He came from the study at a pace that was not running.
The controlled, deliberate speed of a man who has felt something through a bond and is closing the distance with the full weight of his intention. I heard him in the corridor before I saw him — the specific sound of his step when there is something at the end of it he is moving toward.
He came through the kitchen door.
He looked at my hands, both flat on my stomach.
He crossed to me without speaking.
He placed both his hands over mine — the layered version, the one that had been theirs since the morning at the river when they chose the name — and went completely still.
Rowan was quiet now. The flutter had settled. But the bond still carried it — the faint third quality, the specific frequency that was not Darius and not me and wa
