Page 15 of Upon Shattered Bonds

He dwelled on the word, stained with bitter regret over his actions the night before. If he had had any boldness at all, he’d have tried harder to convince Nina of the strength of his feelings for her. Whenever she denied their bond, he was thrown into a purgatory of feeling vulnerable and tongue-tied. As usual, he’d abandoned her and tucked tail, retreating to his own clan lands to lick his wounds.

Nestled in the wilds of the Canadian landscape, few mortals ever happened along the sprawling Osiris domain that Zeke called home. The rugged Ontario backcountry was lined with treacherous roads and miles of wilderness that surrounded the Raeth’s keep. It was a sanctuary for all those he, as sovereign, allowed in.

Except this time around, there was no peace to be found. He’d felt the wrongness as soon as he teleported in his territory.

In his absence, at the periphery of his lands, an eerily quiet gap had spread amongst the spruces. The space, no larger than ten foot long and ten foot wide, existed as a void to his psychic senses. It was a transparent stretch of nothingness: the absolute absence of sound and life. While animal minds registered as a bare blip on his psychic radar, they were there. In that arid pocket, nothing spoke, nothing moved, and nothing existed.

He’d searched every square inch of the space and could find no plausible reason for its existence. His working assumption was that it could be a ley line, firing up due to the upcoming equinox. Occasionally, astral events in autumn and spring tripped the psychic footprints leftover from clan battles or impactful energy use. He could think of no other logical explanation.

Zeke had sent a telepathic message to each of his lieutenants to have them inspect it on their daily perimeter runs. Instead of remaining there, staring at a patch of land where nothing could hide, he’d admitted defeat and teleported back to his garage.

As was his habit, Zeke had taken to restoring his old 1966 Lamborghini Miura SV. Getting his hands dirty refurbishing the antiquated automobile was a relaxing comfort in times like these, but even that hadn’t completely settled his restless spirit. His psychic energy speared once more through his territory, shoring up his psychic defenses and solidifying his mental bonds with his charges. Regardless of how many times he checked, the pocket of questionable activity remained stable.

He expertly guided the sandpaper along the wheel well, where the rust had eaten away at the metal carriage. Functioning on autopilot, Zeke’s thoughts returned once more to his personal hell.

Hearing Nina sing the night before had changed him on a fundamental level. He would no longer be content to keep her at arm’s length. The powerful feelings of desire he’d held for her since the moment they’d met eleven centuries ago wouldn’t be denied any longer, and yet he’d once again behaved like a cursed fool.

Coward.

Finally having her in the safety of his arms after so long, his soul had longed for hers with a need so sharp it hurt. After last night, there would be no way back to the cold interactions between them. They both deserved more, and he needed to make it happen.

With a decision made, he refocused on the rust that’d flaked off beneath his hands. Courtesy of his inattentive musings, he’d scoured a hole through what little remained of the healthy metal.

“Who peed in your cornflakes, cousin?”

Tzuriel’s teasing greeting didn’t surprise him, but it snapped him out of his self-imposed solitude. Passing a hand through his hair, Zeke rose to his feet and discarded the sandpaper.

“Figured I’d work on the Miura before I’m roped into whatever grand scheme you’ve planned next.” Brushing rust off his well-worn jeans, Zeke leaned against the car. “What’ll it be this time? Scale the Eiffel tower? Steal all of Toronto’s left shoes? Seek revenge over the Library of Alexandria burning?”

Tzuriel smirked. “While I’d be happy to steal someone’s well-loved slippers, I confess I was simply coming to check that you’d returned in one piece.”

Zeke feigned being flattered. “Fortunately, all my limbs have returned with me.”

“A worthy triumph.” His second leaned against the car’s frame opposite Zeke. “How was it?”

He shrugged. “To no one’s surprise, I’ve made a move, and it only reinforced the fact that Nina has long since declared our courtship dead.”

“Declaring something dead doesn’t necessarily make it true, Zeke.”

“I haven’t abandoned hope, cousin.”

Tzuriel brightened. “You’ll have to tell me everything! But first, about those left shoes …”

A good-natured laugh escaped him in the same fraction of a second that all his protective instincts flooded his mind. His heart rate kicked frantically in response to an unseen threat. A knifing pain lacerated deep in his chest.

The ghost mating bond that linked him to Nina severed with excruciating finality.

Dread burned through every inch of his being as he teleported to her fading lifeforce. Solidifying, his mind couldn’t comprehend what his eyes were telling him.

Before him, Nina lay completely unmoving, the growing pool of blood ringing her in a macabre halo. Forcing himself into action, he dropped to his knees beside her. In a gesture that he feared worthless, he funneled his overwhelming power into her, attempting to keep her lifeforce tethered to this plane of existence.

“Nina!”

His voice, broken, called for her. She showed no reaction. Fingers going to her neck to check for a pulse, he confirmed what he’d already instinctively known.

Nina was dead.

Mind whirling with thoughts of how to resuscitate her, Zeke barely registered the arrival of her twin until Kaien’s expressionless features locked to his sister’s lifeless body. After Nina’s sudden attack, the radical change in her clan’s psychic energy would have most likely paralyzed the majority of her people. It’d been a miracle that her brother had been able to teleport to her.

---