The Bonding Ritual Ch. 11-13

Chapter 11

I don't remember the last time I slept so well in my life. I woke up in exactly the same position as I fell asleep in, with my arms wrapped around this gorgeous woman naked in my arms. I felt a sense of joy that I had never experienced before in my life. This beautiful woman was here with me. Not only that, she chose to bond with me and that bond represented a level of vulnerability I couldn't put into words. It required a level of trust in me that I would not take advantage of her, it was a huge responsibility. I knew that I would protect this woman with my life if needed.

Of course, my nerves were still around. I feared that I had changed in some fundamental way possibly. Just yesterday, I balked at being called 'master,' yet now Isadora called me this ever since we bonded and I found it normal. Well, maybe not 'normal,' but there was this part of me that felt aroused when she said it. Was I changing too? I started thinking about the other day when Aurora called me this and I still felt uncomfortable in that context.

And what if I managed to impregnate her already? It's not like we used protection. She could be carrying our baby right now. Shouldn't that scare me? Strangely, it didn't and I knew that if she was pregnent, I'd love and protect that child. That led me to think about our situation. Would she have to go back to her homeworkd? Would our bond be broken? Would I even see my first born child? Anxiety over losing not only her, but also my unborn child began to overwhelm me.

"What are you thinking about?" Isadora asked, waking with a yawn as she looked up at me.

"I-" I didn't know how to verbalize this sudden mixture of emotions into coherent sentences. She was from this other world and she needed to go back pregnant because her world's whole existence relied on women travelling to different worlds to re-populate. Things started spiraling in my head and I couldn't deal with it just yet.

"Nothing, just thinking of how beautiful you look sleeping," I smiled, reaching up and pushing a lock of hair from her face, hoping she couldn't sense my spiraling emotions. "How did you sleep?"

"I don't think I've ever slept deeper in my life!" she smiled excitedly.

"Same," I looked around at the clock. It was already early afternoon. "How about we get cleaned up and get something to eat? Want to go first?"

We still needed to figure out our problem with The Order. Instead of handling these emotions now, I'd do what I knew how to do best. Bury these feelings and put my energy into figuring out this problem. We were all in danger, including my potential unborn child.

Isadora stretched, her perfectly toned body and ample chest on full display. "Sounds good," she hopped out of bed, bending over to pick up her discarded dress and giving me the perfect view of her ass. She turned her head, catching me staring, "See something you like?" She said teasingly with a wink before sashaying into the bathroom.

I groaned. My penis was going to be in a perpetually hardened state with her constant teasing. I slid out of bed after my erection subsided and threw some clothes on before looking for something to eat. I had some fruits and yogurt, which I set up on the small table. Hopefully, that would be enough for now. We'd need to go to the grocery store soon.

As I sat there waiting for Isadora, something sparkled out of the corner of my eye. I looked over to see the knife that Celeste dropped yesterday on the floor next to me. As soon as it caught my eye, I was drawn to it like a magnet. Similar markings from my bracer were on the hilt and blade of the knife. I reached down to pick it up and instantly felt a shock that ran up my arm.

Flashes and images filled my mind, none of them making sense and most of them flying by too fast for me to comprehend. The only thing I could make out was a wave of red that blurred across my vision briefly. I blacked out shortly afterward just as someone screamed "No!". When I opened my eyes, the dagger was gone, but the bracer on my wrist felt more substantial, a glow subsiding from it as I looked down.

"Fuck, what was that?" I said to myself.

"What?" Isadora said as she came from the bathroom with her hair wrapped in a towel and dressed in my long T-shirt again, which definitely looked better on her.

"The dagger," I pointed to the empty floor. "I picked it up and I got these... images in my head. Then I heard someone screaming."

She came rushing over with this concerned look on her face, "Are you okay?" she asked.

"Yeah, I think so, but the dagger just... disappeared," I rubbed the bracer on my arm instinctively. "Does this look different to you?" I asked.

She sat in my lap, grabbing my arm and pulling it around her slender waist as she settled into me. "Hmmmm... " she stared at it for a few minutes, twisting my arm back and forth to make out the symbols. "It definitely changed. I can make out a few more words, but still, something seems to be missing."

