Page 106 of Phoenix Falling
Raine covered her ears. “Ouch!”
I eyed my friend, then plugged in the computer.
Ah, finally. Power.
“What I don’t understand is why.”
Because I formed a matebond with a king without meaning to, and now I’m running from him.
Or how about…
I’m stuck here with no way out and need a distraction.
Maybe…
There’s a traitor in our midst, and I don’t trust your safety to anyone but me, Sun, and Lyris.
So, answering Raine’s second question was much harder than the first. I decided to go with, “Because”—I wrangled the chair from the tiny dining table over to my makeshift desk—“I need some…” Space? Time? I had no idea. My brain and heart felt as scrambled as eggs in a skillet. I could reach out to Sun mentally anytime I wanted to, but right now I just…couldn’t. I needed to get myself together first.
“What you might need is your mate.”
“I’m not—” No, I couldn’t say that anymore. I was definitely Sun’s mate, no matter what other issues we had to contend with. Not that anyone else knew that. I’d accused Sun of hiding me because he was ashamed; what did that say about what I was doing? Specifically, I’d asked him not to mention the matebond to anyone. The look of hurt on his face…
I just had to wrap my head around it first. I needed…time. Okay, we’d go with time. If nothing else, whatever I needed would reveal itself if I just gave it time.
But my request had definitely hurt him.
And if I was being totally honest with myself—which I was trying to avoid—in that moment when the matebond had clicked into place, I’d felt such…relief. I didn’t have to fight it anymore. I didn’t have to wonder or worry. Was Sun going to reject me? Was he unhappy that he was stuck with me as a mate? Was he going to keep hurting me? So many of those questions were answered the second his mind opened to me: No, he wouldn’t reject me. No, he wasn’t unhappy, although he was worried his people would be. He didn’t intend to hurt me, but he hadn’t been lying when he’d said my defiance triggered something in him that was new and out of control.
But the bond was there, a given, no going around it.
That moment had given me a reprieve, but it had also been overwhelming. Because if I thought Sun had scoured my mind before, it was nothing compared to the sheer openness of my…everything…in the matebond. My mind. My heart. My very soul had been exposed as if a spotlight had been set up in every corner of my being. Sun could see every nook and cranny, every secret, every questionable thing I’d ever done, every longing I’d ever had. I didn’t have to tell him I’d fallen in love—he could see it. I didn’t have to tell him what our first night together had meant to me—he could see it.
I didn’t have to tell him what his actions since my reveal had done to me—not only could he see it, but he could feel what I’d felt. He could relive every moment of my life, good or bad. It had been beautiful and terrifying all at once. Now I wasn’t so much licking my wounds as trying to put my walls back up. I was too…exposed, too vulnerable. I didn’t want to be vulnerable. Not to Sun, not to anyone.
And none of that even touched on the reality of Sun being completely exposed to me. I’d been so overwhelmed I wasn’t even certain of what I’d seen.
Raine had an eyebrow raised in expectation, and I realized I’d wandered off without finishing my sentence. I shrugged. What could I say? There was no single answer.
My friend refrained from further comment on the subject of Sun, thank goodness. Instead she waved a hand at my setup. “What’s all this?”
“This”—I flipped various buttons and switches until everything hummed to life—“is going to help us find the traitor.”
Sun had called for a ride after we’d both gotten dressed, and brought back everything I needed to review my footage. I’d caught Raine up that far, at least, when I’d come back from my apartment and pulled her into my orbit as a buffer.
“What exactly are you looking for? The Archai and Anigma in the same place?”
“Unlikely, but you never know. Maybe close proximity, especially more than once.” I pushed my hair off my sweaty forehead. “To be honest, I’m not sure what I’ll find. Anything that could be a clue.” Hopefully I’d know it when I saw it.
A knock on the door sounded, and when I called out, Imogen and Lyris came through. My place had sort of become female central since nightfall. Lyris had agreed—in a somewhat subdued manner for her—to provide a second set of eyes on the surveillance. She beelined for me. Imogen joined Raine on the couch.
“How’s the planning going?” Raine asked. The ceremony was rapidly approaching, only two days away now. Getting so much together in such a short time space of time seemed impossible, except the Archai were nothing if not traditional. The matebond ceremony was close enough to a wedding for me to imagine all the details, but though I’d expected wailing and gnashing of teeth to precede it, everything seemed to be pretty much handled.
And Imogen? She was the calm in the middle of the storm. I definitely envied her.
“I have a dress,” Imogen told us. Excitement made her skin glow so bright it was hard to look at her. Or maybe that was the difference in our experiences. She was throwing herself wholeheartedly into the bond with her mate. I’d slipped into mine, unprepared for what I’d find there.
Not just the exposure, scratching like an itchy blanket, but also what I’d learned about Sun, that he had reservations about me, not as mate but queen. That was a tough one to swallow.
