Page 72 of Upon Shattered Bonds

Lightning grounded from the sky, the powerful boom of electricity fully engulfing the sovereign who’d eviscerated Zeke. He was dead within milliseconds.

The bolt of lightning arched into Zeke’s compromised torso, instantly cauterizing the hemorrhaging wound.

Travelling through the blinding blaze of electricity, Nina rematerialized over Zeke, protectively standing over his fallen form.

All three events occurred within the span of less than a single heartbeat, the order of them indecipherable in the minutia that followed.

The three sovereigns that were left charged her—intent of taking her life following Zeke’s fatal wound. Enraged, Nina’s crimson-colored eyes blazed with fury. Driven by the all-consuming need to protect her mate, the voracious lick of her Reaper abilities exploded out of her.

Finding purchase in the minds of the sovereigns around her, it instantly downed them all, save Demetrios. Sneering, he bared his teeth.

“You’re too weak to blast past my psychic shielding, Nina.” A macabre smile, his white teeth slick with crimson. “I made sure of that.”

The loathsome sovereign moved to strike Nina, a merjha blade in his hands, taken from where Zeke had thrown it into the heart of his companion.

She had one last resort.

The gift of Voice was overpowering and instantly enthralling. No one could resist.

When Nina commanded Demetrios to turn the blade on himself, there was no hesitation. He plunged the blade into his heart, his eyes glassy and unseeing, a moment before his knees buckled. The man who’d thought to seek his revenge through such atrocious means was dead.

Once more, the brand on her forearm burned, her flesh sizzling audibly. As the brand evaporated, she screamed: “Kaien! Hemin!”

The healers were already on their way. The two men arrived at her side in seconds, instantly forcing their potent healing power into Zeke’s unconscious body.

Body quivering in exhaustion, Nina’s knees bit into the earth beside Zeke, jarring her weakening frame. She took no notice. Vision swimming, Nina clutched at his too-still body, the fading lifeforce at the end of their unfinalized mating bond dissolving.

Nina couldn’t allow him to die. Closing her eyes, she reached for him through their ghosting mating bond, opening herself to him unquestionably.

Zeke was hers—her mate.

Nothing was going to stop her from claiming him.

As soon as her determination took root in her soul, their mating bond ignited in a brilliant explosion of connection. What was once colorless became infused with vibrant color. What was bland and unremarkable became revitalized.

The world shifted around her, reformulating to focus on the man she clutched in her bloodied arms. Everything that had been important in her world shifted.

Around them, their lieutenants felt the impact on a physical level. A visual jolt shivered through them, their minds shouldering the burden of the psychic surge while Zeke and Nina were still compromised.

Their mating bond swam outward on a psychic level, washing through their clans’ networks like a tsunami following an underwater earthquake. But unlike the chaos and clutter that was rife in that aftermath, it encircled each of their clansmen with a swell of peace.

Now connected by their sovereigns, the massive shift in the mental landscape had tied the Danada and the Blaede clans together. None of them, however, had time to inspect the immense change in the psychic web that bound them together.

Nina’s mind was locked on Zeke’s: drawing him back from the brink, shoving her own waning energy into him on both a physical and psychic level.

Time was ticking down to when Nina would succumb to her own recoil. Having expelled a massive amount of energy and utilized her abilities in an unprecedented way, no one knew how it’d affect her. The red in her eyes alone indicated the depth of the psychic draught that’d taken hold.

Then, lifting her gaze from Zeke’s passive features to study Kaien, she whispered, “Heal him. Please save his life.”

For a moment, time stopped as she conveyed the depth of her despair to the man who was her twin. Her body shuddering with the impending recoil, all she could do was watch as Kaien nodded, determination ripe across his features.

Surrounded by lieutenants of both clans, Nina’s mind blanked as the agony of the recoil crawled up her spine and tore into her mind.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Eight days. One hundred and ninety-two hours. Eleven thousand minutes.

Neither Nina nor Zeke had woken. The pair remained comatose, in deep recoil, at Nina’s estate in Lexington. Eerie calm punctuated periods of anxiety with each of their lieutenants, the host of their most trusted guarding them with their lives.

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