Page 2 of Bound in Blood

“Is he aware of the girl? Of who she is?”

I nod. “He has been watching her for many years.”

His disappointment in me is so acute, and it weighs as heavily as a cloak made of iron. Despite my belief in what I did this night, it still pains me to betray him so. His expression remains stern, unyielding, but his eyes can never deceive me. Can never hide the depth of feeling that exists between us. My mate of over a thousand years, the other half of my being. His fingers tangle in the hair at the nape of my neck, and I am suddenly enveloped in him, in his scent and his arms. I bury my face in his cloak and soak in his comfort. Whilst my actions were necessary to tip the weight of the scale in favor of the light, they still weigh on my heart.

He rests his lips on the top of my head. “You are grounded until I decide what to do with you.”

“I know.”

A second later, he removes a bronze collar from his pocket and slips it around my neck. It locks into a place with a deliberate click, and he traces a fingertip over the metal band. “It was made in the sacred forge of our ancestors and is imbibed with old earth magic. It will not permit you to leave this mountain.”

I nod my understanding and return my cheek to his chest. He wraps his arms around me in response, holding me tightly tohim. “It will all work out, Kameen. The prophecy will be fulfilled, and all magical beings shall flourish once more.”

He murmurs something I cannot quite catch, but he continues holding me. I close my eyes, content in his arms. Content that Ophelia Hart will claw a path through her pain and that it will make her the woman she was born to be. For one day, she will realize that her importance to this world was too great to risk, even for true love.

Chapter

One

OPHELIA

The pain is excruciating. I can’t breathe from the weight of it crushing my chest. But I must fix this. I will not lose them. I will find a way to bring him back.

“Do you really think…” Malachi’s voice cracks.

“No.” Xavier shakes his head vehemently. “No fucking way. He can’t be. He’s Alexandros fucking Drakos.”

We’re still huddled together on the kitchen floor. A bundle of arms and legs, refusing to untangle.

“C-can you feel him? Even a little?” I frantically search my own mind for any sign of him and find nothing but his absence. Like a deep, gaping chasm of… nothing.

“I can’t,” Axl says solemnly, his voice little more than a whisper.

“Me neither,” Malachi answers.

Xavier’s deep-blue eyes swim with tears. “That doesn’t mean he’s gone.”

I place a hand on his cheek and swipe away the lone tear with the pad of my thumb. One thing I am sure of is that they need me to be strong. There will be time to hurt and to heal, but it’s notnow. Not when we don’t know for sure whether he’s truly gone. “We’ll find him. We’ll get him back.”

Malachi shakes his head. “But we don’t even know where to start.”

“We’ll ask Enora for help. She has contacts with the Order, and they must know something. She can at least give us a starting point. But we need to act fast.” Their eyes are clouded with so much sadness and fear that my fragile heart struggles to continue beating. “No good can come from us sitting here.”

Axl nods, his throat working as he swallows. “Ophelia is right. We can’t give up on him.”

Xavier licks his bottom lip. “So, we go to Enora, then?”

I nod. Then slowly, we free ourselves from the huddle we’ve been in for who knows how long and stand.

I haveno idea how the four of us managed to put one foot in front of the other enough times to reach Silver Vale just as the sun crested over the horizon. Even less of one as to how we spoke to Cadence when she opened the door, full of her usual wide-eyed excitement although we obviously woke her up. At least for a few seconds. Then her face fell and her anxiety became as apparent as the smell of jasmine from inside the house. But her distress was so weak compared to my own that it barely registered.

Such was the anguish radiating from the four of us, Cadence showed us to Enora without asking a single question. She simply squeezed my hand and held it tight until we reached the professor’s study.

“What has happened, child?” Enora asks before all of us make it in the room. Our intense feelings no doubt arrived herebefore we did. Cadence lets go of my hand and, with a final concerned look in my direction, closes the door behind us.

I’m not sure I can tell Enora what happened without crumpling into a heap on the floor. What if saying the words somehow makes it all real? The boys’ despair is as sharp as mine. It swirls around us like our own personal tornado of emotional anguish, tearing every shred of happiness and joy from the room and leaving nothing but devastation in its wake.

“Alexandros is…” Xavier chokes out the words but is unable to finish the sentence.

---