Around them, the others watched with eyes full of wonder and need, still glowing with afterglow and sap, each chest rising and falling in rhythm. Sophie knelt beside Jude and kissed his temple. "You changed something," she whispered. "You changed us. "
Jude couldn't speak. His body hummed with the aftershock of release, but something deeper held him - something that didn't fade as the seconds passed. The others felt it too. He could see it in the way Emma gripped Lucy's hand tighter. In how Zoey, usually the first to break tension with a sarcastic jab, remained quiet, reverent, brushing her fingers over the moss bed like it had become sacred.
Rose finally sat up, Jude still hard inside her. She looked down at him, her hips giving one last slow roll that made them both shudder. "You feel it now," she said. "The bond."
He nodded, dazed. "I do."