Chapter 51 Julien
“What the fuck?” Sai stares at the empty space beside him. “She flitted?”
The urge to join my brothers in their panic is quelled by the feel of her blood thrumming inside me. “I feel her.”
Sai’s eyes snap to mine as he breathes out, “Thank fuck.”
I focus on the steady pulse of her. “I just need a moment to lock onto—”
“She’s gone.” Ezekial’s words crack, and all the lights explode in blinding white pops. “Where? Where is she?!”
“I can’t feel her.” Kane’s voice is hollow, wrong. “I can’t feel her.” Shadows ripple out from his skin, eyes a bottomless black as he stares at the empty spot on the sofa.
“My friends, I’ve had her blood. I can find her. I just need a moment to—”
Kane rises, and his darkness erupts in spikes of shadow, the ground trembles, the room shakes, chunks of plaster crash down from the ceiling.
“Sai, distract them,” I say to him alone. “Keep them grounded.”
“Oh, I’d love to,” Sai mutters, sidestepping the debris as Kane’s shadows creep up the walls. “But I think it’s a little late for that.”
“She’s gone.” Kane sounds dangerously detached.
“We know she’s gone!” Sai snaps, rounding on him. “Thanks to the collapsing ceiling, I think we all got the fucking memo. Just—breathe.”
But Kane’s shadows constrict tighter, coiling around him like sentient things.
“Kane, buddy…” Sai moves closer, voice gentling. “Julien can find her—”
“Not good enough,” Ezekial growls. “I need her now.”
Sai and I both look at Ezekial whose silver light has been swallowed by the dark, his rage replacing all calm reasoning. A perfect mirror of his brother.
Oh dear.
“Guys, listen to me,” Sai tries again, hands raised in placation. “She can’t leave the district. She can only flit to places she’s been. Julien is tracking her, right now. Just give him time.”
Both brothers turn to me in slow, eerie unison. A movement that would make a lesser being cower.
“I will find her,” I swear it like a vow. “And the moment I do, you’ll know. But you must not destroy this district.”
They stare at me. Unblinking. Not willing to listen.
“Do not destroy this district,” I repeat, but firmer.
They don’t hear me, not truly. In this state, they care naught for divisions or lives or balance. Neither do I, truthfully.
But Jasmine would. Jasmine would care if they reduced this place to ash. If innocents burned beneath their misplaced grief.
“Jasmine—” Just saying her name is enough. Kane freezes, and Ezekial’s fists unclench. “—would be deeply upset if harm befell the district.” I keep my voice slow and clear, like I’m speaking to wild things.
“Would she not, Sai?” I incline my head towards him, wordlessly prompting.
“Uh—yes?”
Both brothers turn to him.
“Yes,” Sai says again, certain now, because he realises this is working, they’re listening—because it’s about her. “She’d be very upset. No, furious. Beyond pissed. And we do not want to upset our bonded, do we? No.” He starts shaking his head emphatically, hoping they’ll mimic it.
They do not.
Sai’s eyes dart to mine, wide with urgency as he speaks into my mind. “Fucking go, man.”
I flit into the foyer. She’s too far to be at Kacey’s, or the Council Building.
Where has she been that’s further?
The cave.
I flit.
“FUCK!” someone yells behind me.
Not here.
“Is that—Enforcer Julien? Sir?”
She’s not here, but I’m closer. I feel her more; our bond pulls tighter like a wound thread catching fire.
I scan the skyline from above, ignoring the growing crowd and their whispers.
Where else has she been?
Martha’s.
I flit inside the shop. Empty, of course it is, it’s barely dawn.
But… where else? That was it, wasn’t it?
Amid the urgency clawing through me, guilt blooms. She’s barely been into the city. Barely seen this district. At least Kane took her somewhere—
The pictures.
The ones we all studied for far too long. Sai spent hours cropping Kane out, setting it as his background. He even asked Ezekial if he could help edit his face over Kane’s.
I don’t remember who spotted the river in the background first. We were all too focused on her: her face, her lips, that dress.
I’d recommended something like it to the assistant who manages her wardrobe, but I’d never seen it, never imagined she’d wear it—especially for Kane.
I flit to the promenade, and instantly, the ache contracts.
She’s there.
Leaning on the railing, staring out over the river, hair whipping like wild flames in the wind. Her brow is drawn, her breaths are too quick, too shallow. Shadows curl at her feet—tight, tense, coiled like serpents ready to strike.
She’s trying to hold it all in, but I feel the tremble beneath her skin, running through my veins. I forget the chaos I’d left. The fear ebbs away.
Because she’s safe.
