Page 99 of Heart of the Rebel Mate

I step closer, lowering my voice. "What happened?"

Isla exhales, setting the knife aside with a sharp clatter. For a moment, she just stares into the fire, her fingers curling into the dirt at her sides.

Then, she speaks.

"I met him when I was seventeen," she says. Her voice is steady, but there's a hollowness to it, like she's speaking from a wound that never healed. "I wasn't supposed to. The Council had already decided my future. But the bond... it didn't care about their rules."

She presses a hand to her chest, as if remembering the way it had felt. "He wasn't a threat. He wasn't political. He was just... mine. And I was his. But that didn't matter to them. They saw it as a liability. So they took him. And they tore us apart."

Adrian's fists clench at his sides. "How?"

Isla swallows, the muscles in her throat working. When she speaks, her voice is barely above a whisper.

"They did something to him. I don't know what. All I know is that one day, I felt him. And the next... nothing. It was like a part of me had been carved out with a dull knife."

I grip the edge of the table to steady myself. The mate bond is sacred—a force of nature. To sever it, to rip someone away like that... it's monstrous.

Adrian's voice is low, filled with barely restrained fury. "They terminated the bond."

Isla flinches. "Yeah."

My stomach churns. The Council has always wielded control with an iron grip, but this... this is beyond cruelty. This is playing God.

I take a step closer. "How do you know they did it?"

Isla lets out a hollow laugh, but there's no humor in it. "Because I felt it. One moment, I was tethered to him, and the next, I wasn't. I woke up gasping, like I was drowning in empty space. And then I realized... he was gone. Not dead. Not far away. Just gone."

Her voice wavers, and I see it—the cracks in the armor, the grief pressing in from the edges.

Adrian kneels beside her, his fingers brushing her arm. "Isla..."

She squeezes her eyes shut, shaking her head. "You don't get it. You and Elara—you still have your bond. You still feel. But me? I feel... nothing. I walk around every day, knowing I was supposed to have something real, something meant for me. And now? It's just gone."

Adrian's fists tighten so hard I hear the leather of his gloves creak. His entire body is rigid with fury, his breathing sharp and controlled.

I don't think. I move.

I drop to my knees and pull Isla into my arms.

She stiffens at first, her breath hitching. But then—slowly, cautiously—she leans into the embrace. Her shoulders shake, and though she doesn't sob, I feel the grief rolling off her in waves.

Over her head, I meet Adrian's eyes. Neither of us speaks, but we don't need to.

This is what the Council is capable of.

They aren't just waging war on us. They're ripping souls apart.

I tighten my hold on Isla, resting my chin atop her head. And as I hold her, something sharp twists in my chest.

I think of my father.

Of all the horrors he uncovered about the Council, all the things he wanted to stop.

How much of this did he know?

And more importantly...

How much worse does it get?

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