It clattered when it snapped into place and a pair of nurses quickly slipped cooks over restraining loops on the bottom.
“We will carry out the Procedure now,” the Surgeon’s calm voice said over the speaker.
It popped and wheezed, rattling in its flimsy restraint.
Panic began to overtake me.
This machine was not as honed as the scanning device from earlier.
This one had been used a great deal.
A loud whirring grew in volume, coming from above my head.
The actual machine must be located in the room above us.
I had only ever heard such loud groaning from an airplane’s turbine engine.
My pod shivered and shook.
I could feel the reverberations in the soles of my feet rising through my legs.
Powerful waves of electrical power shuddered up my arms.
Like the scans from earlier but much more powerful.
“Making the incision now,” the Surgeon said over the crackling speaker, barely audible with the rattling and screaming engine above.
A bright flash of intense light doused the pod’s interior and I threw up my arms to block it.
Through the smudged window, I watched as the chain bond fence hummed and burned liquid white and cobalt blue about its fringes as the energy sifted through the metal frame, leading down, down, down, reaching for the floor.
I jammed my hands over my ears to block the worst of the noise.
I wondered if this was normal.
Had the machine malfunctioned?
As the screeching energy edged closer to the base of the metal latticework, it blotted Vai from view.
The searing white burned my irises and left an afterglow when I shifted my focal point.
I clutched my chest, my eyes boggling at the sensation.
The pulsing light prickled and prodded, throbbing as if attempting to escape.
I pressed a hand to it, instinctively wanting to keep it inside.
I felt it tearing.
I even thought I heard it.
I banged on the glass.
I panicked.
“I don’t want to do this!” I bellowed. “Let me out! I don’t want this!”
I beat at the window with my fist and screamed and wailed and yelled.
“Stop! Please! I don’t want to do this!”
The glass window was taken up entirely with the glowing chain bond fence.
I couldn’t see Vai on the other side.
The engine’s electronic whirring kicked up another gear and the shelf of white struck me and knocked me bodily off my feet.
I smacked into the pod’s back wall and my body turned to jelly.
The world turned black before I hit the deck.
I awoke sometime later in a room with a soft mattress and cheap pillows.
A smiley emoji face peered back at me from my pillowcase.
My pillowcase.
I clutched the blanket close and recognized the same design there too.
I bolted upright into a sitting position and peered closer at the room.
There was my small but enthusiastic music collection.
And there, posters of my latest idols—a hang over from my teenage years.
And there, my basket of dirty clothes that needed washing.
I even grew excited at the idea of washing my clothes!
My room.
I fell back, relief flooding me from head to toe.
I chuckled and pressed a hand over my mouth.
I felt at my chest and, reaching out and searching for that familiar glow, felt nothing.
“It worked?” I said.
I threw my head back and danced a jig beneath my bedsheet.
“It worked!”
I clutched my hands over my face and let out a scream.
Tears blossomed unbidden in my eyes.
I felt like I had come to the end of a long and dangerous journey.
Against all the odds, I had, somehow, managed to survive.
My joy faded a little when I thought of Vai.
Those delicious curled horns of his and the seductive smile with its childhood dimple.
I felt sad that the price of returning to my old life had cost the one thing I’d grown attached to during this whole mess.
Vai.
I knew he would be out there somewhere thinking of me too, and, when enough time had passed—for both of us—we could begin our search for our true fated mates, the ones we would pick for ourselves.
I was more than a little jealous of who his fated mate would turn out to be.
Probably some stunning M’rora who’d also failed to protect her fated mate from her Shadow.
Something popped in the pit of my chest.
Heartburn? I wondered.
No.
It was something else, something that pressed from the inside.
I realized what it was immediately.
The bond I shared with Vai.
It was trying to come in contact with him again.
Maybe the process hadn’t worked properly?
No, this was normal, the Surgeon had said.
Sometimes there would be phantom sensations.
It would take time for my body to recover from the Procedure.
It was just in shock.
The tugging in my chest grew a little stronger and lurched from one side of the room to the other.
My eyes followed it.
Toward the hallway outside my door.
It was puzzling because the bond never slipped from one direction to another so quickly.
It only ever happened on Vai’s ship when he was so close a tiny movement could shift the flowing orb on its axis.
That could only mean one thing.
Vai was outside my door.
Right now.
My heart leaped for joy at the thought of seeing him again so soon.
We weren’t supposed to stay together after the Procedure, the Surgeon had said, but I was willing to take the risk if it meant I could see him again.
Even if for only a few minutes.
Maybe Vai had decided to ignore the doctor’s advice.
Heavy footsteps reached my door.
I shivered with excitement.
Shadows snaked under the doorframe cast by the hall light outside.
The door creaked open, revealing Vai’s unmistakable outline.
The tall muscular frame…
The twisted horns…
The gleaming golden eyes…
I smiled up at him as he entered my room and took a seat at the foot of my bed, entering the soft glow of my bedside lamp.
His golden eyes flickered like distant flames in a cold wind.
I wanted his broad chest and arms to wrap around me and never let go.
He smiled at me, forming those cute dimples in the corners of his cheeks.
I smiled back at him, reflecting the same warmth.
Then my smile faltered.
His remained in place.
There was no warmth in that
