“Come. Take a seat.”
As I started to look at Paine, she moved into my line of sight. “Don’t look to him for assistance. He can’t help you.” When I met her stare, I could see she was pushing me, hoping I’d cross the line so she could flex her muscles. “Do as I say.”
Unable to do anything else, I did what I knew Paine silently instructed and kept my mouth shut. The chair was hard against my back, the legs shorter than those of her ornate throne. It forced me to look up at her, putting me in a physical place of submission. My pride resented the implication, but my mind overcame emotion, keeping me silent when all I could think about was standing up, folding the chair back into its original position, and kissing Vicky girl upside the cranium with it.
From my vantage point, I could see that the werewolves were being kept apart, tethered by the chains that were in the hands of vampires standing on either side of the beasts. The wounds in their chests were slowly closing, but their fur was matted with varying shades of blood—ranging from fresh, deep red, to dark, rusty brown. What I’d thought was one link in the collar was actually two, allowing the vampires to control the wolf-men more efficiently using a ratio of two to one.
“Hideous creatures, aren’t they?” Victoria said and clucked her tongue. The vampires holding the chains moved closer, allowing the interlocking circles of metal to go slack, and the werewolves started slashing at each other once more.
I wanted to turn around and see if Paine still stood just behind me, surrounded and unable to move. Knowing better, I focused instead on his presence, the comfort that arose from his touch, the safety I felt in his company, and almost gave myself away when I felt an all new, yet heartbreakingly familiar sensation suffuse my body and mind.
When Disco opened the mark between us, it allowed us to share not only physical strength, but emotions. No longer were we individuals who were separate and divided. The bond of a familiar and their master created a union that was perfect in all ways. It was how Disco knew how I felt about him despite my fear to say it aloud. He could sense everything I couldn’t formulate verbally, and I could anticipate his moods prior to his taking action upon them. He could close the mark at will, but when we were intimate, or when he wanted to convey just how important I was to him, he allowed the gates to open wide, granting us the freedom to bask in the unspoken glory of how special our relationship was.
The mark between Paine and I, while different than the one I shared with Disco, was equally powerful—if not alarmingly more so. I wasn’t sure if it was because so much time had passed and he was now older and therefore more formidable, or if he had been stronger than Disco and I was blissfully unaware of it until now. Either way, his power and presence surrounded me like an imperceptible blanket, permeating my soul until the link settled into place, and I could feel just how livid, concerned and anxious he was.
Yet it wasn’t the emotions that I should have been most concerned with that washed over me, causing my heart to stammer and my breath to catch. It was the one that I felt above all others that jolted me into an alarming awareness of the bond, forcing me to see what I had remained entirely oblivious to for God knows how damned long.
Love.