Argos shrugged off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. “I’ve had perfect control of my abilities for decades, Miss Wayland. Just tell me what you need, and it’ll be done.”
“Sit here.” Danae gestured to a chair she’d positioned in the center of a complex array of measuring equipment. “Alexander, you should observe. You’ll need to understand how the collar functions when we eventually place it on Andie.”
I moved to stand beside Danae’s workbench, watching as my father settled into the chair. He looked completely at ease despite the strange equipment surrounding him.
Danae worked around him without ceremony. She pressed sensor contacts to both his temples, the pulse point at his throat, and the insides of his wrists. When she attached the final contact, she straightened and returned to her instruments.
“Full output on my mark,” she said, her eyes already on her displays. “Sustained and even. I need the raw signature, not a demonstration.”
Argos rested his hands on the arms of the chair, his wrists up. “When you’re ready.”
“Now.”
The shift hit me in the chest before I consciously registered it. His aura expanded outward through the room. My own power stirred in involuntary response, but I fought it back. I pressed itflat and held it there. The last thing I wanted was to accidentally interfere with what Danae was doing.
Along the wall, two of the contained crucibles guttered and then burned higher. The collar blazed. Its crystals erupted in sequence, blue-white light arcing between them. The data-sphere’s display filled with waveforms I couldn’t read. Danae’s hands moved across her instruments with focused, rapid precision.
“Again,” she said, without looking up. “Forty percent. Don’t modulate.”
My father’s hands closed over the arms of the chair, the first visible concession to effort he’d made since he’d sat down. Tiny lightning discharges crawled across his knuckles. The pressure in the room climbed, and I knew the imprint was taking.
“Power down,” Danae said. “Take your time.”
Argos drew his aura back in with the same control with which he’d deployed it. There was no abruptness, no waste. The crystals dimmed in sequence, their white fading to a low and steady pulse. The pressure in my chest eased by degrees. The forge-fires in the crucibles settled.
Danae lifted the collar from its array with both hands and carefully started to analyze it. The room was still around her. My father remained in the chair, unhurried, unreadable, adjusting his cufflinks.
Danae set the collar back in its case. She turned to face us and nodded. “The imprint is clean.” Her eyes came to mine and held. “I need the overnight simulation series to confirm stability. But the frequency took.” Her chin dropped slightly as she checked her own results one final time. “In two days, we try.”
Two days.
I didn’t let my relief show. I’d been wrong before in ways that had cost more than I’d anticipated. This island had made me careful about what I allowed myself to feel ahead of evidence. But Danae had not been wrong yet. I couldn’t help but believe her. I couldn’t help but hope.
In two days, I might finally get to keep my mate.
16
Hera’s Will
Andie & Alexander
A collar. Danae’s grand plan to help me was a collar. If it had come from anyone else, I’d have refused it. But as it was…
“I promise you, Andie, this isn’t meant to enslave you. You know I’d never do that.”
“Why not? Maybe I deserve it. For everything I said and did.”
Danae sat on the edge of my bed, the case containing the collar resting in her lap. She’d come to my chambers alone, without Helena or Cassandra or any of the priestesses who’d been monitoring my condition. Just her, my best friend.
“You said terrible things,” Danae agreed, her characteristic bluntness cutting through the heavy air between us. “At the noodle shop. In the healing room. But we both know those words weren’t really yours.”
I flinched at the memories. Calling her ‘just a Beta’ with such venom, accusing her of being a ‘bitch in heat’ over Alexander. The shame of it sat like lead in my stomach. I was so tired. Tired of fighting my own fear, of hurting people I loved, of not recognizing myself anymore.
“I’m sorry.” The words felt inadequate. “Day, I’m so sorry. You’re my best friend and I—”
“It wasn’t your fault.” Danae smiled slightly and pushed her glasses up her nose. “We can’t fix the past, Andie. We can only engineer a better future.”
“Always so pragmatic.” I managed a weak smile despite everything. “Tell me then, Day. Will this collar fix things?”