Page 1 of Bizarre Bonds
1
Periwinkle
Imay have made a slight mistake.
No, “mistake” is what you call grabbing the salt instead of the sugar or ordering the chef’s special only to realize it’s about ten times bigger than your stomach. What’s the word for “my essence is doing some bizarro thing I didn’t know I was capable of or what it even is”?
At least the strange effect I’ve unexpectedly produced doesn’t seem to bebad. The energy streaming out of me is a warm glow that lights up the chests of the four men it’s veered toward. Unlike the blazes that’ve surged out of me in a gush of joy in the past, there’s nothing searing or blinding about my current shiny outburst.
But it’s come with other unfamiliar sensations. Like the thud of four heartbeats echoing alongside my own.
The layered rhythm resonates down to my bones. I might actually enjoy the heady vibration if the four men thoseheartbeats belong to weren’t staring at me like I’ve sprouted a third arm.
As I glance down to confirm that I haven’t actually gained any extra limbs, the beams fade away into the regular afternoon daylight of the forest we were walking through. Amid the trees, all four of my teammates—two of whom have become my lovers, the other two I’ve hoped are something close to friends now—remain as rigid as the looming trunks.
Their heartbeats keep reverberating through my body. Alongside the uneasy pounding, four currents of emotion whirl into me, as if I’ve stepped into a river of flavors. Lemon-sour discomfort mingles with tangy-pickle confusion and moldy-bread anxiety.
I’ve never picked up on their moods so strongly before. It’s like I’ve somehow opened a direct tap into their internal states rather than relying on the foam that spills over the top of the mug.
My mouth opens and closes and opens again. “Oops?”
I’m struggling to come up with any better word to address this unprecedented situation.
The men clearly don’t have any more idea what I’ve done than I do. Jonah takes a tentative step toward me, his cedar-brown face tight beneath the fall of his wavy black hair. “What was that, Peri? What just happened?”
He hasn’t put any of his sorcery or his teacherly authority into the question, but I know I have to answer all the same. Which would be easier if I had an actual answer.
I twist my hands in front of me. The eager rush of my delight that sparked the glow has faltered just like the supernatural light did. “I don’t know. That’s never happened before. I didn’tmeanto do anything. I was just so happy…”
Raze’s eyes, the black basilisk irises hidden behind his conjured green contacts, widen. Tension ripples through hishuge, sinewy frame. “I felt it—how happy you were. But you’re… worried now. Why do I know that?”
They can pick up on my emotions too? Does the tap go both ways?
I don’t think that’s logistically possible with actual faucets, but with whatever strange brewing system I’ve spontaneously created, who knows?
Mirage tugs at his henley shirt. He peers past the collar at his lean chest and lets out a laugh that sounds much more awkward than his usual good humor.
With his nimble fingers, the fox shifter plucks at the buttons to part the fabric farther down. “The glow isn’t all gone. It stuck to me.”
A circle of the pale light about the size of a cherry pulses against the golden-brown skin of his upper chest in time with the heartbeat that must be his. I think the glowing spot might be right over his heart.
My breath catches in my throat. I put that luminescent mark there—I must have.
So why do I have no clue how?
Hail has been standing stiffly this entire time. Now, the winter fae yanks at his own shirt to check beneath it.
His pale, gorgeous face tenses even more than it had before with a flash of his dark blue eyes. “There’s one on me too. What the fuckisthat?”
All trace of the friendly warmth he’s offered me recently has vanished from his voice. The look he shoots me is only accusing. I taste the bitter punch of his frustration.
I splay my hands in a helpless gesture. “I really don’t know. I didn’t mean to do anything at all. I’ve never left my glow on anyone before, even in the biggest outbursts.”
Jonah and Raze are checking their own chests. Their expressions and flickers of uneasy emotion tell me they’re seeing the same thing as Mirage and Hail.
It occurs to me to peek beneath my T-shirt, the black one with the pink flower print I thought was just the right mix of tough and cute.
Between the abundant slopes of my human-like body’s breasts, a matching glow throbs alongside my own heartbeat. I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t leave myself out of this odd club I founded?
