Page 63 of Forged Bonds

“Come sit between my legs,” she said, holding out a hand for me.

I swallowed.

Would I ever be able to see water the same way, or had the curse fucked me up forever in yet another way?

I grabbed her hand and she pulled me. Stepping up onto the platform, I inhaled deeply, then exhaled. When I dipped my toe in the water I kept my eyes closed.

Without seeing it, I was doing fine.

My eyes opened and my ‘fine’ feeling evaporated, my entire body tensing. Only Freya’s grip on my hand from the bath below me kept me from darting to the other side of the room. “You’ve got this,” she said softly, squeezing my hand.

I wasn’t sure I did.

I submerged my foot in the water.

It felt like it was going to be sucked in and stolen forever, and I hyperventilated. Her free hand on my calf brought me back and I yanked my foot out, splashing her. “Sit down. We can go one toe at a time.”

On the up side, my plan was working to distract and soothe her. She was too busy calming me down to be frustrated waiting for the gala to happen. It wasn’t exactly what I’d had in mind, though.

Sitting on the wide edge of the tub, at the top of the two steps leading up to it, I couldn’t stop staring at the water. It screamed of danger.

It was a fucking tub. Nothing about it was dangerous.

“Give me your hand again,” Freya instructed.

Her cool fingers touched mine, and our bond opened wider. It occurred to me that she knew how I was feeling, despite how difficult it would have been to explain. I relaxed. She wasn’t going to push me too far, because she knew exactly where the line was. There were no guessing games when you had a completed mate bond. Her mark on my neck warmed.

“Take a deep breath.”

If I focused on her voice, I could ignore the water. My deep breath brought in a lungful of her scent. When I’d been a familiar, she’d been tempting, but now… it was like my senses had been muted for all those years.

“Keep breathing, OK?”

I nodded, watching the surface of the water and focusing intently on each inhale and exhale. My fingers touched water and I tensed, but Freya didn’t bring our hands under. We only touched the surface. After a series of breaths, my body lost its tension. She brought our clasped hands under, just halfway, and I felt the panic rise again.

It was followed by a flare of irritation and shame.

Being a merdemon wasn’t a part of my identity I wanted to lose. I’d been stripped of everything that was ‘me’ for years, unable to talk about it, and now that I had a human body again I wanted to be myself again. If I couldn’t shift or touch a body of fucking water, no self-respecting merdemon would count me among their ranks, whether I had the blood or not.

“You’ll get through this.” Freya’s voice broke through the spiral. “You’re already doing better, see?”

I looked down and found she’d fully submerged our hands to the wrists. “Awesome,” I said dryly. “I can put one whole hand in a bathtub after almost puking in the process.”

“Don’t sass me. Progress is progress. Let’s sit like this and I’ll try to call upon my magic or whatever the fuck it is you wanted me to do.”

She leaned back in the tub, dragging my arm with her and getting a bit more of my wrist wet. I swallowed the lump in my throat and gave her instructions.

By the time she got out of the tub, pruned and freezing, she’d made progress too. A little tease of magic had danced through the water, swirling it around. And I’d gotten through the lesson with my hand in the water, even going so far as to forget it was beneath the calm surface.

NINETEEN

Freya

Teaching me about my nymph magic had been a planned distraction concocted by Emmett and Oswald. They seemed to forget I could feel their worry for me through our bonds. I’d also seen them plotting on the sidelines. I wasn’t as out of it as they’d assumed.

I appreciated it, though. Spending time with Oswald every day was comforting. It wasn’t that I didn’t like any of the others, but it had been just Oswald and I for so long there was something nostalgic about it. Me teasing him for his inability to even look at a tub full of water without shuddering. Him giving me good advice but not minding when I ignored it in favour of something else.

Besides, he had a point about needing this in the future. Finding Maisie would be far easier if I could breathe underwater.

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