of weird-ass elf-style heart attack. Did elves have heart attacks? I hoped the fuck not. Jesus, this hurt worse than falling two stories into that pile of dirt at a job site last year. Fuck.
The fire in the hearth roared back to life. My vision grew sharper. Colors got brighter and more vivid. Sounds became incredibly loud, so loud that they hurt my ears.
My breath came back in a pained gasp. It hurt to breathe, and it still felt like someone caught my lungs in a vise.
Then the real pain started. It flared through my entire body. My back arched as I screamed. Casersis gasped and cried out but held onto me as I bucked. He wasn’t screaming. Why wasn’t he screaming? The elf was so quiet, his face so still. He stroked my forehead and cheek once before his head shot up, and he shouted, “KEVIN!”
Casersis shuddered as he fumbled at his back, cursing in a fluid foreign language. I think I might have accidentally unplugged his mic cord when we were horsing around. He must have gotten it plugged back into the battery because he cried, “Kevin! Come quickly!”
He clutched me to his chest and rocked as I jerked and thrashed, murmuring over and over again, “Beauty… oh, my beauty. It will be all right. Hold on… please, hold on.”
Kevin burst through the door not long after and skidded to a halt in front of us, dropping to his knees. “What happened?”
“We bonded…” Casersis sounded awed. “Help me get him undressed and into a bed. He will harm himself thrashing this way sitting here.”
“Where did you go?” Kevin demanded as he stormed through the parlor to the hidden door in the wall. “I was already on my way here. Your mic died.”
“Dustin must have accidentally unplugged it while we were roughhousing.” Casersis sighed. “I forgot about it until this. I am sorry.”
“Stuff your apologies, Dad, and get him in here.”
Carrying me must have been a chore because Casersis fought for each step as I writhed in his arms. I was too painfully aware of everything going on around me, even if I couldn’t control my own body or vocal cords. Everything was made of pain and agony.
Soon, Casersis pressed me into my mattress. He held me down with a hand on my chest. Sweat ran down the elf’s temples and neck. His eyes were wild with terror, love, and hope. “I see you in there, beauty. You will not go through this alone. Never alone.”
“I got his legs, Dad,” Kevin said as he grabbed my ankles, sending fire up my calves. He tossed away my shoes and socks without ceremony. “Get his pants undone, and I’ll snatch them off when he arches up again.”
Casersis unfastened my pants with one hand, holding me down with the other. Soon, my pants were off. They left me in my underwear and worked on my shirt. It took some teamwork, but they got me undressed, and Casersis sat on the edge of my bed. “I would take the pain away if I were able, beauty. This bond, though, is stronger than any magic any elf has ever possessed. None understand it.” He caressed my face, frowning. “Your human blood is making this so painful for you. I should have avoided eye contact until you agreed, until your change was complete. Gods, I am sorry.”
Kevin squeezed Casersis’s shoulder and sighed. “He knows, Dad. Lift him so I can turn down the bed. When this fit ends, he may pass out from the pain and strain.”
Nodding, Casersis lifted me into his arms as carefully as if I were made of delicate glass. Delicate, thrashing, glass. How Casersis lifted me without getting a black eye, bruised balls, or a concussion, I didn’t know, and I was amazed. I tried to chuckle, but it came out as another scream.
Kevin fumbled with the sheets, and soon Casersis had me tucked into bed. Rather than sitting on the edge, he toed out of his shoes and laid atop me, pinning me down with his entire body. He kissed me again and again, feverish, frantic kisses. “Gods, beauty, it cannot last long. Please, it cannot…”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Kevin said. He sat on the edge of the bed behind his father and held my hand that had flopped out of the covers with my thrashing. “He’s strong. He’ll make it through. Look at the fight in his eyes. He’s not a quitter.” He squeezed my hand and grinned at me. “Besides, Mama Beth hasn’t said he could leave yet. What Beth says goes, after all.”
