Page 35 of Starlight Mates

No one else is dying because of me. I start hauling myself out of the gap and manage to grab onto a ledge to finally get above the ruin of the house. I look up at what is left of half the house. Some of the top bedrooms and the corridor are still intact, but the rest of it is shattered to pieces. That isn’t the horror that chills my blood. It’s the fight. Vian are everywhere and they are taking out drunk, young and defenceless Nexus like it’s a sport.

One is near me, draining two injured girls at once, his hands around their throat as they fight him, but they can’t move much. There are dead bodies everywhere, some that clearly didn’t die from the explosion alone; I’m thinking they’re too pale, too drained.

“Shit,” I whisper. I open my hand and call for my Nex weapon, knowing that if I’m going to be found out, it’ll be trying to save someone. My Nex dagger flies out of the air like Thor’s freaking hammer, finding its way to me anywhere. I think of Harry laughing, of Harry’s innocence and kindness, as I rush to the Vian. My injuries slow me down, and I’m pretty sure my shoulder’s dislocated, but pain is something I’m very used to fighting through. The Vian turns to me, his hand going straight for my arm, and I let him grab me.

Shock floods his face as he drops the second girl and tries grabbing me with his other hand. “Bad fucking luck.” I slam mydagger straight into his neck, and blood sprays all over me as he drowns in it. “Whoever sent you shouldn’t have.”

The two Nexus girls are passed out on the floor as I move to the next Vian in my path. Two of them are together, stepping over a guy they just drained. He is playing with the air around him. “Nice new gift. Hey, isn’t that the one we’re looking for?”

They both turn to me. “Use the new gift to knock her out.”

I rush them before he can take the air from my lungs. I’m too quick, too swift for him to even raise his arms to stop me. My mother’s power, speed, kicks into my blood, and I move before he can even see me. Every bit of my training my father and mother gave me kicks in even after months of pretending to be useless at the academy. With joy, I jump onto the Vian, and I slam my dagger into his chest and rip it out. I grab the one next to me before he can use any of his powers, and let my Nexus have free rein with just my hand. She kills him in an instant from one touch, his body dropping straight to the floor.

Who is next? I lose track of how many of them I kill, one after the other, until there is silence on this side of the house at least. I sense Alek and lift my head. He comes around the side of the broken house and sees me. He is far away, but we stare at each other like there isn’t a battlefield full of bodies between us. I can see his relief, his possessive hazel eyes latched onto me, right before he shifts and ten Vian jump on him.

A scream echoes from my throat as I run to save him, but his huge black bear shakes the Vian off him like they are nothing more than rats. He’s a bear, like Finn, but his bear is gigantic. He is at least twice the size of my wolf, which is saying something, and there’s some kind of electricity bouncing off him that kills all the Vian the second it touches them.

It shoots off his body like arrows straight into any Vian nearby. His magic’s exploding in a deadly wave when he shifts. Freaking hell. He looks like a monster in his bear form, and hekills like one, too. I wonder who the hell did that to him. He starts running right towards me, and I’m relieved. I know we don’t always get along, but our souls are bonded.

I need to know he is safe as much as I can see. He wants to save me too. I reach for him just as someone steps up behind me and, before I can turn, a sharp pricking sensation like a needle slams straight into my neck. The last thing I hear is Alek’s roar before I pass out.

Chapter

Sixteen

Iwake up groggy, feeling a nasty medicine taste in my mouth. The world is completely spinning as I try to wiggle my arms and realise that I’m tied to a chair. Thick, glowing blue chains are wrapped around me a dozen times from my feet to chest, pressing on my injuries. These magical chains are familiar and designed to hold me in place and drain my magic all at the same time. Great.

My Nexus is still a little drugged up, but she’s coming to, and she will easily get me out of these. They used to be strong enough to hold her, but not anymore. We outgrew them a few years ago, thanks to training with the chains over and over. Whoever it is that’s taken me is going to regret it.

Only when my eyes focus do I see a man standing a few feet away. I look round and realise I’m in a packed warehouse. There must be at least two hundred, if not more, Vian circled around the edges of the warehouse, watching me. The warehouse is old, half the top of the building missing, and nature has tried to take it back. The tiles on the ground have moss and ivy growing through them, and a whole ass tree has sent branches through the top level to fill it with green leaves. “If you think you only need this many to stop me from killing you, you seriouslyunderestimated me. You just got my friend killed, and I’m not leaving here with a single one of you still breathing.”

His laugh freezes my blood, makes everything in me run cold. I know him. I ran from him for months. There is no one in this world that scares me like he does, and he is one of the few people in the world who truly have any power over me. “That’s not how you speak to your mate, is it?”

