28. Chapter Twenty-Eight
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
MORTE
A gony hits me like a lightning bolt, cleaving my insides apart, and I crumple to the bed, misery exploding in every nerve as soon as I regenerate.
I scream, a guttural, broken sound, every shard of my heart piercing through it as I shriek. I don’t know what the fuck is happening, but it feels as though something has ripped itself free from my soul.
“What the fuck is going on, you stupid girl?!” King Valtorious shakes me by my shoulders. “What is that?” He stills, fingers digging into my flesh. “What is this?!” The king strikes my cheek, eliciting a roar from my mates across the cave.
They quiet down, and it takes me several long minutes for the agony to allow me a moment to breathe and realize what everyone is staring at.
“Is that—?” a guard whispers.
“He severed the bond,” another murmurs.
“Azazel!” The name tears itself from my throat, raw and pleading. My nails dig into the skin above my heart as if I can somehow stitch the bond back together, as if I can physically will it to return, to make this horror end .
Pain like I’ve never known ravages me, deeper than anything physical, tearing through my very soul. It’s emptiness—an aching, gaping hole that seems to swallow me whole, pulling me into an abyss I can’t escape. The blackness creeps in, the void left in the place where Azazel’s presence had always been. A comforting warmth, a light that had been my Az.
Gone.
“Az!” My scream echoes off the stone walls, mingling with Wilder’s and Aggonid’s agonized roars, Emeric’s desperate shouts, and the sound of Caius’s chains straining under the force of his rage. Their pain is tangible, each of my mates feeling the tearing of mine and Azazel’s bond just as acutely as if it happened to them.
Valtorious’s grip on my arm becomes vice-like, his fingers biting into my flesh, yanking me to my feet, but my legs barely work. Everything inside me collapses in on itself. I stumble, my knees nearly giving way, and he shakes me, his voice a snarl in my ear. “What has he done?!” The fury in his voice barely registers. It’s drowned out by the din of grief, the emptiness inside me.
I look down, my vision blurred with tears, and see the black X burned into my skin—stark, jagged, the final mark of our bond’s destruction. My heart wrenches, another scream tearing itself from my throat as I double over, hands shaking, pressing against the mark, trying to feel him—anything—but it’s gone.
“No …” The word barely escapes, a shattered whisper, my breath hitching, body quaking.
Valtorious swears, his composure slipping, his wrath barely contained. He shoves me forward, back towards the bed, and I stumble again, catching myself on the edge. “Get up!” he snaps, voice wild with a frustration that’s more than unhinged.
“Azazel …” His name comes out in a broken sob, my eyes finding his body across the room, lifeless on the stone floor. My entire world narrows to that sight—Azazel crumpled, unmoving, his face ashen, his chest still.
Something inside me shatters.
I collapse beside the bed, my knees hitting the stone as I reach out, my fingers trembling, tears streaming freely down my face. “Az …” The emptiness yawns wider, consuming, suffocating—the pain so all-encompassing I can’t breathe. My heart—my very soul—feels ripped open, bleeding, and the only thing I can think, the only word I can form, is his name.
“Morte!” Wilder’s scream breaks through the haze, and I hear the desperation, the anguish, the way his voice cracks. He fights against his chains, his muscles straining, his eyes wild as they lock on me.
Caius’s fists pound against the stone, his roar reverberating through the cavern.
Aggonid’s pleas come next, choked, broken. “Morte … please.” The sorrow in his voice, the hopelessness, only twists the knife deeper. I can’t look at them—can’t see the pain that I’ve caused, can’t bear the sight of their broken expressions.
The king growls, barking orders at his guards, his composure gone. He grabs my arm again, wrenching me up, and this time I let him. My body feels detached, hollow, my legs moving as if they’re not my own. He drags me onto the bed, but my panicked eyes stay on Azazel—on his stillness, the emptiness where his presence should be, and the tears blur my vision until I can barely see anything at all.
“This changes nothing!” Valtorious’s snarl is harsh in my ear, his grip bruising. “You will still be mine. The ritual will continue.” He pushes me down onto the silken sheets, his weight shifting the bed, and my heart thumps, erratic, each pulse a searing reminder of what’s gone. The black X throbs against my chest, pain radiating outwards, a wound that will never heal.
“Az …” The word is barely audible, lost in the chaos, but it’s all I have. My body quakes, the sobs tearing through me, and I don’t care anymore. Don’t care about the king, about the ritual, about anything but the emptiness that consumes me.
“No more games,” Valtorious snaps, his face twisted in anger, in desperation. He reaches for me, his fingers digging into my shoulders, but I barely register it.
“Azazel,” I whisper one last time, my heart fracturing, splintering into pieces I know I’ll never recover .
And as Valtorious looms above me, ready to claim what he thinks belongs to him, I realize the truth.
I’ve lost everything. And there’s nothing left but the hollow echo of what once was.