The bond settled sometime between dusk and midnight.
I felt it click into place while I was stitching the last line on Draven's shoulder. One second it was a hum under my skin, loud and insistent. The next, it was quiet. Steady. Like it had finally found its rhythm and stopped trying to force him to listen.
Draven felt it too. His breath hitched when my fingers brushed the skin near the wound. His hand came up to cover mine, warm and rough.
"It's different," he said quietly.
"Better?"
"Different." He looked at me, grey eyes clear in the lamplight. "Like it's not fighting me anymore."
I nodded and tied off the thread. "Good."
He didn't let go of my hand.
We sat like that for a while, in the quiet of his room, with the candle burning low and the packhouse settling into night outside
