Page 72 of Threadbound

“Because of the attack?” Jamie asked. “Are they… coming back?”

“I dinna believe so. I dinna think they know I’m back in Dunehame.”

“Back in… what?”

“Dunehame. It’s what we call… the mortal realm,” Bran explained.

“Oh.” Jamie thought about that. It made sense, really, that fairies—no,fae—had their own names for things, like the human world. But Jamie had noticed that Bran still hadn’t answered Jamie’s question. “So then what?” he asked. “What do you want with me?”

It was a rehash of the conversation over the fish and chips—the one that had caused Jamie to not see Bran for weeks… and then ended with him finding Bran being beaten mostly to deathin the shadows. He didn’t really want the same outcome here, so he was trying not to be offended or creeped out by whatever answer Bran came out with.

“I—” Bran seemed to come to some sort of conclusion, then sighed. “My magic is stronger around you.”

“Me?” Jamie knew he was repeating himself, but he had no idea what else to say. He couldn’t think of any reason whyhewould be able to help with anything magic-related.

Now Bran looked really uncomfortable.

“Do you have to like… drink my blood or kill me or something?” Jamie blurted out, then flushed. His face felt like it was on fire, and he couldn’t look up from the remnants of his dinner, which he shoved around on his plate.

“No! Nothing like that,” Bran answered immediately. Jamie couldn’t decide if that made him feel better.

“Then like what?” he asked, afraid of the answer.

“We’re… linked,” Bran replied after a very long, very painful pause.

“Linked how?” Jamie wanted to know.

Bran sighed, then ate the last bite of his mac ’n cheese. “It’s… complicated.”

Jamie stood up and took away Bran’s plate, carrying them to the kitchen. “What’s complicated?” he asked, starting to get exasperated with Bran’s refusal to explain anything. At least not to his satisfaction. He forced himself to take a few deep breaths and started putting their desserts into bowls.

Jamie finished drizzling caramel sauce and scooping ice cream and whipped topping onto pieces of spice cake, one of which he brought back to Bran, who eagerly took a spoonful.

“Bran.”

The fae looked up at him.

“What. Is. Complicated.”

Bran sighed, then put his spoon in his bowl. “Some people,” he said softly. “Are born tied together by the threads of Fate.”

“The what?” Jamie was repeating that a lot tonight.

“Which part?” Bran asked him, also starting to sound a bit frustrated.

“Tied how? What threads? And is this a metaphor?”

Bran frowned, then put aside his bowl, setting it on Jamie’s desk. Then he reached out a hand. “Let me show you.”

“What do you mean, show me?” But Jamie was already putting his hand in Bran’s.

But then a faint warmth seemed to snake its way over Jamie’s skin, raising the fine hairs along his arm, then the back of his neck. And then hesawit—a fine filament, thin, like fishing line, but gold and shimmering, glinting with a lightsource Jamie couldn’t see. It stretched from just under Bran’s sternum and seemed to shimmer through the air—until it disappeared under the mirrored spot on Jamie’s chest.

Jamie sucked in a sharp breath, pulling his hand away from Bran’s as a chill ripped through him.

“What does thatmean? What does itdo?” Jamie felt a sense of panic—fear, worry, confusion—descending, putting his ribs in a vice and stealing his breath.

“It doesna really do anything,” Bran replied softly, sitting back in Jamie’s office chair and picking up his bowl of spice cake and ice cream again for another bite. “Not in the way I think you mean.”

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