Page 167 of Blood and Ruin: The Complete Series

“She thought it was a dream, right?” Luka says, looking at us. “That’s what she said…Dream.”

“So, she was able to jump into our link, but thought that she was just dreaming?” Axel asks, still confused as hell about the whole thing.

“Why now?”

We all turn to Luka. Axel is looking at him like he’s got a third head. “What are you talking about? How can you not be happy to see your mate?”

Luka sighs. “Of course I am. I’m just wondering why it’s taken this long for her to reach out to us. We’ve been feeling the bond for a while, up until recently.”

“Yeah, so? What’s your point?” Axel crosses his arms, frowning at him.

“My point is, why now? We’ve been pulling on the connection for days, feeling nothing from her. What’s happened to her that’s pushed her to us now?”

He thinks something bad has happened. That Kiarra must have been in trouble to reach out to us.

Draven better know something.

We were fractured when she was taken the first time, only becoming whole once we found her again. We know she can heal from anything, but there’s always the little doubt in the back of my mind telling me this time might be it. If anything happens to her, none of us will survive it.

“Well, whatever just happened can only mean something good… right? I mean, she might try it again,” Jax says with a hopeful gleam in his eyes.

“Or she might not.” We all turn to look at Rion.

“Way to put a downer on the only breakthrough we’ve had.” Jax narrows his eyes on him.

“She thinks we’re dead. It was the last thing she saw. Us dying right before her eyes. To her, this probably was all just a dream,” Rion says, giving Jax a pointed look.

I rub my chest, the tight feeling turning suffocating the more I think over Rion’s words.

He’s right. I release a harsh breath, shaking my head.

“That’s why she hasn’t been trying to reach out to us using the connection. She thinks we’re dead,” I tell them.

Why didn’t I think of this before? I just assumed she’d feel the bond and know we were out there looking for her.

Instead, she’s been mourning our deaths all while trapped with King.

“Fuck.” Axel spins, slamming his fist onto the marble table behind him. It shatters in half before mending itself back together.

“This is going to make things a lot harder,” I tell them.

“A shitload harder.” Axel sighs, shakes his head.

“But she still might try to reach us again.” Jax looks at me with a hopeful glint in his eyes, waiting for a reply.

I couldn’t tell them this was going to be easy or that it was all going to work out the way we wanted. But I wouldn’t let them lose hope either. I had to make sure that if it went our way, someone would be here for her.

“We have to be open to the possibility that she may try. Even if she thinks it’s a dream, she might still try to reach out again.”

I look at Rion. “Keep the link open. We’ll check in regularly, just in case.” Rion nods.

I turn to the others. “We’ll let you know if Draven has anything. If not, we’ll see if we can use this to our advantage.”

We leave the link with a little more hope than we had before.

* * *

Axel and Rionwalk on each side of me as we make our way along the hall to the room where Draven is having his so-called meetings. The excuse we’ve been given since we arrived a few hours ago.

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