She idly ate some of the fruits I laid out as she continued to examine the writing for a while longer. Unfortunately, nothing more could be deciphered, "Maybe more will reveal itself over time. There just seems to be something incomplete about it."

"It's okay, we'll figure it out. We've got more pressing matters anyway," I said.

"You mean The Order?" she asked.

I nodded, "Maybe we can at least try to find something online about them. Figure out what we are up against. I know Celeste will be here later this evening to tell us where and when she'll be meeting her handler, but I don't like just sitting around and leaving everything up to her."

Strangely, after mentioning Celeste, I almost felt like I could sense her somewhere in my consciousness as if I could just reach out and touch her. Mentally, I attempted to do just that and was surprised when I had this sensation of running in a park. I couldn't figure out where though, although it felt like it was somewhere to the northeast not too far away. She also seemed to be a bit flustered or agitated, but I couldn't tell what that was about.

I mentally disconnected from Celeste and brought my attention back to Isadora in front of me.

"Sounds great! It'll give me the chance to set up the laptop too," Isadora said excitedly.

We ate quickly and cleaned up the kitchen. Isadora decided to sit in bed with her laptop and I sat at my desk. She quickly became absorbed in her world as she explored the computer in front of her.

I left her to her work as I turned back to my desk. I decided to check on the test results on the mysterious phone. Apparently, everything checked out. I was a little weary of the mystery gift, but I needed a phone so I removed it from the black box and booted it up.

I had a couple of messages that came through since I lost my phone the other night. One was from my mom asking how I was doing. I had a message from my sister asking how the presentation went. The last one surprised me as it was a photo from April of Isadora and me in the park kissing. There was no text to the message, I guess she saw us and decided to snap a picture.

I quickly replied to my mother and sister with brief responses so they wouldn't get worried. I wasn't really sure what to say to April as most of our messages back and forth tend to be pretty formal about scheduling, so I decided to leave it for now. I did save the photo though since it was our first kiss and it was actually a really nice picture.

I logged into my computer and began searching for The Order. Unfortunately, after about an hour or two of searching and getting nowhere, I decided to take a break.

"Have you found anything?" I turned to Isadora. She had been fairly quiet during her search as well.

"No, I even created a bot program to scrub through search results hoping to find something, but nothing is coming up. I started expanding on terms looking for different disappearances, conspiracy theories, cults, and nothing about The Order of Ebon," she said. Obviously, she'd been busy.

I was wondering if I could use some of my technologies to help me in my search as well. Of course, Aurora came to mind. She seemed to be able to find things incredibly fast.

"Same, if they have some sort of presence here, you would expect them to have some kind of footprint on the Internet," I said.

"Maybe they're just good at covering their tracks. Sometimes we need to erase the presence of a girl who jumps into a certain universe when she comes back home because of an incident that could reveal information about us. Maybe they are utilizing something like that to hide," Isadora said.

"That makes sense, but everything leaves a footprint. We just have to uncover it," I started thinking about my next steps. "I've got an idea, but not sure it'll work," I said.

She smiled, "I'll keep expanding my search. I'm going to see if I can find traces of other girls from my world that might be here. Maybe that'll give us some clues."

"Good luck," I said, reaching for my backpack and searching for the parts I would need. I dumped everything onto my desk. All of Aurora's main parts were there except the destroyed motherboard. I quickly scrounged through my scrap boxes to find a suitable replacement. I couldn't find a replacement for the exact one I had, but maybe I could piece something together.

Another few hours flew by as I turned my attention to the task at hand. I cobbled various pieces together. It wasn't perfect, but if I could just access Aurora, I could solve two problems at once: fix Aurora and find The Order.

"Okay, it's the moment of truth," Isadora occasionally looked up and became entranced in my work, eager to see me work on my creations.

"I can't wait to see what you've done!" she said excitedly, sipping some water and coming over to where I sat. She draped her arms over my shoulders, holding me from behind as she watched excitedly.

