Page 116 of Burdened Bonds
Beside me, Stone flinches ever so slightly and alarm flares through our bond. I don’t flinch at all. In fact, I don’t move one little bit. Instead, I stare at the man now terrorizing our country. A man, I suspect, remembering all those healed injuries deep inside Tristan Kennedy’s body, has spent a lifetime terrorizing his son. A man, who I’ve no doubt plans to terrorize me too.
Yeah, well, he wouldn’t be the first. I doubt he’ll be the last. And I’m no longer so easily afraid of assholes like him.
The new Lord Protector frowns, an expression that suits his face far better than the smile, and diverts his attention back to Stone.
“Come, Professor, tell me everything. I’m sure this will make a pretty tale indeed. How did it come that you areworking with a known criminal and not at your post in the academy? And how did you catch the girl, Professor? She’s been a very tricky one to trace. I’ve had men out searching for her all over the republic. It seemed the girl had simply vanished into thin air the night of the Victory ball, the night our great republic was so savagely attacked.”
Stone opens his mouth to speak. He has his answers, well rehearsed on the journey here. I’m sure he can make Christopher Kennedy believe him – Stone could make anyone believe anything if he truly wanted to.
But before he’s emitted one word from his mouth, Christopher Kennedy swoops his hand through the air and the two men beside me fall to their knees, their arms snapping behind them and iron gloves clamping over their hands. I go to fling my own arms forward, to fire my magic, hot and angry at the man smirking in front of me, but cold metal curls around my hands as well, encasing them completely.
“What the fuck!” Stone cries, as he struggles to free his arms and Renzo flails around on the floor, kicking out at the men around him, spitting at them and cursing.
My magic sparks against the metal confines but no matter how hard I try, I can’t blast through them.
Christopher Kennedy shakes his head.
“Did you really think I was so stupid, Phoenix Stone? Did you really think I didn’t know?” He takes a step forward. “But it seems you and my nephew were far more stupid thanIexpected. Delivering her straight into my hands. How can I ever thank you enough?”
“If you hurt one hair on–”
“Take them away,” Christopher Kennedy says, flicking his wrist as if Stone and Renzo are nothing more than annoying insects.
Several guards pull my mates to their feet, Stone shakes them off and stands himself, but Renzo refuses, kicking and scrapping, biting and snarling so that the men are forced to drag him along the floor.
I yank harder on the cuffs encasing my hands, blast more of my magic against the confines. It’s useless, utterly useless. Whatever this damn contraption is, it’s stopping me from using my magic.
“We can come to an arrangement,” Stone says desperately, trying to regain the Lord Protector’s attention. “We can help you. We can … we can give you information. I can read minds. I can help you interrogate your enemies.” Stone’s words become more desperate and more frantic as the guards walk him towards the door behind which I know Spencer lies. “Rhi!” he shouts, as the door opens, “Rhi!” He struggles against the hold the men have on him. It’s no use. He’s outnumbered, they both are, and soon they’re pushed through the doorway, the heavy door slamming shut, separating me from my mates.
And then it’s just me and Christopher Kennedy.
“So many mates,” he says, “all belonging to one scrap of a girl from the wastelands. It’s extremely curious.” I flinch. He can’t know about my mates, can he? We’ve been careful. “Four mates,” he adds.
I stare at his cruel face. Four. He only knows about four.
“At least, that’s what they believe, anyway, isn’t it, Rhianna Blackwaters? We both know that isn’t true. We both know you’ve used magic to seduce these foolish men, to trick them into believing you’re something special to them. Clever, really. But not clever enough to fool me. There’s no way fate would choose an unregistered girl from the wasteland for my son, to bear my heirs. No way at all.”
Bear his heirs? Is he fucking serious? Vomit burns mythroat. Of course, that’s what an asshole like him would see when he looks at a girl like me. Not a person with hopes and desires, not a magical with powers that could match his own. Just a means to an end.
He steps forward, lowering his voice so only I can hear. “There are even whispers that you are the girl predicted, but we both know that can’t be so. Not you.”
Girl predicted? I remember what the chancellor told me that day in the office – the day he’d threatened to melt my face off. My mom had foreseen a girl with powers even greater than hers.
“Fetch my son,” he snaps to the guards, and then lowering his voice, adds, “he’s no longer under your spell, Rhianna Blackwaters, I’ve freed him from it.”
I don’t know what the hell he means, what the hell he’s talking about. All I care about is getting as far away from here as I can. I tug again on the cuffs. There must be a way to free myself; to free myself, blast this evil bastard away and rescue my mates. I swing my gaze desperately from side to side, searching for a way out, something that could help me.
And then all my thoughts trail away because Tristan Kennedy steps into the entrance hall.
The world stops spinning on its axis. Time itself halts. My heart thumps. My bond spins.
I gasp.
I can’t hold back anything anymore, anything at all, because he’s there in front of me, alive, and the last time I saw him … the last time I saw him he was slipping away. I thought he’d gone forever and the pain was unbearable, agonizing, excruciating, and now he’s here, right in front of me, color in his cheeks and breath in his lungs and my bond purring, my magic sparking in every one of my cells, my body keening towards him.
I see him first, before he spies me and it takes him a moment, his green eyes sweeping around the entrance hall and all the people in it and then landing on me.
On me.
