Page 49 of Avelina

“What happens if you don’t have one?” I asked.

“They hang you in the pit,” he said.

Nothing about that sentence sounded fun. I knew it was bad here, but this was completely out of control. I shook my head. These people had to be stopped.

“Aaron, is he serious?” I asked. Aaron had had multiple locks on his cottage. Then again, he was sort of an outlaw.

“Completely,” Aaron murmured. “Let me listen.”

We stood in the foyer in the dark while Aaron listened to the house. It opened to what appeared to be one big room, though it was hard for me to see with so little light coming in through the windows. As my eyes adjusted, however, I could make out seating just beyond the foyer to the right, including a green couch with comfortable-looking cushions. I gazed at it longingly.

“I don’t hear anything,” Ward said after a while.

“Neither do I,” said Aaron. “I’ll check upstairs.”

“Let me do it,” said Ward.

I heard no response from Aaron, but after a moment, Ward walked past him, so he must have nodded. I smiled appreciatively. If there were any bodies, it would be better if Ward found them first. I supposed volunteering to take that on was a peace offering of sorts.

Ward walked directly toward the back, all but disappearing into the dark. I heard him climbing what I presumed to be the stairs. I crouched and put my hand on the floor to see if I could feel anything. Apparently, wood flooring doesn’t transmit Connection. I stood back up and walked forward until I was next to Aaron.

“What if we don’t find anything at all?” I asked.

“My uncle rarely leaves the property, but I suppose it’s possible. We could wait, but it might be dangerous. I assume Seleca knew we were headed here. If we find nothing, we’ll sleep in the attic in case someone comes in the middle of the night.”

I groaned, longing to plop down on that green couch.

“There’s a bed up there,” Aaron said, smirking.

“Oh, yeah? How big?” I asked, taking his hand to connect. I still felt awkward from our fight, but a little innuendo could be a quick way to get back on track.

Aaron laughed softly. “Big enough,” he said. It hadn’t exactly been a proposition, but I had vocalized a definite intention to sleep in the same bed with him. Connection let me feel him echo that intention back vehemently.

He was a ball of emotions now. The clearest to my senses was dread at the possibility of finding corpses in the house. Almost as loud was the fear about what might have befallen his family if we didn’t find any bodies. Hovering just underneath was the excitement about sleeping next to me and the guilt about letting himself be distracted by it when his family could be dead or in danger.

“So, your uncle lives here with your cousin?” I asked. I let go of his hand, doing a little turn to look around.

“Yes,” he said. “There are two rooms upstairs. He’s in one; my cousin, Terik, and his bondmate, Farrah, are in the other. They haven’t gotten permission to have children yet.”

“How long have they been married—bonded—I mean?” I asked.

“Ten years,” he said. “And they get frequent nighttime visits.”

“Is that normal? Or are they searching for you?”

“A bit of both,” said Aaron. “They have been looking for me for quite some time, but Farrah is a sore subject as well.”

“Why?” I asked.

“She’s a powerful fragmentor, a greater producer, like Jorin, which makes her valuable to bond. She’s also . . . quite beautiful,” he said, eyeing me. I had let go of his hand too soon. There was more to that story. “Magister Axel wanted her, but she refused to bond to him. She was sixteen and he would have forced her, but Jorin spoke on her behalf. He has influence with the Ministry Council because he produces so many valuable goods. He said that he needed her help with the farm.”

“What is a producer exactly?” I asked.

“A grower. Jorin can make anything grow, including livestock. He provides more than half the food in Neesee, no matter what the weather does. Without him, food prices would skyrocket, and people would go hungry. That is also why they leave him alone even though they know he’s my uncle. Farrah agreed to bond to my cousin since he will eventually inherit the farm, but Axel has blocked all their birth permit requests and sends his minions to harass them on a monthly basis.”

I shook my head again. “We have to stop these people, Aaron. We can’t just run away to Earth and leave your family to their fate. The cult that runs this place is ruining lives, killing people. This isn’t right.”

“It isn’t just Eve and Seleca,” he said. “Even if we manage to get rid of those two, we’d have to overcome the entire Ministry Council, the magisters, the guild masters, and everyone else who benefits from the system, which includes all those with greater reservoirs to some degree. What could we do against that?”

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