Page 36 of Magic Hunted
“What did you promise, magic?”
I blinked open my eyes, finding glass-green locked onto me. But older. Confused. I promised…“Brais?”
Brais was alive? But I’d witnessed his death. I’d suffered the pain of loss so acutely I’d shoved the memory of him into the well so I could cope to survive the next day, and the one after that and after that.
“How do you know Brais?” Dias’ words were fast. Breathless. But it was his gaze laced with pain that held mine. Pain and anguish and complete and utter shock swirled in those light green shards. The last fragments of my nightmare vanished, leaving ice flooding my veins.
I’d confused Dias with Brais. How could I have confused them both? Brais had wanted to be my friend. He’d offered himself to me, and Dias wanted me as his mate. “I…”
I clenched my fists and dug my nails into my palms to stop the shaking. Tendrils of the memory clung to me. Perhaps it was that that prompted me to admit I knew him. A way to honor the memory that had been dug from the mire. “Brais was…my friend.”
The only friend I’d allowed myself, even though it was borne from desperation and only lasted for hours. After that, I’d learned never to make the same mistake with anyone again.
“If you were Brais’ friend, I would know you,” Dias said, his gaze flicking to Ashir and Savvas. “We all would.”
“You weren’t there when he befriended me,” I said.
Dias’ fingers tightened on my shoulder and his gaze sharpened with pain. “Please tell me how you knew my brother, magic.”
All I could do was gape at Dias, held in a desperate horrifying grip. Ashir and Savvas were silent. Waiting for me to answer them. There was no denial. No joke. Ashir and Savvas stayed silent and all three sets of eyes locked on me.
Pain radiated through the fissure in the bond, battering against that part of me that ached as much as it did that day. That part of me had never healed. It flared brighter with each passing second, soaring through the open wound in my heart until it throbbed as openly as when it was first inflicted. I couldn’t pack it away. Couldn’t stop it like I usually did. The crack in the bond barrier rang with a wave of fresh agony as the pieces clicked together with horrifying clarity. “Brais was…your brother?”
Chapter Nineteen
“Talk to your mates, child. I think we’ll discover why you don’t trust your bond and why it isn’t completing the way it should,” Shanyirra said.
My meal churned in my stomach and a wave of nausea crashed over me. “I’m going to be sick.”
I grimaced, bending over my stomach while blood roared through my ears. Please, gods. Please don’t let me be sick on top of everything else. I was already shredded raw. I didn’t need to be physically ill as well.
Ashir clasped me in his arms as he rose. I curled into his chest as though I didn’t have a will not to, breathing in his fresh citrus scent. I shouldn’t take this from him. I shouldn’t accept what he offered. I also didn’t seem to have a will of my own when his lips brushed my temple. Warmth blossomed through me, sweeping away some of the pain shooting through the crack to a level where I didn’t feel the need to throw up. Where I wasn’t splintering apart.
“This is between us and no one else,” Ashir said.
“Bring her to my workplace. I have a spare room you can use that will be private,” Shanyirra said, giving a short, decisive nod. “She needs herbs and a place to rest, which I can provide. She’ll also need tenderness. Understanding. She’ll need all of you to heal. The wound is old and deep.”
A gentle hand swept through my hair. “We’ll do whatever needs to be done. We’ll fight for you,” Savvas said.
I didn’t want them to fight for me. They deserved more than a damaged mate. A damaged bond. That was if Shanyirra was to be believed.
I looked over my shoulder at Shanyirra. “I won’t put them through that. Break the bond, Shanyirra. Please, I beg of you.”
Ashir’s hands tensed and his panther’s growl made my stomach roll. “We meant what we said. You are ours, and nothing will take that away.”
But it should. It should mean they’d walk away. Leave me and find their better future. Why couldn’t they see what was true? “You’ll regret it.”
“We’ll regret nothing,” Savvas said.
The pain throbbing through the bond was reason alone for me to find a way to make them see how wrong they were. I remembered the pain and burying it was what I had to do to survive. I had to do it again. If I didn’t I’d shatter.
“Come. This way.” Shanyirra led us back through the eating hall and outside where elves milled about shooting untrusting glances at us. She continued across the sandy clearing and onto a pathway. I was grateful for the walls closing around us, offering us some sort of protection against hateful stares. Taredd ordered his guards to fan around us and they melted into the shadows, ushering the elves staring at us into the depths of the village.
We trekked through the village after Shanyirra, my mates clustered around me. Savvas held my ankle in his grip and Dias’ arm brushed my shoulder. I was wrecked and raw. I wanted to shove this day down with the Choosing day and forget all about it, but the pit of my stomach swirled with acid and bright green magic, wherever that had come from.
I couldn’t plug everything back inside me. It was too big. Too bloodied, so I shut my eyes and pressed my face into Ashir’s chest to pretend that I wasn’t who I was. That my life hadn’t changed when I was a child and I’d been brought up in a loving home, whole and able to love.
Maybe that was my problem. I just couldn’t love. I didn’t have it in me. That the blackness that lived in me was more alive and beating stronger than my heart ever would.
