Page 106 of Walking in Darkness

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN – CONNIE

TEARS FLOODED Connie’s eyes and rained down his face. There was now a mating bond between him and Hudson. It was strong, and alive, and vibrating so very hard it rang in his ears. Awestruck, he turned toward Hudson. His mate looked just as stunned.

“Connie!” Kit screeched. “What’s going on?”

“I… I don’t know how to explain this, but suddenly there’s a mating bond between me and Hudson,” Connie stuttered. “A bond that wasn’t there before.”

He was still staring in amazement at the fading red ribbon of energy that now connected him and Hudson—something he never thought he’d have the privilege of seeing.

Connie sat down hard on his ass, chest heaving. “Hudson?”

Hudson crawled toward Connie and wrapped his arms around him. “Yes. Yes, yes, yes. It’s there. I don’t know how, but it’s there.”

Connie threw his arms around Hudson and buried his face into Hudson’s shoulder. He almost couldn’t breathe he was crying so hard. “H-how?”

“I have no idea.”

Kit rested a hand on both of them. “But you’re okay? Please tell me you’re both okay.”

Hudson turned his head slightly and kissed Kit’s fingers. “We’re okay, just in shock.”

Connie struggled to swallow. It felt like his heart was climbing out of his throat. He tried to slow his breathing and get control of himself, but it simply wasn’t working.

How had this happened? Why had it happened? His thoughts churned. He thanked Gaura that it had, but why? And how did it involve Kit? Because there had been no bond between him and Hudson until they’d mated Kit.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Kit said, laying his hand on the back of Connie’s neck. “I can feel you freaking out. But this is a good thing, right? Something you wanted, right? Do we really need to know why it happened?”

“He agonized over the lack of a bond between us,” Hudson growled.

Surprised, Kit glanced at Hudson.

“He never said anything, but I knew. Iknewbecause I felt the same,” Hudson stressed. “It made no fucking sense there was not a bond. Heagonizedover it, and it killed me. I almost walked away from him because of it, because of the fear I would find my mate, and it woulddestroyhim. I lived in fear of that.”

“And then you met me. Hudson, I’m so—” Kit suddenly grabbed his head. “Shit. Oh no. No, no. I know that tickle in my brain. Fuck.Not again.”

Hearing the trepidation in Kit’s voice yanked Connie out of his spiral quicker than anything else. Something was scaring his mate, and Connie wasn’t having it. He’d have to wait on his breakdown.

Connie jerked his head off Hudson’s shoulder and turned toward Kit. “Kit? What—”

“I am sorry for the agony I caused the both of you, but there was a very good reason for not allowing a bond in the very beginning.”

Connie cringed. Holy shit, that voice. It came from everywhere and yet nowhere. It reminded him of how theysounded when their dragon spoke, but this was so much more eerie.

And more powerful. There was a buzzing in his brain, and although Connie was scared shitless—something he hadn’t felt in quite a while—his natural form was…

Awed.

Worshipful.

Joyful.

The voice was otherworldly. Goose bumps rose on his arms as he watched a small cyclone of grayish smoke close to them spin higher and faster, then slowly trail away to expose a being standing in their living room.

How was someone standing in their living room? How? And why did that person look like a partially transformed dragon, but at the same time didn’t? None of them certainly looked likethat.

And how the hell had they bypassed all the protection spells around this place and appeared in Hudson’s personal quarters? Why were the wards not shrieking? And where was the rest of their court? How did they not know someone just invaded their king’s private quarters?

“I knew it. Just knew it.”

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