Casersis studied my eyes. He dipped his head down and whispered next to my ear so that Kevin couldn’t hear. “I would fight to the last breath for you, beauty. I will fight for eternity to be worthy of the bond you have given me today. I will fight with all that I am to make you the happiest elf alive. Give me that chance. Fight for me so that I can fight for you.”
The rawness in Casersis’s voice, coupled with the tenderness of his hold, made something in my mind snap. I struggled to clench my teeth so I would stop screaming. I tried to will my limbs still. Tears poured out of the corners of my eyes as I bit my tongue on my first attempt, but on my second, my teeth clenched with a loud snap.
“That’s it, beauty!” Casersis cried. “Fight for me!”
“Heal his tongue, Dad,” Kevin said. “He bit it.”
Without a word, I felt Casersis’s hand at my jaw, and his magic flooded my whole face with comforting warmth. I swallowed over and over again as the blood poured down my throat. That warmth, though, dulled the pain and eased it away. Soon, the blood slowed to a trickle and stopped. When I went to work my tongue again, I found it almost completely healed.
Snatching my hand out of Kevin’s grasp, I clutched at Casersis’s sweater. My limbs still didn’t want to obey me. My muscles still tried to jerk me around, but I forced my other hand out from under the covers and clutched at Casersis’s other side, and held on for dear life.
“Oh, my beauty,” Casersis choked. Tears thudded loudly onto the pillow next to my ear. The elf buried his face into the curve of my neck, and he hiccuped a sob. “You are ruining my sweater…”
Kevin palmed his face and shook his head, but I jerked for a different reason. Even through the electric shocks that made me jerk, even through my muffled screams, I found myself laughing. Here I was, writhing in pain, wishing I could have a shot of morphine or some other narcotic to make the pain go away, even for a few moments, and Casersis was crying about his sweater. I couldn’t help but laugh. I forced my voice to work through my gritted teeth and said, “Kitten.”
“Oh, God.” Snorting, Kevin covered his face with both hands and laughed. “Persnickety Kitten of Doom. You’re never going to live that down so long as I live, Dad.”
Casersis chuckled and kissed my neck. “Get it out of your system, my son. Dustin is the only one allowed to call me such without repercussions.”
To see the hardened ex-military man giggle nearly had me undone. My screams turned into laughter, and I clutched at Casersis as I dissolved into breathless giggles of my own. “God… Oh, God, it hurts. Fuck. Stop! Laughing hurts almost as bad as the lightning!”
Casersis drew in another sobbed breath and reached between us to rub my solar plexus that felt like it was being electrocuted. It felt so good that I let my fisted hands release their death grip on that soft-as-down sweater. I groaned and thumped my head back onto the pillow as I panted for air. “Oh, God, don’t stop. That’s where it hurts the worst.”
“That, beauty, is your soul center,” Casersis murmured. “It is where your soul resides and where your magic will pool for your use.”
Nodding, I shivered. “I can feel you…”
Casersis matched my shiver with one of his own and stroked my face. “That is our bond, beauty,” he whispered. He leaned our foreheads together, and the pain in his voice had my solar plexus on fire. “You have the right to refuse me. That right never goes away. Your refusal will destroy the bond between our souls should you ever wish it.”
The mixed feelings of love and pain that flowed over me from Casersis in agonizing waves were dizzying. My head spun so hard that I closed my eyes and repeatedly swallowed to keep my stomach’s contents down. I had forced Kevin and Don to take me to a fast-food restaurant, and now I regretted it. I clutched Casersis to me and drew in deep draughts of his scent until that nausea quit bubbling up in my throat, and I could truly breathe again.
Through it all, Casersis rubbed at my solar plexus until the burning and pain began to ease. The moment the pain subsided, though, everything blurred. Unable to focus, I closed my eyes again. Casersis said something, but it was warped and garbled. Kevin either responded or was trying to talk to me, too. It sounded like I was underwater or at the end of a very long tunnel. Nothing made sense.
Then it all went away.
