Page 15 of Breeding Season
The sea of women parted as I entered. I knew where she was. The psychic cord, now severed and screaming, dragged me forward, the gaping hole in my chest pointed straight to her. She disappeared beneath the waters, the K’onn wrestled at the edge, over a knife. I shoved them out of the way as I dived in. Warmth surrounded me as I cut through the waters. Mát hit the bottom just as I reached her. I wrapped an arm around her, pulling her in before I drove us toward the surface.
When I pulled us from the waters, I moved her into my lap. She was slack, pale, and drenched against my chest. Blood seeped from her nose. I pressed my muzzle against her cheek, but she didn’t move. I lapped at her neck—nothing.
She wasn’t breathing deeply enough. I slapped her cheek to rouse her, but she didn’t move. A sharp scream tore through the silence, and I found one of the guards pinning one of the K’onn against the wall. The female was struggling; she was laughing—a thin, brittle sound of ecstatic victory. It sent a bolt of fear through me.
“She committed the forbidden,” the bull reported, his voice tight as I turned to focus on my Mát.
Breaking a bond was illegal. Máts were revered. To find your mate was a blessing, it was the stars aligning, it was the heavens smiling upon you.
I didn’t waste my breath asking how. In the guard’s grasp was a stone humming with dark energy—witchcraft. This was calculated. Not just a jealous concubine, but a trained saboteur, a witch, who had planned this. I ripped my gaze from the laughing K’onn and focused on what mattered.
I wouldn’t lose her.
I pressed my lips against hers and forced air into her lungs, repeating the process until her chest finally hitched and a ragged, shallow breath entered her body.
She still wouldn’t open her eyes, but she was breathing. She lived. A weight lifted from my shoulders. In this moment, it wasn’t the future of the Herd that worried me, it wasn’t my lineage… it was her. Everything had almost ended before it even began.
You aren’t allowed to die.
I lifted my chin, my focus on the bitch. This was the second person who dared. Her existence was a vile offense. She was the second creature to test me today, and as much as I wanted to rip her existence apart with my bare hands, she wasn’t the priority. Not right now. I carefully picked up my little Mát. Droplets of water fell from her limp form as I walked past the guard, past the scattering concubines. I stopped directly in front of the K’onn. The laughter died in her throat.
“She’s a threat to the Herd. Lock her up. No food, no water, no visitors,” I stated, my voice low and flat.
“Yes, Taur,” the Herder said.
The bond was still screaming, a high-pitched whine only I could hear. It was damaged, and I needed to repair it.Fast.
“I wanted her. You got in the way, Taur. I know what the Herd doesn’t. You need two working hearts, not just one. Shewas mine back in Florida, and she’s mine here. She always will be,” she hissed.
I changed my mind. My massive clawed fist wrapped around her thin neck. With one movement, I felt the snap of her windpipe beneath my grip. There was no rage, no satisfaction, just duty. She had attacked my Mát. She had attackedme.
I tossed her body aside. The limp thud and a gasped cry from the other K’onn.
“And the other K’onn?” the Herder asked.
“Confine and watch her closely,” I growled. I carried her out, holding her close to my chest, ignoring the Herd’s women. She was too cold, and the unwelcome panic multiplied. I ignored the deep instinct to rut her, to fill her up and drown out the whining distress signal in my head. The link itself had been attacked and in doing so I now needed to rely on the human inside the bond.
I wiped the dark blood from her face and neck with the side of my hand, then laid her gently on the furs. The crescent mark looked bruised, but intact. The link wasn’t broken. It had been bent.
I let out a breath of relief as her eyes fluttered open, glazed and confused.
“Are you going to talk to me now? I deserve answers,” she rasped.
“Yes,” I agreed.
“Jania?” she asked.
“Gone,” I murmured as I sat back on my haunches. The first pang of defeat filled me. This was the first time in my existence that I’d felt it. Instead of an attack, she just stared up at me.
“She said things that didn’t make sense. She knew me and she’d been tracking the Minotaurs,” she whispered, her voice barely audible. “She… wanted me.”
“She was a fool. She thought the bond was something that could be altered. It is not.”
“But she did something. You felt it, didn’t you?” Her voice was stronger now, a challenge. Her question poked at the high walls I maintained, but she was right.
“I did. Didn’t you?”
She refused to meet my eye.
