Page 83 of Forged Bonds

Nolan was the first to recover, his gaze darting around with expert curiosity. “Where are Shan and Caspian? They should have been with you.”

I fought the urge to crumple again. We didn’t have time for me to fall apart. My remaining three mates needed me, and we needed to figure out how we could get to the other two before they were killed. Tell that to my fucking broken heart or the bond marks throbbing on my neck and breast.

“Kylan got them,” Em said gruffly, beating me to answering.

Stiffening, Nolan looked at me. “She still has Caspian’s mark on her neck. It hasn’t darkened.”

A dark bond mark indicated the mate who had left it was dead.

“They’re alive,” I said with a sniffle.

His eyes widened. “Kylan doesn’t take live prisoners. Not if they’re only useful to lure someone else to him; he believes prisoners make him look weak. He’s adamant he can take what he wants by force without having to make an exchange.”

Fucking stupid Omega emotions.

I broke down again, sobbing into my hands. Nolan let out a soft noise of distress, unclear of what to do with me. I wasn’t sure what to do with me, either. This was far from typical Freya behaviour. Emmett came close again, wrapping me up in him.

“They’re alive right now,” Emmett confirmed. His lips pressed a kiss to the side of my head, although I knew he was talking to the others. “We need to figure out how to get them back before Kylan decides to kill them.”

“First, we need to get the fuck out of this location,” Nolan said. “They’re tracing the portal as we speak. I guarantee it. Freya, darling, take us back to the safe house we used last night.”

He took control easily, proving himself more than capable in the absence of my overbearing desire to have a hand in everything. I nodded, weakness beginning to weigh down my limbs but enough juice left to conjure up a few more portals.

What would we have done without Nolan right now? Shan, gone. Me, broken. Emmett and Oswald weren’t the type to order everyone else around or come up with solutions to pressing problems.

We all clasped hands as we left the warehouse, creating a line of us unwilling to let go of one another. Nolan texted Altair and Sky’s burner phone to tell them the rendezvous point was compromised and to meet at the second one, which was this safe house. He didn’t receive a response. Their team had gone dark, and I was concerned about why. Were they dead? Captured, like Shan and Cas had been? Or had they been working for Kylan all along, playing a part in the abject failure of our attempt to assassinate him?

He called them the second we landed in the living room, the portal closing behind us. I’d done my best to mask where it led since I hadn’t been as rushed, and they wouldn’t figure it out for a while. We had time here.

I spent my first five minutes stripping down out of my dirty clothes, rinsing off in the shower, and throwing myself naked on the bed I’d shared with them. Their scents were all over the sheets, heavy with arousal from when we’d fucked. I rolled myself in them, trying to ease the ache. After a while, Em cleared his throat from the doorway.

He’d put on clothes and rinsed some of the blood from his skin. “Can I join you?” he asked, voice hoarse.

“Of course.”

Emmett had known to use soap to lessen the other scents on him, so as not to mar what we had left of Cas and Shan in this moment. He crawled onto the other side of the bed and I rolled closer, curling against him with a sheet in between us.

We laid there, breathing together. I’d cried out all my tears for the moment, broken down as much as I could, and now I needed to get myself together again… but it was difficult.

I’d spent years keeping myself together all on my own, and I hadn’t realized how much I’d grown to need my mates until I didn’t have them with me any longer.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured after a while.

“Why?” Em asked.

He brought his hand across to rest on my shoulder, and I hummed. Touch was an Omega’s primary love language, and I was discovering I could no longer pretend it wasn’t.

“It’s my fault.”

“No, it’s not.”

I scoffed. “Kylan wants me, so he took them. It’s my fault.”

“It’s Kylan’s fault, not yours. They knew what they were getting into when they met you.”

“They didn’t, though,” I argued. “I hid secrets from them, as many as they hid from me. That I was an Omega, that I was a killer. Neither of them knew.”

Emmett rolled over so he was facing me, the sheet falling to the bed between us. He wrapped his arms around my nude body and held me close to him, pressing his nose to my neck. “It’s impossible to meet you and not know you’re trouble. I knew it when we first met, despite only seeing you for a few seconds. And Shan knew your souls were bound; he knew a soul couldn’t change at its core, so he knew what you were going to be like.”

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