Bonded

Chapter Fifty Eight

...

India

...

It had burned to press my cheek upon Kavya's chest... But I did it all the same... I stayed close to one of my husbands...

I comforted him...

And I let him know that my arms and my heartbeat will always be steady...

And it had worked...

Somehow seeing that I would not flinch away from the fire hidden within his belly managed to help calm Kavya and give him something needed at the moment... Having me be able to be there for him while Ronin finds himself caring for Jian... It soothed us both and left us both cooling off just as Jian manages to find some calm within himself...

It also allows us to be where we are now... With Kavya and Ronin wrapped around me so tightly that I can barely stand the thought of either one of them ever letting me go... The three of us standing in one of the shallow alcoves just off to the side of my bedchamber... The door left cracked so that we all might hear Jian if he stirs... His body having gone limp from the exhaustion of crying so very hard...

But only after he had secured a promise from me that I would assist him with later this evening with a secret rendezvous with his bonded partner Master Qiao... So that he might warn our shared tutor of the danger that had sprouted so unceremoniously from the King's very mouth as he passed by our preferred library...

It was a promise that I found myself so very ready to make... Even though the task comes with so many risks...

Like possibly being punished for spying if the King finds out that we overheard him...

Or being charged with treason if King Xiang finds out we warned the very man he could possibly be looking for...

But I know that it is the right thing to do.

Without a single doubt.

Master Qiao I do believe is a good man, doing everything as best he can in this hellish obsidian palace, just like the rest of us... And I do not believe that he should be caught off guard with something like this that could spiral so very out of hand... 

Not like this...

If the man could be involved he deserves a chance to save himself... If not just for him personally...

For Jian...

For I do not think that my friend could handle the type of grief... Not full force...

Not after just sampling the small dose that overcame him just earlier... At the very thought that something heinous could happen to his other half...