I turned on the monitor that I had hooked everything up to and flipped the switch to power on my creation. The BIOS screen came up running its checks. Everything looked good as the progress bar neared 100%. I started getting excited when suddenly the whole screen went blank.

"What happened?" Isadora asked.

"I-I'm not sure," I was checking that everything was seated correctly in its place when suddenly the monitor flickered again and started displaying the same characters that were displayed on Miss Carrington's computer before she destroyed Aurora.

"What is that?" Isadora was just as confused as I was.

"I don't know, maybe some type of encrypted data stream?" My expertise wasn't in that area, but that is what Miss Carrington seemed to think it was.

"Maybe... but there is something there, see?" She pointed out how something would occasionally flicker across the screen for one frame. "Can I try something?" she asked, settling into the seat next to me.

"Be my guest," I smiled. It was my turn to watch her work. She fumbled with a few things, feeding the video output into my other computer. At that point, I just got lost in watching her work. She would bounce in her seat occasionally as she got excited, and she had the most adorable scrunched look on her face whenever she was concentrating on a particularly difficult problem.

After about an hour, she finally stopped coding, "Okay, ready?"

"Yup," now it was my turn to get excited.

Isadora hit play and at first, the random characters streamed through, but then they stopped, and in its place was something else. Each frame that contained the interlaced frame was stitched together and then played back. It was some sort of animation like a ball bouncing up and down across the screen. It would move left to right in random positions pausing sometimes, then start again on the next line until it reached the bottom of the screen.

"What is it?" I asked, again confused.

Isadora frowned, "I mean this was definitely hiding inside the video stream, but I have no idea what it is."

We stared at the moving symbol bouncing from position to position for a while, hoping that something would come to mind, but none of our theories panned out.

Eventually, it started getting late and Celeste was going to show up soon.

"Maybe we should take a break and get some food before Celeste shows up," I said.

I pulled out a stack of take-out menus to order from and handed them to Isadora to look through. She picked a Chinese place and selected a few things from the menu. I placed the order on my phone and we sat there chatting about other stuff as we waited for the food to arrive.

"Oh, I have a picture of our first kiss by the way. I got this message from April this morning," I showed Isadora the photo that April had sent through.

"Aww... We look so cute! I wonder how long she was stalking us in order to get such a good angle on that photo!" Isadora said.

"Well, she does a lot of photography," I shrugged.

"Maybe," Isadora looked like she thought there was more to the story, but didn't say anything.

Before I could ask what she was thinking, there was a knock at the door. I grabbed our order from the delivery guy and set it out on the small table. Both of us were hungry, so we instantly began to dig in.

Isadora really loved the entrees that were spicy, taking second helpings of them while ignoring the sweeter options. As we were cleaning up, there was a light knock on the door. I answered it and Celeste stood there looking nervous, unable to look me in the eyes.

Chapter 12

"Come in and have a seat," I said. "You are welcome to have some food," not wanting to be a rude host.

"Thanks," she looked down at the ground avoiding eye contact as she shuffled into my apartment. She sat down at the table and started digging into what was left over.

Isadora and I sat down across from her, watching her eagerly scoff down the food in front of her as if she were starving. Isadora and I just looked at each other, curiosity on both of our faces.

"So, did you find anything out?" I asked, breaking the awkward silence.

"Yes," she said while chewing a mouthful of food. She wiped her face with a napkin before continuing, "Yes, I received an email shortly before coming here tonight with instructions."


"And?" I asked impatiently.

"I'm supposed to meet my handler at an Italian restaurant, Bella Trattoria, tomorrow at 1 PM," she said before drinking a glass of water.

"I've heard of the place. It isn't too far from here," I said. "Was there anything else?"

I could see her shoulders tense as I asked for more information, she hesitated for a second before continuing, "Yes, it seems like they already know I screwed up." Her shoulders dropped.

"What exactly did they say?" I prodded her for more information.

She sighed, "They said that we needed to meet in person to discuss 'resolving the issues that occurred on Thursday evening' and 'next steps on cleaning up this mess'."

"Was anyone else there that night?" I asked.

"Not that I'm aware of, but maybe someone was watching. They didn't tell me about anyone else being involved though," Celeste said as she finished her meal.