She senses me, drawn by our blood, by our bond, and when she turns, I close the distance in three strides.
“Oh, you found me,” she murmurs, sniffling, dragging a rough hand beneath her eyes. “I was about to make my way up.” She gestures vaguely over my shoulder.
I know what she’s pointing towards. The Council Building. Its gates loom in the distance, visible for miles by deliberate design. It would have taken her hours on foot to reach it.
“But I…” Her voice falters as I step closer, her head tipping back to meet my gaze.
“I will always find you,” I vow, catching her hand before it rises again.
Her cheeks are streaked pink from cold and tears, her eyes rimmed red, her lips kissed with the faintest blue. And yet, she is beautiful.
In every form. In every colour.
But her hands are freezing. Not the soft, soothing coolness her touch offers me, but a cruel, bone-deep cold.
I shrug off my suit jacket and drape it around her trembling shoulders, lifting her into my arms without pause. I cradle her to my chest, urging my warmth to bleed into her.
“I didn’t mean to flit,” she whispers, relaxing into me, fingers curling in my shirt.
I wish I wasn’t wearing it. I wish we were both bare, skin to skin, so I could engulf her in my heat.
“I know,” I say softly, lifting her cold fingers to my lips. “Although, it was impressive.” I smile against her fingertips, and it brings some colour to her pale cheeks.
“Can we…” Her eyes flit around us. “Can we just have a moment? Before we go back?”
I study her, tilting my head. “I promised them I’d find you and—”
“You did.” She smiles with her interruption, small and sweet. “Good job, by the way.” Her slight praise warms me. “I just need more time to… think.”
Now probably isn’t the time to tell her how the brothers reacted to her sudden departure. How they were willing to tear the district apart to find her. I know they’d destroy this land, their home, burn this entire realm to ash if they deemed it necessary.
But I also can’t deny her. She wants time, and we promised we’d listen, give her what she needed.
Anything.
Still holding her with one arm, I pull my phone from my pocket and tap Sai’s name.
It rings once.
“Tell me you’ve found her, because the fucking dogs are out—”
“I have her.” My words are met by silence, then muffled sounds.
A scuffle, some grunts, a sharp hiss, a few curses and foreign words.
I quietly apologise to Jasmine as the sounds of a struggle continue. When it doesn’t seem to be ending anytime soon, I sigh and lower the phone to her. “Speak to them, ease them.”
She wets her lips. “Hi.” Everything goes quiet. “Sorry about the whole… flitting thing. I didn’t mean to, it kinda just happened—”
“Where are you?” Kane’s voice is dripping with the dark.
Jasmine’s eyes widen at the sound. “Why does he sound like that?” she asks only me.
Because your name alone dragged them back from the edge of madness.
Instead, I say, “You flitted far enough that we couldn’t sense you.” I brush my fingers over her cold cheeks.
She mouths oh, then clears her throat. “Kane, I’m fine. Julien and I are just going on a… walk?” I arch a brow at her, trying not to smile. “There’s no need for you—”
“Where is she?” Ezekial, from further away, but his voice is the same. Tainted and echoing.
Jasmine blinks up at me.
I sigh again. “They lost themselves to the dark before they remembered I could feel you.”
I lower my voice, keeping it calm and clear. “I am with her, she is safe. But she has asked for a moment.”
Kane growls. Ezekial grunts. Sai mutters an exasperated curse.
“I’m really sorry for making you worry,” she murmurs, so soft, yet it cuts straight through my chest, and it isn’t even meant for me.
I can imagine the effect it has on the others. Kane’s stern expression softening, Ezekial’s rabid dogs flattening their ears.
Then, just to sweeten the blow, she adds, “I’ll make it up to you.”
A heated rush pulses through the bond. We might not be able to communicate across this distance, but emotions transcend many things.
“And… I’ve got it back,” Sai says with a breathless laugh. “Good job, baby.”
Jasmine tries to shake off Sai’s praise, but I hear the little pick up in her pulse.
“And what about us, Red?” Sai drawls, smirk obvious in his tone. “Do big guy and I get any credit for keeping the shadow twins on their leashes?”
She laughs, the sound soothing us all, our once turbulent bond settling. “Maybe you can share first place?”
Sai’s silence crackles through the phone as I stare down at the alluring nymph in my arms. Her lips curl into a teasing smile, scarlet gaze burning bright.
“Keep them busy, Sai.” I end the call, knowing too well what reckless thing he’ll say next. The phone slides back into my pocket.
Her weight rests against me as I walk, one arm holding her close, my free hand framing her face. That sly smile has faded, replaced by a quiet study of me. The shift draws the question from my lips before I can stop it.
“Why did you flit?”