Page 2 of Gift from the Nexus

I lost total control.

Now, history is repeating itself.

The panic my bond felt that day holds no candle to this. No matter the amount of planning, preparation, meditation, you name it, would have prepared me for this. This feeling that my heart is being ripped out of my chest. That at any minute, my bond is going to shred me to pieces.

It’s suffocating.

Pacing around the spot where she just stood as if my focus and concentration on it will bring her back does nothing to calm the rising light that’s trying to cut through its cages.

There’s a subtle glow on my skin that grates my nerves. It’s a beacon announcing to everyone in this dilapidated gym that I can’t control my gift. I can’t control myself. How the hell do I control myself when the person who means more to me than the entirety of this realm was just taken, kidnapped right in front of me?

And she gave herself up, willingly, in exchange for everybody else’s safety.

Why, Willow?

“Answer the communicator, Gaster,” I command for the thirteenth time. Why the fuck is he not answering?

It’s a stupid question. I know why. He’s staring at that Elementra forsaken south wing.

“I’ll transport to the Palace and—”

“No, you won’t. Absolutely not. None of us are going to be separated right now,” I cut Tillman off before he finishes his sentence. I can’t risk something happening to one of us.

I can’t lose…

“Corentin my boy. I’m sorry, I was—”

“Get to the training gym now,” I order. Frustrated and pissed he answered the communicator so excited to hear from me when my world is crashing down.

“What’s wrong?”

“We’ve been attacked. Get. Here. Now,” I grit out, hanging the call up before he wastes any more of my time asking questions.

Five…four…three…two…one…

On my exhale, I shut everything down.

I close off my mind, my heart, my bond, my gift. I lock it all back up in the cages I’ve carefully constructed just for them and slip on my blank mask. I have no time for the overwhelming emotions. I can’t fall apart.

They need me.

She needs me.

Tillman lost control for a split second, then reined it in, but it was enough as the entire foundation in the gym trembled, causing the already ruined equipment and simulation course to come crashing down. The only reason I know he’s barely holding it together is his eyes. To everyone else, they’re sharp, steady, focused. But I know better. They’re unhinged, wild.

Draken can’t pull his beast back fully. He’s no longer scorching the floor with every step he takes, but his eyes are glowing, smoke is blowing through his nostrils and fingertips, and he can’t form a lucid sentence.

Caspian damn near swallowed the entire gym in his darkness. The E.F. members and our friends who are here with us were on the verge of suffocating. His shadows were smothering the air out and he didn’t even realize it. Looking at him now, his lip is busted, same as my knuckles. The darkness is lurking, preparing to pounce on anyone who gets in his way.

“Corentin, I’m here. Where—” Gaster stops mid-sentence, mid-step, staring around at the destruction.

“We have to get to your office. Oakly’s in your pocket dimension, and we need her out. Now,” I state, stomping my way through the massive hole in the gym wall where the doors once were.

“Elementra,” he mumbles when he comes to stand beside me, getting his first look at the training fields.

Craters and holes deeper than Tillman’s height decorate the fields, and the ground is littered with bodies, some smoldering, some torn apart. Just from what I saw in the heat of the battle, no students were killed, but we lost some of our men, and the Mastery sure as fuck lost some of theirs.

“Team one, go check for any survivors. Any Mastery members alive, detain them, get the students gathered here. Team two, half of you go get the healers and bring them here. The other half, go find the Caster. We need to figure out how the fuck the ward was brought down so fast. Go. Now,” Tillman orders.

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