Page 61 of Upon Shattered Bonds

Hurt him to save him. Do it now, before you lose courage.

Setting her shoulders, she inclined her chin to look him in the eye. Undeniably ravenous, Zeke’s gaze was fixated on hers, hunger and desire churning below a calm surface. Behind the expression was a hesitation—the same she felt across their mating bond—which meant he already knew what Nina had called him for.

“I’m glad no one was injured in the attacks.”

“As was I,” was his reply. “I couldn’t recognize the psychic signatures involved in the strike.”

“Understandable, especially when there were several.” She gave him a forgiving look. “The fire came through the mating bond as well.”

He startled. “Did it cause you pain?”

A shy grin broke over her features. “Not at all—it actually had the opposite effect. Kaien said my heart is fully healed.”

Before she knew what’d hit her, the man had gripped her in his arms. Glee and elation rioted through their bond as he twirled her around. Her body, pressed up against his in perfect alignment, flushed with the contact. And even knowing what lay ahead in the conversation, she couldn’t help but sink into the sensation.

Relaxing in his hold, she nestled her nose into his neck, breathing in the seductive aroma … and knew she had to step away.

It took every ounce of her willpower to break out of the loving circle he’d wrapped her in. The joy he’d felt on her disclosure was tempered by the hesitation that bloomed immediately thereafter.

“We can’t do this, Zeke.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Zeke had known the words were coming. Since the moment she’d asked him to talk only an hour earlier, he’d prepared himself for the inevitable. Beneath the softened façade of the woman before him, Nina’s opinion hadn’t changed. Even after everything, she was still going to deny him.

It burned him like acid thrown against bare skin.

Retreating into the tempered stoicism he’d donned so easily over the past centuries, Zeke had but one question. “Why?”

“Because of what I’ve done, Zeke.”

“What you’ve done?”

Fixating on the window instead of him, she wrapped her arms around herself. “When I told you about Luther’s interests in the black market—his being an arms dealer—it wasn’t the entire truth.”

Zeke remained silent.

“Luther was one of the most notorious traders in the market, Zeke, renown for what he brought to the table.” Tear-misted eyes drew up to meet his. “He was an arms dealer, yes, but he also sold Raeth children.”

His mouth dropped open. “No.”

“What happens when an immortal breed is largely incapable of having children?” she asked. “They buy them instead.”

“But taking children from their homes,” Zeke countered, “our society has made it nearly impossible! Our laws, their parents, their sovereigns, none would allow them to simply be stolen away and not use every resource to find them.”

The moment he finished the sentence, he already knew the answer. Nina’s lip quivered, and the guilt that flooded the bond between them betrayed her.

“No parent would ever allow their child to be stolen,” she whispered, “unless a powerful Voice convinced them otherwise.”

Zeke took a stuttering step backward, horrified. Of all the things she could’ve revealed, he’d never imagined this. The Nina he knew, the woman who’d protected her own clan and fledglings for centuries, would’ve never done this purposefully. There had to be a reason.

Floundering, he demanded, “Nina … how? Why?”

“Luther and I had been together for nearly a year before he revealed what I thought was the truth,” she whispered. “He said an isolated clan was abusing their children. That the parents were vicious and that their sovereign knew and did nothing to stop it. I believed him—I had seen the same situation play out before. Sovereigns who turn their clan lands into prisons, enclaves where mistreating the weak becomes a form of entertainment.

“While they were on clanless soil, I used my Voice gift to convince a couple to give me their child. She was eight years old and had platinum blonde hair.” Her voice cracked. “I was told a family was lined up—one that would love and care for her—and so I gave her to Luther.”

Zeke’s face wiped clean of emotion.

---