Page 60 of Forging Bonds: Part One

River nods dips his head, and thoroughly kisses her before he steps back and then gently pushes her toward the rest of us.

“I don’t want you to get hurt if my magic decides to go haywire,” River explains when Neith refuses to move.

She hesitates, “I’m not going too far, just in case you start to blip.”

“Neith,” River cautions, and he releases a burst of alpha command that drops us to our knees again.

Unsurprisingly, Neith isn’t affected, and she raises her eyebrow at him, as her own magic seems to rise up and respond, if we weren’t already on our knees we would be from her power.

“Fucking hell,” Reed mutters from beside me.

“River, I’m here for you, and I will not let you go through that again. I will step further away so that you don’t panic, but I’m not going any further,” Neith replies firmly.

River’s eyes flash to his kitsune, and his lips curl up into a smirk, “Fuck, you’re incredible.” Neith gets all flustered at his words, and he pulls her in again, kissing her once again before saying, “Fine, but if things get super hairy, you back up.”

“Fine,” she agrees. Both of their magics settle back down, and we get up.

It occurs to me that it probably should bother me that he is kissing the woman that I want to be mine, but honestly, I don’t feel anything even close to that. From the moment that she turned up on our doorstep, I’ve known that she is ours, not just mine, and that we are all hers. I don’t know how to explain it, it’s just the way that it is.

River winces when his eyes land on us. “Shit, sorry guys, that’s going to take some getting used to.”

“It wasn’t just you,” Griff says, his expression proud as he looks at Neith.

Her eyes widen, “What me?”

“Both of you,” Doc says with a smile.

“Well, shit,” Neith replies simply, making me chuckle. “Alright, I don’t really know what to do with that, so River, you’re up gorgeous. Do your thing.”

River’s eyes light up at her words, but his expression quickly becomes serious again. “Okay, I think I’m going to try the teleportation first since that seems to be the strongest and the one that I would rather get out of the way.” He looks at Doc, “Doc, since you teleport, do you have any advice?”

Doc nods, “Yeah, focus on a point in this clearing. Gather your magic to you and then move.”

River nods, “That sounds easy enough.”

We all watch as he takes a deep breath, and then his magic releases. He’s suddenly on the opposite side of the clearing. He seems tense as if he’s waiting for his magic to play up again, but when it doesn’t, he grins triumphantly and then teleports back to us, immediately taking Neith’s hand again.

“That was so fucking cool,” he grins.

“You should probably try the others,” I suggest with a smile.

River nods, moving away from Neith again. This time he doesn’t hesitate as much as he did before with the teleportation. Within moments, he has surrounded himself with shadows, and then they clear again. Without any prompting, the air around us cools dramatically, and snow rapidly starts falling from the sky.

Neith’s laughter fills the clearing as she stares up at the sky in wonder, and River’s smile widens as his eyes stay glued to hers. All of us are smiling as River keeps the snow falling for a lot longer than he used the shadows.

Eventually, it stops, and the snow that is left on the floor begins to melt.

“That really was magical,” Neith smiles. “I love snow.”

“Me too,” Raiden agrees with a smile.

River’s smile is still wide as he replies, “Then it’s a good thing that I can make it now.” His features fall into a frown as he asks, “Am I supposed to get a new gift now, years after my magic first showed up?”

I shake my head, “No, but I shouldn’t be able to control the ocean.”

“And I shouldn’t have different colored wings from the rest of my kind,” Raiden replies.

“Good point,” River admits.

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