Page 34 of Bound By Roses

“And I’ll never truly live if we aren’t.Touch me.” That last sentence was a whispered plea.

Kaylee hesitates for just a moment before placing her hand in Rhett’s. They stay like that, frozen in time, and I know they’re feeling what Quinn and I felt when our bond reforged. All at once, Rhett’s hand tightens around hers and he pulls her against him, their lips finally connecting for that first blissful moment.

I force my eyes away, giving them as much privacy in this moment as I can. I scan the walls, searching for something to focus on that isn’t the newly bonded couple, but there’s nothing but rock and glass and algae.

My gaze slips down to the man in my arms and a shriek rips through me when I find his eyes open and watching me. The green in them has been entirely replaced with red.

I take a panicked step back, and Jade slips from my grasp. His head dips beneath the water for only a moment before he bursts upright and stands on his own. I back away to where Kaylee and Rhett are watching. Rhett looks even more horrified than I feel, but Kaylee wears a pained expression. She’s seen this. I’m sure of it. And more than that, she knew this was coming.

“How…Touching,” Jade says, laughing at his joke. Only it’s not his joke. The voice that escaped through his parted lips was not only female…

It wasn’thuman.

CHAPTER TWELVE

QUINN

“Be careful with that,” I warn Fern for the third time since her arrival. I don’t know what it is about that girl, but she has a knack for finding the sharpest bits of stone amongst the rubble. She shouldn’t even be doing this.

“She’s fine,” Tess tells me with a soft laugh.

“I don’t want her to get hurt.” It’s all new to her, and she wants to touch everything. I get it, but I can’t keep swivelling my head in every direction to keep an eye on her.

“If she does, she’ll learn a valuable lesson. The Gods know it took you more than a few scrapes to learn it, and you were a lot harder to keep tabs on.”

“I was not,” I lie. I absolutely was, and somehow Tess could always keep up with me. She was always there to patch me up if I climbed a tree a little too high or got a bit too ballsy with a sword. “Be honest. How was the journey here?”

I try to focus on Tess’s answer while still monitoring Fern. She’s finally abandoned her pile of rubble and made her way to the water’s edge. I’m not even sure if she knows how to swim.

“Uneventful, but tiring. We could all use a wash.” If Fern doesn’t take a step back from the ledge, she might just be thefirst to get one. Now I’m not even sure if I was worse as a child. At least I knew better than to lean over large bodies of water. “What’s wrong?”

I must have been silent for too long because the softness of her features have tightened and she’s giving me the same look she always gives me when she knows there’s something on my mind.

I can’t lie to her even if I want to, but I can omit as many details as possible. “You didn’t run into any trouble on your way here, did you? There were no Guardians, or…”

“Or?”

Shit, I shouldn’t have hesitated. I steel myself. “Veil wraiths.”

A noticeable chill runs through her. “No, nothing like that. Kaylee said we were on a ‘safe path,’ whatever that means. Sometimes I feel like it’s harder to get information out of her than it is getting it out of you. I take it you had some trouble?”

“You could say that.”

I keep my eyes on Fern as she leans even further over the water. And then she falls. “Fern!” I move to run to her, but Tess’s hand clasps around my wrist.

Fern’s head pops out of the water, but she’s not alone. There’s another child with her; a siren boy who looks to be about her age. He splashes her, and she splashes him right back. She almost looks like she belongs here, and she just might. Some of Rosewood’s people came from Marein. For all I know, Fern’s parents may have been sirens. More than that, evenTessmight be a siren, though I feel like she would have told me that before I left.

Wouldn’t she? I don’t even know anymore. I’ve lost track of all the secrets and lies, and it’s gotten to where very little makes sense.

Tess moves so that I have to bring my attention back to her. “Tell me what happened.”

I shake my head. “Not today. We have a lot of work to do to get enough beds set up.” Truthfully, I’d already cleared out five buildings myself over the last week to pass the time and we could easily fit six to ten cots in each—at least until we get the rest of these islands resembling something of their former glory.

“Veil wraiths are nasty creatures. Who did you see?”

This woman knows me far too well. I have to answer her, but I can’t tell her everything. Not if I mean to keep this from Abby a little while longer. “Mom…and Evan.”

“Oh, you poor boy,” she says, stroking a warm hand over my back. “They weren’t real. You know that, right?”

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