Page 4 of The World Undone

The council, though I had no idea how we’d get access to it now.

I’d found it while spying on Atlas’s bonding ceremony with Reza, but there was no way the council was just keeping it at Headquarters. Now that I had a scent for it—a spidey sense of sorts—I would have been drawn to it if they were.

Six, Darius, Ro, and I had finally agreed last night that the next step was to have a conversation with some of the elders here now that things with the new arrivals were leveling out a bit, to eke out as much information as we could about The Guild council. It was something none of us knew very much about.

That was by design, of course. Protectors were very secretive about their governing body and what it did—most went their entire lives knowing next to nothing about the group of people that ruled them beyond the location-specific teams that trickled down orders.

Until a few months ago, I thought Seamus, Cyrus, and Alleva were as high up as things went.

Fuck was I wrong.

“Your powers have grown considerably since I last saw you,” she continued, her gaze dipping to my neck, where the dark, iridescent, abstract patterns were etched into my skin, creeping along the collar of my shirt.

My cheeks heated at the knowing look on her face. Having all of Six here, together, finally giving in to the intimacy and vulnerability of being bonded, had transformed things considerably.

We’d been so stubborn, resisting it. Deep in the night, when I was trying to fend off nightmares, guilt still clutched at my chest. We’d given up so much time together trying to fight off the inevitable. And now, after everything, I’d only get to have them for a short while.

It was profoundly cruel.

I wasn’t sure which was worse—soaking up every stray second I had of them, deepening our connections, just to break their hearts at the end, or pulling away now to lessen the blow.

I scratched absently over the lines of shadow magic. When I focused on the mark, I could almost feel it pulse, the magic there both familiar and not. Strong. Powerful.

All five of the others had the mark now too—none of us knew the limits of our bond, or what this kind of power meant.

It honestly terrified the shit out of me.

True bond marks, woven naturally with shadow magic, hadn’t existed in centuries as far as any of us knew. And they were typically only associated with incubi and succubi. Darius had never heard of vampires bearing the mark at all—let alone protectors.

But here we were. Ours had simply flared to life, growing darker and more mysterious by the day—their presence impossible to ignore.

Izzy exhaled. “But how do we find this nexus point?”

That was the million-dollar question.

From what Lucifer had guessed, the nexus was at the juncture of the two realms—probably where the power of the shadow realm was first manifested or where it was anchored now.

By my ancestors apparently.

Which meant our best bet was learning more about my mother’s family, tracing it back as far as we could. With any luck, that family tree might lead us to an answer. Or, at the very least, a path towards finding an answer.

“Saif Azar.” The name felt strange on my lips, and a stabbing grief pierced my chest at the memory of when I first heard it. “My mother’s twin. According to Cyrus. Though I don’t have much more to go on beyond that. I’m hoping that he might have an idea of where the nexus is, or that he’ll be able to at least point us to someone that does.”

Izzy stretched her arms high, joints cracking loudly as she let out a humorless sigh. “Well, we never really have much to go on, do we? Lots of guess work, lots of twists and turns. But we’ll get there. One step at a time, that's all we can do. The alternative is, well—” she shrugged, letting the depressing thought dissolve between us.

I didn’t miss the way she repeatedly used the word we. The demand in her phrasing was just as clear as the one lingering in the dark threads of her eyes.

Whatever the next steps were, she would be at my side.

She was done being left in the dark, separated by circumstance and necessity.

And honestly, I was done leaving her in the dark.

I could feel some of the tension slipping from my shoulders. For the first time, I had everyone I needed here—Izzy, Ro, Darius, Six. While worry never went away—how could it in a war like this—it seemed lighter to carry, easier to calm, when I had them all with me.

But things were hectic. This was the first time since our arrival that Izzy and I had time alone to talk.

Everyone had been exhausted, building new housing and protections for everyone we’d brought in from Headquarters. Not to mention that Charlie, Bishop, and the others in charge here had developed a pretty rigorous policy on keeping the new recruits separated until they could vet everyone and make sure that we hadn’t accidentally brought anyone unsympathetic to the cause, Trojan Horse style, into this close-knit community they’d created.

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