Page 2 of Upon Shattered Bonds

Nina looked away. “I sent Remmus to check their trail. Make sure we don’t have any casualties along the way.”

Nodding, Kaien crouched to check one of the wolves. “Aidan will want to bury them.”

It only made sense. Aidan, their adopted brother, was the original werewolf and the founder of their breed—and the alpha every pack and den answered to. He’d want to know what happened here and clean up what could potentially be a messy situation.

Rabid werewolves had recently been on the rise, ever since the Citizens of the Light had made it their goal to eliminate any supernatural breed. Vampires, werewolves, and Raeths were all targeted by merit of their biology and immortality alone, subject to extermination whenever the terrorist group managed to gain the upper hand. Elementals were the only immortal race that was excluded from the Citizens’ hatred. With recent developments, however, even that could be called into question.

Their attacks had ranged from individual ambushes to mass strikes against vampire Houses. In the last year alone, the immortal community had sustained an unprecedented loss of life.

Fortunately, the Citizens had been quiet since their last incursion onto vampire soil. On that occasion, they’d lost dozens of people when Nina and Isaiah had been forced to act against them without mercy. What started as a large-scale mercenary operation on vampire soil had ended with a complete decimation of the Citizens’ mercenaries. Nina held no angst about how it’d turned out.

Kaien sighed, recapturing Nina’s attention. “Were you injured?”

“And the healer comes out,” she chuckled. “No, I’m fine. Flawless victory.”

Her twin proceeded to start dragging the bodies in a heap. Together, they made quick work of it as Nina sent a telepathic ping to Aidan. When he had a free moment, he’d respond—but it was also the middle of the night, and his mate wasn’t nocturnal.

Nina refocused on Kaien. “Do you feel ready for your wedding?”

“About as ready as I was for a mate.”

“I don’t think anybody is truly ready for a mate. Or any significant other that surprises you and takes your life by storm.”

A rare smile softened Kaien’s face. “My mate is the storm.”

Blair, the oldest of Nina’s fledglings, had lived more than eight centuries. Wild-eyed and with a fiery nature, the woman had a wicked sense of humor and enough sarcasm to sear the skin off anyone within hearing distance. Typically dressed in borrowed clothes and various pieces of jewelry she picked up from her world travels, her twin’s bride had never been shy about expressing her wants or desires. Except when it had come to Kaien.

It’d taken centuries for the clueless duo to accept the fact they were fated mates—and only after they’d been locked together in an isolated cabin for several days. When Nina had teleported to them in the aftermath, she’d found them making out like two frisky teenagers.

Grinning at the memory, Nina glanced back at her twin and saw that Kaien’s eyes had become shadowed in the few moments that’d elapsed.

“What’s wrong?”

“What happened with Luther—”

She instantly cut him off. “I don’t want to talk about it, Kaien.”

“You can’t hide from it forever.”

A flare of agitation feathered in her jaw. “I’m not hiding.”

“No?” he challenged. “Then what were you doing in the last hundred years, Nina?”

Staring him down, she realized she didn’t have an answer. Instead, she redirected their conversation.

“We need to ask Aidan where he wants these bodies.”

Disappointment jaded Kaien’s features. “You’ve barely unpacked, Nina. You’re all alone in that big house, and I can feel how unhappy you are. Do something about it.”

“What exactly did you have in mind, Kaien?” Agitation grew into something else inside her. “Shall I take up knitting? Painting? Should I make a sourdough starter, give it a name, and then start my own bakery?”

“Anything would be better than locking yourself away.”

Nina remained quiet under the guise of arranging the werewolves’ bodies in a cleaner row, losing herself to the task. An owl hooted somewhere in the distance, and she hated the fact that it highlighted just how strained things were between them.

And then Kaien spoke. “Reach out to Zeke.”

“Zeke?” Straightening, she scoffed. “You know what happened between us.”

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