“I hate to interrupt, but you’re blocking the doorway . . .”
Mari’s words broke the spell woven by our combined desire, and heat of another kind entirely suffused my body, making my neck and cheeks burn. I hid my face in the crook of Nik’s neck, where one of the ancient goddess Isis’s wings stretched out over his skin in black ink, and waited for my breathing to slow down. Without the distraction of making out with Nik, I could feel the full effect of the epinephrine coursing through my veins. I couldn’t stop shaking.
My thoughts raced, amplified by the drug. What had I been thinking? Doing this here, now . . . ever. Throwing myself at Nik like I had was bad enough, but that Mari had been there to witness the whole thing—that was soul-crushing. Knowing her, she’d never let me live it down.
Nik chuckled, the laughter making his chest vibrate against me. Apparently, he wasn’t so put off by our audience.
Mari crouched down beside us. I could feel the displacement of the air. “How do you feel, Kat?” she asked me.
“Like I want to die,” I grumbled.
Beneath me, Nik’s whole body stiffened. He didn’t seem too fond of my joke.
Mari patted the top of my head. “Maybe give death a break for a week or two. We almost didn’t get you back.”
I didn’t bother telling her I’d been fighting her attempts to revive me. Then they’d both think I was genuinely suicidal.
I pushed away from Nik and stood, avoiding looking at him or Mari. “Well you did get me back,” I said, trudging out of the bathroom. I grabbed a throw blanket off the foot of the bed and wrapped it around my shoulders to use as a makeshift robe as I headed out to the kitchen in search of food. I was ravenous.
The first cupboard I opened was filled with cups and dishes, the second spices and such. The third cupboard I searched was a gold mine of protein bars, dried fruit and nuts, and vitamin- and electrolyte-enhanced drink mix. I grabbed a bag of dehydrated pineapple, a few protein bars indiscriminately, and a container of drink mix, then turned to the fridge for a bottle of water.
“Actually,” Mari said, emerging from the bedroom. Nik followed behind her, pulling his T-shirt on over his head. My eyes couldn’t help but linger on his inked skin. “I didn’t revive you.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, tearing off half of a ring of dried pineapple with my teeth. I twisted the cap off the water bottle as I chewed, dumping a packet of the drink mix—raspberry lemonade, it turned out—into the bottle and shaking it up.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Mari said. “I tried to bring you back, but you wouldn’t wake.” She glanced over her shoulder at Nik, who was leaning against the doorframe behind her, arms crossed over his chest. “But the second he touches you . . .”
Water bottle inches from my lips, I met Nik’s pale blue eyes. I could only hold his penetrating stare for a couple seconds. Lowering the bottle, I adjusted the blanket so it was covering me more securely. The entire back of the thing was drenched from my hair, but at least I wasn’t standing there in my underwear.
“You’re like the princess in a fairy tale,” Mari said. I wished she would just shut up. “True love’s kiss . . .”
I scoffed, rolling my eyes, and turned my back to both of them. I slammed the bottle of fizzing water, then tore open one of the protein bars, took a bite—carrot cake, or something trying really hard to taste like carrot cake—and inhaled deeply through my nose.
This blanket wasn’t doing much for my self-confidence. I needed my clothes. And my boots. Then I’d be back on familiar ground, and I might—might—be able to face these two.
Eyes glued to the floor, I pushed past Mari and Nik and through the bedroom doorway. My clothes were folded and stacked in a neat pile on the bed, my leather jacket laid out beside them and my boots nearby on the floor. Guess I knew what Mari had been doing to kill the time while I was out—organizing. How her of her.
I dropped the blanket and grabbed my jeans, pulling them on over my wet underwear, then putting on my bra, tank top, and hoodie. I sat on the edge of the bed to pull on my socks in between bites of the protein bar.
“Going somewhere?” Nik asked.
I stuck my feet into my boots and bent over to lace up the right one. “Oh, you know . . . things to do, places to be . . .” I said without looking up. I couldn’t, not just yet. Not after that kiss. It had been the kind of kiss you don’t come back from—we would either be out of each other’s lives, for good this time, or really, really deep in them. I wasn’t ready to find out which it would be just yet.
