Free Illusion: Book Four of the Grimoire Saga by S.M. Boyce

cleared her mind for a second.
    He dropped his towel and crossed to her in a few long strides. He held her face and examined her, eyebrows furrowing in concern. “What’s wrong?”
    She shook her head. “I’ll be fine.”
    “Are you upset about the bond?” he asked.
    She hesitated, confused for a moment before it sunk in. He didn’t understand the lingering guilt of her murders. He thought these tears were for the failed bond—another of her failures, granted, but not the one pressing on her conscience at the moment.
    He pulled her into a long kiss, his lips hesitating on hers before pulling her deeper under the spell of his touch. She lost herself in him, letting the worry and pain linger on the surface while she retreated into herself and into him.
    His mouth released her, but he only moved far enough away to speak. His breath tickled her lips, teasing her with his proximity. “Bond or no, I have you, Kara. That’s all I care about. That’s everything I want. Even if I can’t sense you everywhere you go, even if we can never have children, I don’t care. You’re the greatest part of my world.”
    She smiled. A tear creased down her cheek. He wiped it away and kissed her again.
    Guilt or no—shame or no—at least she had Braeden.
     

    Kara sat in a chair by the only window in one of Ayavel’s many war rooms. Braeden sat beside her, one hand wrapped in hers under the table. The wooden surface spanned the full length of the room, taking up almost all of the open space and leaving only enough room to walk behind the chairs. Their backs were to the window, its glass spanning the full height and width of the wall. Rain poured outside, pattering against the glass as it had since the late afternoon. It showed no signs of letting up.
    Light flickered from a few sconces on the wall, but the storm sucked almost all light from the room. Kara took a deep breath, waiting.
    The Bloods weren’t late—she was early. After her talk with the first Vagabond, she didn’t give him a chance to slip back into the conversation. She wanted to focus on the topic at hand: isen.
    “Do you still think recruiting isen is a good idea?” Braeden asked.
    She caught his eye but hesitated. He frowned, one eyebrow quirked as he waited for an answer.
    She nodded.
    The doors swung open. Neither Kara nor Braeden stood. In walked Evelyn and Frine. Evelyn’s iridescent skin reflected reds and blues onto the walls as she walked, the three pupils in each of her large eyes all focused on Kara. Frine also kept his gaze on her, his coal-black eyes massive in his bald, blue head. The Lossian Blood nodded once and took his seat.
    Seconds later, Aurora entered. The Kirelm Blood straightened her back and smiled, a new placeholder wing covering the stump of the one Carden sawed off in the Stelian prisons. Its white frame matched her good wing perfectly, its metal bars curved to mimic the flow of the feathers and bone that once graced her thin back. It seemed to give the queen balance as she walked into the war room, but Kara wondered what inner demons her newfound friend fought as they planned to return to the Stele—a place of such suffering for the girl.
    Evelyn frowned in what Kara had grown accustomed to thinking of as the queen’s annoyance with vagabonds in general. The Ayavelian Blood sat at the far end of the table, her back to the open door.
    Aurora smiled at Kara, while Frine simply nodded. Both sat a short ways off around the massive table.
    “Why did you call us here?” Evelyn asked.
    Aurora clicked her tongue. “Now, now. Let’s wait for Blood Gavin.”
    As if on cue, Gavin rounded the corner into the room. He paused, eyes darting over the occupants. He cleared his throat and turned to shut the doors. “I apologize. I’m not accustomed to being the last to a meeting.”
    “That honor is usually reserved for me,” Braeden said.
    Braeden and Gavin laughed. Kara managed a chuckle, but her stomach churned with nerves. She hoped