Page 76 of Between Imminent Fates

Startled, she jerked back from the railing, finding it in splinters beneath her fingertips. Sawdust drifted to the porch beneath her feet while the sound of movement inside caught her attention.

Tzuriel.

Zeke’s cousin had taken on nearly as much responsibility as their sovereign. When he wasn’t helping to draft the plans for expansion, he was running interference on the Lexington clan lands. Someone had needed to take charge of overseeing the territory, and Tzuriel had offered. Every lieutenant was running on fumes.

Nina’s brothers had blamed themselves for not seeing the signs of her choice, and the symptoms that’d followed in its wake. While Aidan had thrown himself into reorganizing and revitalizing his nation, Kaien had done the opposite.

The Raeth healer had very much retreated into the comfort of his mate, and Blair hadn’t weathered Nina’s injury well either. Every day, Kaien attempted to heal Nina’s mind, and Zeke continued to funnel his amplification into her to the same fruitless results. Most of her vampiric fledglings had come to Ontario at one point or another, hoping their presence would spark something within their sire.

Nothing had made any difference to her state.

The door behind her creaked open and Tzuriel came out to stand quietly beside her. His calming presence conflicted with her volatile one. He asked nothing of her, simply aligning himself with her in a show of his support.

“I’m sorry about your railing.”

His good-natured chuckle said he didn’t care. “I’m heartbroken, truly.”

Celeste’s lips kicked up at the corners before she remembered the situation that’d brought them here. “Zeke passed out at his work again.”

A beat of silence. “I know.”

“He’s wearing himself out.”

Tzuriel’s face pinched slightly before he echoed, “I know.”

Despair gripped her, and Celeste drowned in the loss of everything she’d held dear. Pivoting to face him, she stared him down.

“What happens when he can’t give anything more, Tzuriel? When he runs dry?”

“We need to give him time, Celeste. Zeke’s just lost his mate—without warning. The future is unknown, and unlikely to bring about her recovery. I’m hopeful he will eventually—” he paused to find the right word, “settle down. This mania can’t last forever.”

Her eyes closed. Though Tzuriel still carried hope for Nina’s return, Celeste could not. One look inside Nina’s mind had shown her the same thing that everyone else had found: she was gone. Her heart still beat, and her lungs still drew breath, but there would be no miraculous cure.

Isaiah and Key, the two other Raeths who’d succumbed to the same psychic injury, were existing in the same state. Neither had woken, nor would they ever.

“Kaien took the scout tonight,” Tzuriel mentioned as he drew her back to the present. “Go be with Blair. I think both of you could use it.”

Twenty minutes later, Celeste was knocking on the door of Kaien and Blair’s home. She held a bag of microwave popcorn, chick flicks she’d rescued from her former home on Missouri clan lands, and far too much chocolate.

Anxiety pinged through her as she waited for the vampire to open the door. The pair of them hadn’t spent any significant time together since what’d happened with Nina. So often, it’d been the three of them. The empty stoop beside her only reinforced her absence.

Movie nights had been their favorite pastime.

Blair’s face appeared in the shallow gap between the door and its frame seconds later. Two weeks had taken their toll on the vampire: her hair hung limply around her features, her clothes were disheveled, and her eyes looked lifeless.

Celeste did her best to smile. “Let’s watch a movie, Blair.”

The vampire didn’t move for half a moment, igniting Celeste’s fear that her friend didn’t want company. When bad things happened, everyone reacted differently. While Celeste had turned to anger, Blair had turned inward to numbness. If the vampire sent her away, there was nothing she could do to convince her that company might be a step in the right direction.

Blair gave her a watery smile. “Okay. That sounds good.”

Throwing themselves into the pretense that everything was okay for the night, they mockingly quarreled over movie selection and the best seats in the house. Celeste gathered an armful of chocolate and teased Blair relentlessly over her liquid diet while the vampire mimed a gag.

It was faking it until they made it, and they each did it for the benefit of the other.

By the time the movie was finally playing, everything felt exactly like before, minus one vital person. Despite the movie being one they both loved, neither was able to lose themselves in the flick.

No more than thirty minutes into it, Blair asked, “What are we doing, Celeste?”

---