Page 120 of Cryptic Dreams

“I have never asked you for anything, never strayed from our tumultuous ways but I am begging you now, please, please spare my mate while there is still time.”

“For Phantasia,” he grits out as my grip tightens. “May she greet your mate in the afterlife with open arms and a ready dagger.”

I roar as my gentle breeze continues to cry and scream, my heart breaking wide open as I dig my fingers into the sides of my own father’s neck and pull, very literally tearing him apart as his head falls from his body and lands on the platform at my feet with a wet thud.

I immediately begin searching the room to find anyone who can free me, anyone who can stop Hans and save my mate but as I do, her crying abruptly stops.

No.“Zephyr!” Her body is limp against the obelisk, every inch of gorgeous golden skin charred, the sun still beating down on her through the bloody opening. But she still breathes. Barely, but my mate still breathes and if we can just get to her we can still save her.

I reach down and start pulling at the silver around my legs, ripping at the cuffs and powering through the pain as I tear them off one by one.

Suddenly, another set of hands appear, big hands that help to unchain me, and I look up to find Declan bleeding all over himself.

“Zephyr. Go to my mate, get Hans, do something but leave me—”

Another explosion goes off behind him, an enormous burst of sound and light, one so strong it’s blinding as it knocks my friend against me and sends us both flat on the marble.

After a few incredible dazed moments, my vision comes back blurry, my ears ringing, and pain radiating through every inch of my body. I groan as I push myself up on hands and knees, the arena very literally starting to crumble and cave in around us, and when my head swings toward the obelisk, the most guttural scream leaves my lips.

She’s gone.

Zephyr isgone, and I failed her again.

Staggering to my feet, I move as quickly as I can to the platform, climbing the steep staircase without regard for the way the sun burns my skin. I collapse halfway, my grief slamming into me as I crawl up the steps, the severing of our bond stabbing at every inch of my heart with the force of a thousand swords.

Then sunlight slowly wanes as someone finally closes the ceiling and as I breach the top of the platform, I drop to the base of the obelisk and weep.

Zephyr, my love, I am sorry.

I am so fucking sorry.

I lift my hand and place it over the charred silhouette of her body, tracing the curves as I sob but even through my immense grief and the obvious break in our bond, the horrible bastard in me can’t help but note how this isn’t right.

There is no body, no bones. No bits of fabric or even ash. There is very literally nothing left of the love of my life, nothing to indicate she was here at all aside from the burn marks and it is why I shift to my knees and start searching.

“Wraith…” Orion says from behind me, his throat right and voice strangled with his own grief. “Wraith, she’s… Zephyr is gone—”

“No!” I scour the platform for any proof of that, my crying eyes scanning every centimeter. “No! There is no proof, no evidence of her death. She is… no…”

He places a gentle hand on my back as he crouches down beside me, forcing me to look at him with the immense sadness I feel. “Zephyr is gone, Wraith. I can’t feel her anymore. She’s gone and we’re going to have to accept that.”

I stare at him for a few beats before I shrug him off and return to my searching. I’ve seen enough of these executions, bearing witness to so many of them here in this very arena that Iknowwhat happens when one meets their end in this way. Zephyrcannotbe gone, I can’t live without her and if she is truly gone I will surely follow. “I will not. There is no proof, none by our standards. My mate is not dead, I refuse to accept it!”

There is no scent of burning death, no remains to be swept into the bin. A vampire exposed to direct sunlight does not necessarily spontaneously combust, but rather in the same fashion humans do when they come into contact with fire. The difference being that it kills us far quicker, the blisters and bubbling flesh moving down to the bone, burning from the outside in at a relatively rapid pace until the combustion takes place under the surface. And none of the things that are left behind when that happens are present here now, nothing but the outline of my beautiful mate. Not even the shackles she wore.

She cannot be gone.

Zephyr cannot leave me, she wouldn’t.

“Wraith, please. We need to go.” Orion sniffles as he tries to compose himself. “You need to see Lorna and—”

“My ring!” I yell through my tears. “My signet ring, the one I gave to her when we mated. Zephyr never took it off and if she, if… it would be here. Find my ring as proof and…”

A hand appears in my line of sight, palm open and facing up, and in the center is my bloody signet ring.

“Atticus took it from her. It was in his pocket.” Declan places the gaudy gold in my hand before he starts trying to pull me down the stairs. “We have to get out of here, this place is falling apart.”

I blink at him a few times before I look around us. The stone walls are cracking, the ceiling is dropping in chunks. My people are running for the exits, dragging wounded and dead behind them, and for a split second I don’t want to leave.

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