"In that case, we have to assume they saw our faces," I pondered what we would need to do next.

"Can we do the same thing you did to us yesterday?" I asked.

"The scrying, you mean?" Isadora confirmed.

"Yeah, can Isadora and I observe the meeting by scrying?" I asked.

Celeste shook her head, "No, they would either have protection spells around the area to prevent scrying or worse, have a tracker that could trace down the source of the scrying. You'd end up with hunters at your doorstep in seconds."

"That won't work then," I rubbed my temples, trying to think. My eye caught the box of parts on my desk and an idea formed.

"If we can't use magical means, perhaps we can do it the old-fashioned way," I smiled.

"What do you have planned?" Celeste asked.

"I can't tell you," I said, not wanting to give away the plan.

Celeste flinched, looking a little hurt that I didn't tell her. Why did I feel guilty for not telling her what I had planned? Especially after what she's done. Maybe it was something to do with the bond.

"It's just that I don't want you to be put in a compromising position if they ask you any questions," I clarified.

"Oh, okay, I guess that makes sense," Celeste went back to looking down at the table.

"Is there anything else, Celeste?" I asked. It seemed like something was on her mind.

"No-I mean, Yes, but... not about the meeting," she seemed even more nervous now, I could feel her knee bouncing as it hit the bottom of the table.

"Take your time," I didn't want to rush her.

"It's just..." she started, then stopped for a second before continuing, "I was wondering if maybe you could... block me from certain... activities..." her voice trailed off at the end. I could see a slight blush forming on her cheeks.

"What do you..." I started, turning to Isadora at first before, noticing her stifle a giggle before realizing what she meant, "Oh! You... you felt us..."

"Yes!" she interrupted before I could complete my sentence. She shifted in her seat uncomfortably.

"Did you sense me corrupt him with my evil ways?" Isadora chided.

"Yes... I mean no... it just felt..." Again, she paused, trying to find the right words or maybe just uncomfortable talking about it. "Intimate."

"Do you feel comfortable elaborating?" I asked, not wanting to command her, but interested in how much she was sensing across the bond.

Celeste sighed, "It just felt like I was intruding on a private moment between you two."

"You couldn't shut out the sensation yourself?" I was curious.

Celeste squirmed in her seat, her cheeks turning a bright red.

"She liked it! She couldn't bring herself to tune out, could you? Did it turn you on? Did you touch yourself?" Isadora looked delighted at the turn of events.

"No! Of course not, it's just..." Celeste was definitely flustered and confused. An image flashed in my head briefly of Celeste on a bed, thrashing and moaning with her fingers buried between her legs. "Please, please don't make me say it," she pleaded with me, almost shaking in her seat as if she was going to burst into tears.

"I'm not going to force you to tell me, Celeste, so just relax," I said, seeing her shoulders drop slightly, some tension melting away. "However, we're connected now. I don't know what that means as far as our emotions. Perhaps it is part of this whole thing that all of us will need to get used to. I'm not even sure if I can block it. Instead, maybe use this as an opportunity to learn more about us and we can learn more about you."

"You... want to learn more about me?" Celeste seemed shocked at that.

"Yeah, I mean, I know this isn't the ideal scenario here, but this is our life right now and we're going to have to get used to this connection one way or another," I said, wanting her to feel at ease. That would make things much easier. Plus, if there came a time when she figured out a way to break the bond, maybe she wouldn't immediately try to kill one or both of us again if we were at least on good terms with each other.

"I... I guess you are right," Celeste said. I was hoping that she felt a little better.

"Okay, if that is all then I think Isadora and I have some things to prepare before tomorrow's meeting," I said, standing up from the table. "Come by again tomorrow evening at the same time to discuss what happened at the meeting and our next steps."

I walked Celeste to the door. As she stepped through, her hand brushed against mine briefly, a small spark between us causing her to gasp and latch onto my hand, squeezing it.

"Sorry..." she quickly let go of my hand looking embarrassed.

"It's okay. Have a good evening," I watched her leave down the stairs before closing the door behind me.