“But how?”
“Elijah found some interesting information about people influencing emotions through a bond. We’re not fully bonded, but I guess it still works to some extent. I just think about what I want you to feel and push it at you. Why don’t you try it?”
“Me?” She reared back, blinking at him. He looked serious. “You want me to push my emotions on you?”
You want me to treat you like a Sigma?
“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.” He caught her other hand, tugging both until he could hold them against his knees as he shifted forward. “Close your eyes, if you need to focus.”
It was an immediate relief to close her eyes, to pretend that Kalen wasn’t holding her hands and asking her to trust him and use him like a Sigma sponge.
She pulled in a deep breath. “Okay, now what?”
“Pick a feeling.”
That would require her to actually sort through her feelings. She twitched, a second from pulling her hands away, but he seemed to anticipate her reaction, tightening his grip on her before she could actually move.
She huffed out an annoyed sound, turning inwardly to sort through what she was feeling. Scared—terrified, really. Betrayed. Angry. Sad. Surprised.
But there was a tiny, miniscule little spark of hope in there too. Clinging on to the promise Kalen dangled over her.
She might not have to be on the outside, anymore. She could make a choice and it really seemed like they were giving her this choice instead of demanding she become one of them.
She clung to the sliver of hope, pushing everything else away, but paused as the sad feeling persisted, floating back into the forefront of her mind.
Her grandfather had died at some point, and nobody had told her.
She still didn’t know how or when it had happened.
With another sigh, she shoved that aside and gripped onto the faintest thread of hope. “Now what?”
“Push it. Literally, just give it a mental shove toward me.”
She frowned, unsure how to do what he was asking.
“Imagine it’s an object of some kind,” he suggested.
It was already like a thread in her mind, so she turned it into a needle instead, and then imagined stabbing Kalen through the chest with it.
He grunted, dropping her hands. Her eyes flew open, staring at the hand he held over his chest.
“Crap. Did that hurt?” she blurted.
He laughed. “Did you just stab me with … hope?”
“You said to turn it into an object!”
“And you chose a knife?”
“A needle!”
“A needle that you … stabbed me with?” He chuckled again, the yellowed amber of his eyes sparking to life.
“Well … I mean … I guess I thought about shoving it through your chest. I was just thinking that it needed to be inside you if you were going to feel it. I can’t believe I just did that.”
His phone started to ring, and he fished it out of his pocket, glancing at the screen before bringing it to his ear. Whoever was on the other line started speaking immediately. “Yes, she’s with me. Wait, what? You felt that? Let me check.” He hung up, and then tapped on his phone a few times before turning it to face her.
It was the group text that she was part of, and as each new message popped up, she found her brows shooting up in surprise.
Moses: The hell was that?
Cian: Was that you, Isobel?
Niko: Did we all feel that?
Gabriel: I’m guessing so.
Theodore: I just felt a cute little Illy-flavoured knife stab into my chest.
Kilian: And it felt kinda good?
Oscar: Stabbing usually does.
Gabriel: Felt hopeful.
“They all felt it,” she said numbly.
“So, what do you think?” Kalen lowered his phone, his smile slipping as his regard turned heavy again. “Are we doing this together?”
“I don’t even know what you guys are doing.”
“I didn’t mean that—that’s another conversation. I mean are we dealing with the bond together from now on? As a group, no secrets, tackling everything together?”
“I guess that sounds nice.” She bobbed her head slightly. “And what if there’s a fight? What if someone changes their mind?”
“The bond happened to all of us,” Kalen said gruffly. “Like a cyclone. You can’t ‘change your mind’ about a cyclone. It’s happening whether you like it or not. We’re just deciding to board ourselves up in the same house, to try and survive it together.”
“I understand. It just feels like a change of pace, suddenly.” She struggled to vocalise how she was feeling, but Kalen seemed to understand.
“Bonds are just magic and mayhem to us.” He frowned. “When our eyes changed, it didn’t suddenly change our feelings or make our world tilt and crack open to include you. Our world was still the same as it was the day before. It was us against everyone else, and you were part of ‘everyone else.’ We had no idea what you were going to do or what kind of person you were going to turn into. We all have something serious on the line here, something we can’t just throw away because you appeared out of nowhere and seemed nice enough.”
She laughed awkwardly. “I never held it against you. It was pretty obvious you guys were all playing a larger game. But I hated being alone with this secret while you all had each other.”
“And you put your trust in the wrong person and look how it turned out.” His fingers drifted up over the scars on her arm, making her shiver. “So you understand the risks we were facing while trying to decide whether we should trust you or not. Our game here at the academy aside, if you had told anybody about Theo and Moses’ abilities, they would be dead, and the rest of us wouldn’t be much better off. I promised to protect those boys, and that’s exactly what I did, even if it was against you. Now, I’m promising to protect you too. And I’m so fucking sorry this had to be so hard for you.”
“I guess it’s okay.” She let her eyes fall, watching as his hands settled against her forearms, that comforting feeling tingling all over her again. “But I have a … request. Can I have a request?”
“Sure.” He sounded like he was smiling again. “Why not.”
“I don’t care if Alphas are more aggressive and territorial. Whatever they’re allowed to do in the Stone Dahlia, so am I. If they’re allowed to do it with whoever they like, then so am I. Just because I can emotionally handle it doesn’t mean I should have to.”
“You’re right.” He grimaced. “Elijah and Gabriel are already transitioning out of their rooms down there—”
“Since when?” she interrupted, confused.
“Elijah sent us a message this morning that they were going to become floaters instead. They’re going to look around for something else to get into so that they’re settled for when the Track Team tries to recruit the others.”
“Oh.” She wondered if that was after her conversation with Elijah that morning in the chapel. He hadn’t really said that he liked what he did, only that other people liked it.
Maybe he didn’t want to bring any of the other Alphas into something he wasn’t even enjoying that much … or more likely, there was a larger plan in motion, because it was Elijah.