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*****

~ HARTH ~

She couldn’t let go of him. She felt weak like a child. Not because her body couldn’t fight. But because the fear was so overwhelming, she wanted nothing more than to flee.

Actually, that wasn’t true. She’d fled into Tarkyn’s arms because that was where she most wanted to be-curled into him, inhaling his smell, buffered from this strange world and these awful people by his arms, his strength, his will.

She could feel him-his rock-solid resolve to protect her, his certainty that he could fix this, but his rage and fear that she’d been hurt.

She hadn’t been. Not really. Now that she felt a little safer, she could see that the guards had been careful with her, though it hadn’t felt that way at the time. Her shoulder was a little sore, but it wasn’t anything that wouldn’t heal in a day, two at most.

No one had struck her. No one had spoken in anger. But they had... overwhelmed her.

It was terrifying.

.....

It wasn’t her body that made her feel like she teetered on the edge of screaming terror. It was the feeling creeping up in her chest, into her throat.

The feeling she’d held for years when she was at the human “sanctuary,” the one that made it hard to breathe.

The endless, relentless, ruthless sense that danger could appear at any moment, in any breath. And that it would come utterly without warning.

Harth hadn’t realized until she’d arrived in this land how much of a weight that feeling was-the constant, exhausting awareness that she couldn’t let her guard down.

She’d thought she was merely alert. But sleeping in this land... resting in this land... just living here before this had all happened had shown her how much of her fear she’d released simply by no longer being under threat.

But now... it had come from nowhere. It consumed her. She couldn’t flee it. And neither could she define it.

Fear was a noose around her neck, and only Tarkyn’s arms around her kept her on her feet because she’d barely been able to breathe.

As if he heard her thoughts, Tarkyn held her more tightly and pressed his lips against her ear, breathing words only for her.

“Let me handle this. Let me address this. Trust me, Harth.” His deep voice rumbled in his chest, and she pressed her face to it, wanting to absorb him into herself. Then she sighed and nodded. She did trust him. She’d given herself, for better or worse, she was at his side forever.

But even that thought made her throat want to close. Because being close to him meant being close to these... aggressors.

A tremble wracked her from head to toe and Tarkyn made a strange noise in his throat.

“Tarkyn, what happened?” The Queen’s voice was higher than Harth remembered, as if her throat pinched toward tears.

Tarkyn shuddered and kissed her hair. Then, without letting go of her, he lifted his head. Harth pressed herself harder into the deep rumble in his chest when he spoke.

“They took her. There was no warning.”

The Queen must have looked at the Guards because the one who’d been leading spoke.

“Tark, there was no aggression. We tugged her back to the path, that was all-”

“She disappeared from my back, and then... she was terrified. I could feel it!”

“I knew the bond would draw us together, but I never realized she would become an... extension of me.” He said the words, hushed, his whole body trembling with awe and anger.

Bracing herself, determined to be as strong for him as he was for her, Harth drew her head back only far enough to see his face.

His eyes were aflame with righteous anger. His jaw a steel line, muscles flexing at its corner as he stared down the leaders behind her. If they’d been alone she might have reached up to put her hand to it, to soothe him. Instead, she murmured her love to him through the link-reminding him that she was there and beside him. He didn’t respond, but his arm tightened on her back as he spoke.

“You didn’t tell me. None of you warned me,” he said hoarsely. “Her skin is my skin. Her heart moves my blood. Every thought, every feeling... it’s all part of me! When she was taken, it was as if I was under attack!”

“Wait... Tarkyn, what are you saying? You feel the bond... right? That sense of... harmony? That feeling of protection and rightness. When you say her skin is your skin, you mean that it feels precious... right?” Elreth said carefully.

Tarkyn’s brow furrowed and he shook his head slightly. “No, El. I’m saying you should have warned me that I would feel everything she feels. How... how you all did this, got through the war like this... I don’t know. But I will do it too. Just, please... please. Don’t touch her.”

Disturbed murmurs rippled around the room. Harth’s breath stopped.

‘Tarkyn,’ she sent. ‘Are you saying you feel me... not just through the mindlink? Not just when I’m opened to you?’

He looked down at her quickly, frowning. “Yes,” he said quietly. “Don’t you?”

Harth blinked, examining herself-her sense of herself and him. She could feel him touching her, holding her, of course. But beyond that... beyond that she had a sense of him in her mind. She could reach for him that way. Yet even that wasn’t what he described.

As his friends and rulers began asking questions, Harth tried to concentrate. She closed her eyes, examining the sensations in her chest, in her mind, her heart, discerning what was her own, and what came from him.

She could feel his love for her... feel his openness to her. Sense his determination. But physical feeling?

Harth shook her head. She couldn’t. At least, she didn’t think she could.

“You can actually feel her?” one of the males asked. “As in, the sensations of her skin? Her body?”

“Yes!” Tarkyn said, frustrated. “Why didn’t you all tell me-”

“Tarkyn,” the Queen said quietly, but Tarkyn didn’t even pause.

“-you should have warned me. When she was frightened, my heart almost exploded. When she fought, I felt the effort of it!”

“Tarkyn,” she said a little louder. But his jaw only tightened.

“It was more than instinct to leap to her defense-it felt like leaping to my own!”

Harth dared a glance over her shoulder and saw them, all of them, gaping at him, shocked, and then it hit her.

She looked up at Tarkyn and his friends’ expressions must have finally registered for him as well, because he broke off and his eyes narrowed.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”