Severi lowers his hood, and sickness rises in my chest. Mate. He is a Vian, and he is bound to my soul. I met him when I was seventeen, apparently when Vian have a similar ceremony to find their own mates, and he sensed me out in the world thanks to his tracking powers. Severi came to get me, and we had to run from him more than we ever did the Nexus of Starlight and people looking for us from there. The Gods bound me to him, gave me a Vian as a mate, and he’s an absolute psychopath. The only reason he couldn’t find me in Spain was because my Nexus spent every second blocking out the bond and making sure he couldn’t. She couldn’t do that in Starlight because I didn’t let her out.

He has long black hair that he keeps tied at the back of his head, and he is tanned in the way only someone who lives anywhere else in Europe other than here is. He was born in America, though, carrying that accent with him. He’s different now than I remember. He’s also not a teenager anymore. He’s older, the same age as me, I think, or at least close. Now he’s a man. Everything about him is filled out. Still, disgust roils in my stomach because I know exactly what he’s like. Severi is basically a prince of the Vian. He likes hurting me over and over to see how far he could push my Nexus before she hurt her mate. He made me kill my parents and drain their powers to try and break me.

My Nexus didn’t hurt him. Severi is the one person, along with my other mates, who has the power to stop my Nexus. MyNexus, even now, blanches in fear from him just as much as I do. Mates aren’t meant to hurt each other, but he has no problem hurting me. Hurting me was fun for him because I wouldn’t accept our bond. He could have forced it, but he claimed he wanted me begging first.

He leans down, crouching in front of me, searching my eyes with his dark brown ones. Looking into Severi’s eyes is like looking into a pit empty of feeling or life. There is just nothing there, and I don’t know how the Gods could have ever bound me to him. “You went running to the mates you rejected? After everything I did for you so you could be free.” He tuts and I sneer at him. “I got rid of those parents who were torturing you, restraining your true potential, and I gave you every chance to be a princess of the Vian, but you left. You ran from your mate.” He sighs. “For what? Straight back to those weak asshole Nexus? Can they protect you like me?” He laughs into my face. “They can’t. Where are they?”

“Fuck you, I’m not talking to you about any of this and especially not them.”

“I am your mate.” He grabs my neck, tightening it in his grip. “We both know I’ve got no qualms about breaking your bones and making you scream, so let’s leave the bullshit behaviour at the door and talk like adults for once.” I gasp as he lets me go. He paces in front of me as I reach for my wrist, hoping to feel the runes there and maybe some sign Onyx is hunting for me, but I gasp in pain. “Your runes are gone. Stop reaching for your wrists. I will accept a kiss in thanks.”

“I’d throw up first,” I snarl. “How did you get a bomb into that house? How have you been getting your people into Starlight at all?” I hope my other mates are coming for me, and this fucker always likes to talk. It will buy me some time if I get him bragging.

Severi smirks. “Not all Nexus are loyal. Especially not Onyx’s father.” Shock makes my stomach feel like it’s dropping onto the floor. “See, he has ideas of being the Supreme Alpha, and he’s quite easy to bribe. Tonight, at the same time we blew up that house, we went after the Supreme Alpha’s daughter, too. We took her for blackmail, and she is a pretty little thing. She’s currently being used to make the Supreme Alpha kill himself so Onyx’s father can take over. He’s next in line.” Annie? “Of course, the public won’t know anything about that. They go on with their little happy lives in Starlight. We’ve always had an agreement with Onyx’s dad, but that agreement didn’t stretch far until you came back. I kept trying to get you in that city, which proved a lot harder and more annoying than it should have been.”

“Don’t you dare hurt Annie, she’s…”

“I’ve been watching you too, mate.” He deliberately drawls out the wordmate. “What are you going to do when you’re tied to a chair? You going to let that Nexus out to play with me? She always hid inside you like the terrified little girl that you are. Pathetic, really. I thought my mate would have this big, powerful Nexus for me to try to drain when I was done with her body in other ways. Tasty, perhaps…but no. Your Nexus didn’t even come out to save your parents from dying in front of you. You just drained them and didn’t move. Pathetic.”

I can’t breathe. She didn’t come out because my parents wanted me to live. If he saw my Nexus back then, he would use her like a weapon. He would unleash her on the world and force me to back down. We always had a plan if we got caught and my parents wanted me to let them die. It was the worst moment of my life.

“You took their powers, though, didn’t you? A handy gift of yours to take the powers of the dead. Almost like a Vian.” Hewinks at me. “Isn’t it nice having their powers swimming around in your body?”

“Fuck you.”

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