“What?” Kieran blinked.

“You feel like cedar.”

He stared at me. “I feel like a tree?”

“Not really. I mean, that’s just what your…imprint or whatever feels like to me. Something rich and woodsy, connected to the land.” I shrugged. “That’s the only way I know how to explain it.”

“And what did Delano feel like? A featherlight sapling?”

A laugh burst from me. “No. Not a sapling. He felt like…I don’t know. Like spring.”

“And I feel woodsy.”

“I’m beginning to think I shouldn’t have said anything.”

One side of his lips kicked up. “I kind of like it, though—the rich and woodsy part.”

I rolled my eyes as I leaned back against the pillows. “I’ve never been able to feel any of that before. Or hear thoughts.”

“Before you ask, no, I cannot read your thoughts. Not then or now. I only heard that one,” he said, and I had been about to ask that. “It may have happened because you were experiencing a strong emotion.”

Just like when I had summoned the wolven without realizing it.

“To be quite honest, I’m glad I can’t. I imagine your mind to be a constant cyclone of questions, one fighting the other in a deathmatch to see which one has the honor of being asked.”

I frowned at him. “That was kind of rude.” Then I pitched forward, startling Kieran. “Can we try it now? See if I can do it on purpose?”

“Do you know how to do it?”

“No,” I admitted, holding the teal pillow to my chest again. “But I think it has to do with that imprint—the singular pathway. I think I just need to follow that. I mean, that’s something new, so it would make sense that it would be the way,” I explained while Kieran stared at me as if I spoke in a language he didn’t understand. “Okay. Just give me a second to concentrate.”

“You sure you only need a second?” he quipped.

“You sure you don’t want to find yourself staring down at the hilt of a dagger protruding from your chest?”

The wolven grinned at me. “That would make it hard to test out whether you can do this on purpose or not.”

I shot him a look.

He laughed softly. “Go ahead. See if you can do it.”

Drawing in a shallow breath, I opened my senses to read Kieran. I tasted the sugary sweetness of amusement on my tongue, and then I…I reached further, finding that earthy, woodsy sensation. I latched on to the cord. Kieran?

“Yeah?”

I jerked back, my eyes widening. “You heard me?”

He nodded. “It almost sounded like you spoke out loud, but I know you didn’t, and it…it sounded like a whisper. Try it again. See if I can respond to you.”

I focused on him, feeling the freshness of curiosity replacing the amusement. I connected to that pathway even quicker this time. Kieran?

The strangest thing happened, and I wasn’t sure if it had happened before and I hadn’t realized it, but I felt him—felt his mark brush against my mind like a woodsy, balsam-scented breeze. You have a healthy obsession with stabbing people.