Chapter 37: The System Says The Only Way To Save My Soul Is Six Hours Alone With My Shadow Goddess

They carried him up the shaft in pieces.

Maren went first with Soren’s arm over her shoulder, her tail locked around his waist.

Selah took the other side, frost spreading from her palms across his ribs to keep his temperature stable.

Yara dissolved into the shadows of the stairwell and didn’t come back until they hit surface level, where she reformed just long enough to pull the exit door open before the light touched her.

The academy’s medics were waiting topside.

Two of them tried to take Soren from Maren.

She showed her teeth, fox ears pinned flat, until Soren told her to let go.

She didn’t let go.

She just let them walk beside her while she carried him the rest of the way to the infirmary.

By the time the nurse got the IV into his arm, the room was already seven degrees colder than it should have been.

Selah sat in the chair by the window.

Her frost had crawled past her wrists, covering both forearms in a dark blue-green shell she wasn’t bothering to hide.

Maren was on the bed, not beside it but on it, her tail around his arm, her hip against his thigh, fox ears flat against her hair.

She’d growled at the nurse who tried to adjust his IV.

Yara was under the bed but not manifested, just shadow pooled in the space between the frame and the floor.

All three of them had seen the system notification.

Six hours, minimum distance zero, INTIMATE BOND EVENT in capital letters.

Selah spoke first. "Six hours."

"With her."

"It’s medical," Soren said.

"I can read Bureau Code 77-C." The frost on her forearms climbed another inch.

"Full soul-frequency alignment. Physical contact sustained over six hours. Mutual vulnerability and both parties are defenseless." She looked at him. "Don’t call it medical."

Maren’s tail pulled tight on his arm. "Why her?"

"The system targets the highest index bond. Yara’s at 55."

"So raise mine." Maren’s voice cracked on the second word. "Raise it to 56. What do I have to do? Tell me right now. Whatever it..."

"Maren."

"I’m serious, I’ll do anything right now. How fast can the index..."

"It has to be Yara. The system chose her."

From under the bed, low and careful: "I didn’t ask for this either."

Selah didn’t look down. "But you’re not refusing."

"I’m not."

The room dropped another three degrees.

Maren’s body temperature spiked in response, the contact point where her tail held Soren’s arm hot enough that he could feel it through the gauze.

Soren sat up.

His body was wrecked.

Soul at 35%, dried blood crusted under his nose, arms shaking from the effort of pushing himself upright against the headboard but his voice didn’t shake when he spoke.

"Selah, Look at me."

"I’m doing the recalibration with Yara because the system says it’s her and because if I don’t, I’m dead in forty days. That’s not a number I made up, the system gave me a countdown and it’s running right now."

Selah’s frost didn’t move.

"After the recalibration, my soul stabilizes and after it stabilizes, shadow-type alignment throws my frequency off balance. I’ll need ice-frequency tuning to correct it." He held her stare.

"That’s you, your turn comes after."

Her frost pulled back.

"Maren."

Her ears twitched up.

"Your fire stabilizes my body temperature during recovery without you, I go hypothermic every time Yara’s shadow drops my core temp. You saw what happened in the chamber, you held me together down there."

"You’re essential."

Maren’s grip loosened on his arm.

"Nobody’s being left out and nobody’s being replaced. The system chose an order and I’m following it. When it’s done, I’m coming back to this room and every one of you is going to be here."

Soren looked at each of them in turn: Selah at the window and Maren on the bed. "Clear?"

[DING! — Obsession Index update. Selah Young: 42/50 → 43/50. Maren Cole: 35/50 → 37/50. Keyword detected: "essential." Keyword detected: "your turn."]

Selah didn’t answer but her frost stopped climbing.

Maren pressed her face into his shoulder. Her breath was warm through his shirt.

"Six hours is a long time," she said.

"I know."

"Don’t enjoy it too much."

"Maren, I might die during it."

"Don’t enjoy that either."

◆◆◆

Troy arranged the room.

Containment wards reinforced the walls, his knight’s energy fused into the stone.

Dani ran interference with the Council auditor, who was now reading through Vasquez financial records with the expression of someone finding exactly what they expected to find.

Hansel parked his Stoneback Beetle in the corridor outside the room and sat on its back with his arms crossed, radiating the kind of boredom that meant he’d break someone’s jaw if they tried the door.

Soren walked.

His body kept listing to the left where the shadow-channel had hit hardest.

Yara manifested beside him in the hallway, white hair falling past her shoulders, red eyes darker than usual.

"I have to drop my suppression field," she said. "All of it, everything I’ve been hiding from the Bureau detection grid."

"I know."

"For six hours I’ll be the most vulnerable I’ve been in three hundred years."

She walked beside him, matching his broken pace step for step. "If someone opens that door while my field is down, I’ll kill them before I know I’m doing it."

"Nobody’s opening that door. That’s what Hansel’s for."

"Soren."

"Yeah?"

Her hand came up and touched his face.

"When this starts," she said, "you’ll feel everything I’ve been holding back. "

Soren put his hand over hers.

"I’m glad it’s you," Yara said.

The door was open.

The room was dark behind it, windows sealed, walls reinforced.

Inside, nothing but the dark and whatever was about to happen in it.

Yara walked in first. The shadows peeled off the corridor walls to follow her, trailing at her heels.

Soren looked back.

Selah was at the end of the hallway watching him.

He walked in and the door closed behind him.

The dark was total.

Just Yara’s breathing somewhere close and the sound of her suppression field dropping.

Her true power filled the space.

Then her hands found his face in the dark.

Both of them, palms against his cheeks, claws already retracted.

"I lied earlier," she said. "I said I didn’t ask for this."

"Yara..."

"I’ve been asking for this since the first night you touched my fur and didn’t pull away."

She kissed him.

Her mouth was cold and her lips were shaking and she kissed him clumsily and not at all how a goddess should kiss.

Her fingers slid into his hair and pulled him closer and the system fired so many notifications at once that the text overlapped into nonsense.

[DING! — Bond Recalibration initiated. Duration: 6 hours. Participants: Soren Kane, Yara Hale. Status: IN PROGRESS.]

[DING! — Obsession Index: Yara Hale 55/75 → 58/75. Suppression field: DEACTIVATED. True form: EMERGING.]

[DING! — Soul integrity: 35% → 34.2%. Recalibration drain commencing. Do not inter—]

Soren stopped reading, then put his hands on her waist and kissed her back.