Page 36 of Last Gift: Supernatural Battle

Wild started to shake. He hadn’t done so in a long time, but I wasted no time resting a hand on the V of skin visible at the neck of his tunic.

His words came in a rush, “The glow of your power is brighter each day. I’m struggling to see through it. Your magic puts me in a trance. I can shake it off for now.”

For now.

He hadn’t mentioned a trance before. “What do you think that means? What is the ritual telling you to do?”

“To devour your magic.”

I pulled my hand away. “The ritual wants you to eat my power?”

He dragged his gaze to mine. “Yes. Every bit of it.”

What did one do with such news? “O-kay.”

Wild’s throat worked. “I won’t, obviously, but…”

Denying the ritual was really fucking hard, and it got harder every day. I said that from my side of the fence too. I’d never experienced the same strength of urges as Wild. “We’re going to figure it out.”

“I won’t let you go into that realm,” he snapped.

My brows drew together at his abrupt shift. “I’m not going into the demon realm, Wild.”

His embrace was crushing, nearly painful. “Promise me.”

“I’ve already promised you that. To never go without telling you first.”

“Promise me you won’t go in at all,” he snarled.

Wild wasn’t home. I rested my hand on his chest again. “You know that I can’t promise such a thing. We may need to enter the realm for a number of reasons.”

Denial burned in his gaze as he waged for control over his fear and possessiveness. If I could be tied down with rope and chains, he would have done so already. “I want to try something else to trigger our mating ritual again.”

“What?” he forced out.

“I wonder if we can spark it,” I said. “Like lighting a fire. What do you think?”

I watched as he clawed his way back to the semblance of control. I hadn’t realized he was struggling this much.

Wild loosened his hold at last. “How do you propose we do that?”

“Just enter into our bond and see what happens?”

A corner of his mouth lifted in a wry smile. “Just see what happens?”

“Not like we have a book on this, right?” I quipped.

He acknowledged that with a small nod. “Not like we do. I’ll see you there.”

I closed my eyes, resting my cheek against his chest, and I found my way to our four-strand bond. The thing was monstrous. Permanent. There was no withering with this bond, unlike the bonds I shared with deceased family members. If this bond was severed—if one of us died or betrayed the other to such lengths that the bond snapped—then I understood death awaited both of us. More than death, though, I feared another eternity in chaos. An endless eternity in chaos this time.

I’d barely survived the loss of my family, and I had more than enough respect for the pain and suffering a lost bond could cause. I would be nothing more than a wraith in half death without the bond I shared with Wild.

There were four colors. Gold—which denoted the grimoire gift the Mother gave me after the last step in the ritual. I was assuming she’d channeled the gift through Wild’s grimoire affinity, and again I was reminded of the concept of grafting. The Mother used my demon heritage as a grafting point to allow me and Wild to go through the mating ritual. Demons possessed mates, like Vissimo and Luthers, but magus had never possessed them until Wild and me. It couldn’t be coincidence that I was half demon, and Wild had gained an echo of a demon in the process.

She’d used Wild’s grimoire affinity and our connection as a graft to give me a fourth affinity too.

The remaining three strands, purple, blue, and green, tied our bodies, magics, and emotions together.

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