Finished with my right boot, I scarfed down the rest of the protein bar in two bites and got to work on tying my left boot. I double-knotted the laces, then stood and marched right past Nik and Mari again, snagging the other two protein bars and heading for the vault door.
I needed to get out of there, away from Nik. Putting some distance between us would be the only way to clear my head enough that I would be able to think things through—Nik things . . . Isfet things . . . ghost things . . . I had a lot going on at the moment. And now that I knew that taking care of the haunting situation really was one of those special things that only I could do thanks to my unique connection to the universe—yay!—I had to get back to the school, and fast. Heru was used to me asking for forgiveness rather than permission, anyway, so he’d get over it.
I knocked my knuckles against the surface of the oak end table beside the couch once. Hopefully he would get over it.
It was late enough in the afternoon that the high school should be mostly empty, especially on a Friday, and I had a massacre to stop.
I knocked my knuckles against the corner of the end table on the other side of the couch. Hopefully the school would be empty. Hell if I had any real idea of what the schedules for high school activities looked like these days.
I was almost to the vault door when Nik caught my arm, holding me back. “Where are you going?”
“Dude.” I looked down at his hand, arched my eyebrows as high as I could, and raised my gaze to his face, expression about as pointed as it gets. “M.Y.O.B.” I tried to yank my arm free, but he held tight. He’d been making a bad habit of manhandling me lately, and it was getting old, fast. Except for when I wanted him to manhandle me.
Nik set his square jaw, his nostrils flaring. “Don’t you get it, Kitty Kat? You are my business now.”
A single, disbelieving laugh bubbled up from my chest, and I shook my head. One kiss, even an epic one like we’d just shared, hardly gave him any claim over me. “I’m my business,” I said. “Nobody else’s.” Stare hard, I dared him to keep this up. “Now, let go.”
“I can’t risk you going off to do God knows what and get yourself killed,” he said. “Again.”
I rolled my eyes. “Again,” I said, “that’s my fucking business. Mine, Nik. My life isn’t yours to protect. Let. Me. Go.”
He laughed bitterly. “Don’t you get it, Kat?” He leaned in. “Don’t you see—the headaches that only go away when we’re near each other, the way you’re drawn to me even though you can’t stand me . . . the way that god damn kiss felt—your life isn’t just your business anymore. We’re bound together, you and I. If you die, I die.”
I narrowed my eyes, pulling away. “What are you talking about?” My mind raced, my eyes searching his.
Nejeret bonding is extremely rare, only happening when a pair of Nejerets have perfectly compatible souls. Their physical bodies translate this into a pheromone produced only by our species. That soul compatibility makes it so the two Nejerets’ bodies become attuned only to receiving their perfect pair’s pheromone, to the degree that they become dependent upon their bond-mate’s pheromone. They become addicted. It leads to immense closeness and mind-blowing pleasure—or so I’ve heard from Lex, who shares a soul-bond with Heru—but has one big downside.
This isn’t the kind of addiction one can be weaned off of. If the bonded pair is apart for too long—more than a day or two—bonding withdrawals set in. And the withdrawals don’t stop until both Nejerets are dead. It could take weeks, but the outcome is inevitable.
Was it really possible that Nik and I were a bonded pair?
I thought back to each and every time that persistent damn headache had abated over the past week. I remembered the way our auras had flared when I’d been seeing through the lens of the soul-energy, and he’d touched me. It had only happened when he touched me. I replayed the conversation I’d overheard between him and Mei on the trail to the beach, then the one between him and Heru last night. I recalled what Isfet had said before sending my soul back to my body the last time I’d died . . .
There is one with you in the physical realm whose soul resonates with yours. If you return to your body, the aura from his ba will merge with yours. It will revive you.
Dread pooled in my belly, and I shook my head. It wasn’t possible.
But that kiss really had felt too good. Best-kiss-ever good.
Nik’s features softened. “We’re bonded, Kitty Kat—like Lex and Heru. Have been for weeks now. It happened when I brought you back to life.” He was quiet for a moment, letting me work through the nuclear bomb he’d just dropped on my life. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell you.”
My eyes stung. The repercussions of this were so far-reaching I couldn’t see most of them beyond the whole I-die-he-dies thing. I blinked, setting a tear free. “Guess you finally found the words.”