Page 29 of The World Undone

She licked her bottom lip and nodded, too stunned for words.

My eyes latched onto the smooth column of her throat as she swallowed. I couldn’t help but feel like there was something heavy there, something she was trying desperately to bury deep inside of herself. Shoved so far down that none of us could reach it—that even the mate bonds were unable to pluck it from her thoughts.

“Did what work?” Eli asked, stepping between us like he was missing something.

“I think the connection becomes stronger when we focus on it, when we try to filter our thoughts with intention,” I started, shoving him back so that I could see Max again. “And maybe sometimes, when we run away with our thoughts or lose that control over them, they shake loose and slip through the connection on their own.”

Max took a deep breath, relaxing, and that ease slowly settled over me too, over us all.

I wasn’t sure she was even aware of that—how in tune we all were with her heightened emotions. It was like I’d developed a seventh sense. One that was reserved entirely for her.

“Okay,” she whispered, nodding, “I can work with that.”

“If we work on controlling it—” Wade started, that studious expression of his—that I’d seen only rare glimpses of since his descent into hell—making an appearance, softening his features until he looked more like the gangly younger kid who followed me and Atlas around like a lost puppy. The memory squeezed at my chest, knowing how much trauma he’d endured to sharpen those edges. “Maybe we can eventually use that to our advantage.”

“You mean not just block the connection or learn to tune it out, but use it?” I asked.

Darius shrugged. “Could be useful. We get separated from each other often enough that having a built-in cellphone line would certainly make things easier.”

“Can you hear each other’s thoughts or just mine?” Max swallowed, her eyes darting around the room, but hesitating to linger on any of ours for too long.

I turned to Darius, closed my eyes, and tried to focus my thoughts in his direction. I had no fucking clue what I was doing, but I shot the words out anyway.

You’re a fucking twat.

Max snorted, but Darius just studied me, eyes wide and confused.

“What?” he asked, nostrils flaring slightly at my smirk. He turned to Max, some of the darker shadows that had clouded his temper these last few days clearing just slightly. “What did she say?”

“That she’s very fond of your friendship,” she responded, face split into a shit-eating grin that instantly seemed to lighten the tension in the room, briefly, as those moments often were these days, before it melted back into concern. “Clearly just me then.” She took a deep breath, studying the vampire. “Unless reaching each other will just take more practice, more effort. Like if you speak to each other through me somehow?”

“Possibly. And if we can share each other’s powers and strengths,” a small grin tugged at Wade’s lips, and I could tell that he was excited by this untapped knowledge, the need to puzzle out the rules and understand it, “that wouldn’t be the worst thing either. Would take some of the pressure off of you, Max. Give us a better chance of helping you, keep us from getting in the way.”

“What if I hurt one of you though? I hardly have control over my powers as it is—we don’t know what will happen if I just start blasting them through to you.”

“Lucifer has said that you’re a catalyst,” Darius studied her, his chin balanced on his fist as he paused for a long beat, not unlike Wade in his curiosity, “which means you’re literally made for siphoning magic, for the push and pull of it. And we’re?—”

“Made for you,” Wade finished, indigo eyes sparkling with affection. “Your powers have never hurt us, Max—only healed.”

Max considered him for a long moment.

“Okay,” she said finally, a soft smile relaxing some of the tension wrinkling her forehead. “We can try.”

Especially if channeling my powers can help keep you all safe.

The last sentence came not from her lips, but her mind.

I met the others’ eyes, all of us trying to stifle a grin.

“I said that in your heads, didn’t I?” she asked with a sheepish slump. “Shutting the connection down is going to take as much work as opening it, I think.”

“Probably,” Wade said, “but I’m okay with you sifting through my thoughts in the meantime.” The salacious wink he punctuated that sentence with made it abundantly clear what kind of content those thoughts would be broadcasting. And the blush coloring Max’s cheeks meant that he’d either successfully spoken to her through their link or she’d conjured some of those thoughts on her own.

I stifled a groan, hoping like hell none of his dirty thoughts filtered down to me. The last thing I needed was these dickheads broadcasting their horny 24/7 directly into my brain. When I turned to Eli, I shivered at the thought, having unintentionally walked in on more than enough of his encounters to know I wanted nothing to do with them.

“Now that I know it’s there, that we can use the connection, it doesn’t feel that dissimilar to the kind of control we can wield in dream-walks,” Wade continued, thankfully oblivious to the cringey turn my thoughts had taken. “I think you’ll be able to use it at will in no time.”

She took a deep breath, and sat down next to Eli where he’d settled on the couch.

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