Page 40 of Gift from the Tree

Fuck, of course. He just told me that’s how they get to the campus every day.

I hope I don’t puke.

Eleven

Corentin

Fuck, fuck, FUCK.

Five…four…

Her sweet, whimsical laughter behind me, like a siren’s call, has the newly awakened fucking bond going crazy in the cages of my chest, trying its damnedest to get to her. It’s taken everything in me not to walk back toward them and snatch her out of Draken’s hands and keep her plastered to my side.

Three…two.

How the fuck she’s managing to keep her cool right now after what just happened, I have no idea. I’m hanging on by a thread. I felt it the moment it flared to life, and I can feel it now, trying to stretch out toward her. I can’t believe it happened so fast. I can’t believe that was my awakening. A moment I’ve waited my entire life for, come and gone in a matter of seconds, and I can’t even tell my Primary what it meant.

First, I was fucking stunned by how she looked the moment I walked into the breakfast room. Stunning. That’s one of many words I could use to describe her looks, but at that moment, I was speechless. The sun was cresting the trees, bathing her in a glow that had my gift craving to come out and surround her. The last time I laid eyes on her six days ago, she still wore minor cuts all over, and her eye and jaw still had yellowish bruising, but today she’s completely healed, and she’s fucking breathtaking.

Despite how I think she looks, I still can’t give in to her. Seeing the brief glimpses of her past and what she’s been through makes Caspian’s theory on her less likely. Unless she’s just been beaten to the point of brainwashing, then I highly doubt she’s here as some spy. And with the fiery spirit I’ve seen so far, she wouldn’t be easily brainwashed.

Regardless, she’s here for a reason. A reason more than just being our Primary and that’s the only thing I know about her for certain now. She doesn’t understand why she had those visions, but it’s the indicator that you’ve met your Nexus Primary, or in her case, she’s met a member of her Nexus. We just can’t celebrate it and she can’t know about it for now.

Not everyone will see pieces of the past when they meet their Primary. From what we know, you never know what you’re going to see or when you’ll see it. Take fucking Draken’s non-listening ass for example. He’s barely been able to keep his hands off her and neither has seen anything yet. But they will when time presents itself.

Today, I had already decided she was going to move into the dorms, away from us. I had background checks already on the roommates, made sure they were only females and everything. Her presence has done nothing but stir up tension in our group and in my mind, it would’ve been best to distance ourselves from her until we figured more out.

Then Elementra decides it’s time for us to see bits of one another, and my decision wasn’t so clear. Once she told me why she didn’t want to share a room with others yet, my decision completely changed to needing her back in the mansion. Now that the Nexus bond’s been recognized, at least on a magical level, it’ll be harder for either of us to ignore the pull. Willow, of course, will have no clue what’s going on because I ordered Gaster, and Draken since he was hanging around her more than the rest of us, to not explain anything about Primaries to her.

A fully formed Nexus is the most powerful bond in Elementra. Something me and my brothers have been waiting for, holding out hope for, since we found Draken, and this isn’t how we all envisioned anything going. That also meant, though, Gaster couldn’t explain what his bond with her was. When he told me about the vision they shared the night he brought her here and what it meant, I was dumbfounded. I told him he couldn’t tell her what that meant either and he’s been short with me ever since. It’s killing him mentally, keeping this from her, and I’m at fault for that.

I can’t help that right now.

It isn’t as simple as just getting to know her. My whole Nexus, well, except Draken—he fell in love at first sight—doesn’t trust the things surrounding her and recognizes there’s more at play here, so just getting to know who she is, as a person, is the bare minimum. Whatever the case may be of why she’s here, what that stone of hers is hiding from us all, we gotta figure that out first before we can even consider giving this a chance. It’ll keep us all protected, even her, regardless of if no one else sees it that way.

She’ll just be kept at arm’s length until we figure it out.

One…

I finish my mental countdown, locking my bond in tight with everything else I cage up as I walk ahead of the two of them as we make our way to Gaster’s cottage. I need to fill him in on the change of plans and get a tonic or a healing vial for her for after transport to keep her from throwing up all over the place.

He opens the front door before I even get there to knock. “Well, everyone’s still in one piece, and no one’s wearing breakfast, so I’ll take that as a good sign,” he jokes with me for the first time since we had our disagreement about what Willow could and couldn’t know.

“The awakening happened,” I tell him in a low growl, not wanting her to overhear me. The moment I say the words, the damn thing starts a fucking war beat against its walls in my chest.

Gaster’s eyes widen, looking from me to her and back. “Corentin, you know—”

“I’ll talk with them all and we’ll decide where to go from here,” I cut him off.

He furrows his eyebrows and purses his lips, basically telling me I’m a fucking ass for cutting him off and for keeping this from her.

We sit silently as Willow and Draken make it up the steps to where we’re standing. Willow goes straight to Gaster and gives him a hug, telling him she didn’t destroy any more rooms and only cried a little. I don’t know why the crying part was important, but Gaster looks at her the way a proud father would and that makes my gut clench.

“We came to let you know Willow will be moving back into the mansion rather than the dorms. We’re going to go to the campus now and give her a tour so she’ll be more prepared for tomorrow. We need some tonic or a vial for her,” I say in a neutral tone, trying not to give away the fact we were just discussing something private.

“What do I need a tonic or vial for?” Willow asks, looking a little skeptical.

“Until you’re used to transporting, you’re going to be sick every time you do it. The drink Gaster gives you when you pass out or throw up is a healing tonic,” I explain.

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