Page 38 of Magic Hunted
Ashir stepped toward me. I stiffened, knowing if he touched me I’d only give in to him. Give into the bond. A whirlwind built inside me as their soul-lights battered against the barrier and it was then I saw the fissure for what it really was. It wasn’t a crack at all, but a raised and hardened scar around a crack that had never healed. A scar put there by Brais that I hadn’t known was there until they’d unlocked my panther.
I rubbed my chest, as the ache inside me rose. “He held my hand when we lined up in the courtyard. Asked if we could look out for each other. I knew it was stupid. Knew we didn’t stand a chance, but I took it anyway. I should have looked the other way. Should have done something—anything—different to what I did. I was weak. Selfish. And so I agreed.”
“You weren’t selfish. You were scared,” Savvas said and I ignored him.
All I had to do was remember the events of that day to not give in to their understanding. I didn’t need understanding. I needed the darkness to smother me, to stop the pressure keg expanding inside me. Images spun through my mind. Brais smiling at me when he folded his hand around mine. The light in his eyes when he’d looked at me despite knowing we’d both probably die that day. The big question hanging over my head for years—why? Why did he single me out when everyone there was as terrified as I was? Why didn’t he offer his friendship to the child next to me who peed their pants in fear? That boy had been one of the first to be slaughtered.
Now I understood why. Guilt formed a pick-axe inside me and drove it into my gut.
“I didn’t know who he was…I thought he was being nice. Stupid, naïve me. There was no saving either of us. A guard found me and he…put himself in the way. The guard would have killed me and instead he killed Brais.” My stomach churned and bile rose in my throat.
Everything I’d been afraid of. The reason not to find my mates, knowing what would happen. It was all for nothing becauseit had already happened.
Brais haddiedfor me.
Somehow he’d bonded with me in a one-sided connection and I hadn’t evenknown. One of my mates was already sacrificed, like my fathers. My mother. As was expected to keep the grimoire safe. Everything in my life destroyed because of the grimoire.
There wasn’t enough air. It was all sucked out of the room. I scratched my chest, clawed my stomach, wanting the damn thing out of me. My nails dug into my skin, lacerating into a place that could never be reached. Not physically. Because if it was, I would have cut myself open years ago.
“Haera, stop!” Dias crushed me against his chest and Savvas gripped my wrists, holding me immobile.
I struggled but couldn’t fight off their strength or sheer body mass. “Let me go. I want it out of me. Brais would still be alive. But he’s not. He’d dead and it’s all my fault.”
“What do you want out of you?” Ashir said.
I stared at him as though he was missing a big part of his brain. “The grimoire. Brais died because of the grimoire. Because it latched onto him and made him bond with me and now he’s dead.”
One emotion defined me now and that was horror. Horror and repulsion of who I was and what I was doing to these shifters.
Ashir grabbed my wrists and pulled them away from the damp mess of my dress. “Stop!”
“I’m not going to stop! The damage has already been done.” My mind spun with images seared into my skull. I gagged at the last time I’d seen Brais, running into the smoke stained air toward the guard. “The guard came behind me. Brais shoved me out of the way. I would have died if not for him. Ishouldhave died!”
Dias wrapped his arms around my waist and sank to the floor with me in his lap. “It’s not your fault.”
I pushed away from Dias, or I would have if Ashir let go of my wrists and Dias’ arms weren’t banded like steel around my waist. “Why aren’t you listening? Why can’t you see? If he hadn’t bonded with me he wouldn’t have been forced to save me. The bond took his choice away from him!” I screeched so loud I was sure they heard me over the other side of the village.
“If anyone should be guilty, it’s me, magic. He was at the Choosing because he protected me. We’d run too far away that day and been caught on a back road by Titan’s soldiers. Brais pushed me down a ravine as they rounded a corner. I fell down, cracked my head on a rock and when I came to it was nighttime and they were long gone. I never saw him again.” Dias’ glass-green eyes were flinty and wild. “Now I know what became of him. In those last moments he experienced the greatest happiness because he’d found you. Our mate.”
“Why don’t you see it?” I sobbed. I couldn’t stop it. Everything inside me was hot and tight and the pressure was too great. I was nothing but a mess inside. A black charred oily tangle. I was weak when I took Brais’ hand and I was weak now. I had to show them. I’d killed Brais but I wouldn’t kill them too.
“We see the real you, my heart. We see everything about you.” Savvas stroked his hand down my back and I moved forward so I didn’t have to feel it. I panted, my chest heaving and the black mass grew and grew and grew until the stench of it seared my nostrils.
“You only feel that way because of the bond. It’s twisting everything up and making you feel what you shouldn’t feel. If you don’t listen to me, you’re going to end up like Brais. You’re going to throw your lives away fornothing.”
Ashir pinched my chin and forced me to look into eyes that were burning with fire. “You are not nothing, Haera. We’re not Titan. Or magic. We’re not fucking Fae either. We’re ruled by our animals and they’re never wrong. Our connection is more than mere magic. A bond isfate, Haera. A gift from the universe. There is no greater truth. You’re our mate and we’re yours. Ours, my mate. You areours.” The snarl that chased his words made my panther growl alongside Ashir, as though she fucking thought every word he said was true.
Well, I’d show them. And my panther. I’d show them all that I wasn’t what they wanted. I would show them beyond all doubt. She wasn’t there for Brais. She wasn’t there when I’d committed atrocities like the little lap dog I was to Titan.
I’d show them the rank ball of oily nothingness inside me and they’dthank mefor saving them. I’d show them exactly who I was. I wrenched my soul strand and smashed the end against the fissure in our bond.
Chapter Twenty
The scent of fresh earth melded with whiskey and citrus. Ashir groaned. Dias sucked his plump bottom lip between his teeth. Savvas bit his lip, his hands shaking as though barely holding on.
“Gods, that feels like her hand stroked my cock,” Savvas said.
“Not just your cock, brother,” Dias rasped, his green eyes lightening into glass chips as his swelling cock nudged my hip. A brush of yellow light and Dias’ arousal had my breath stuttering.
