Chapter 13 #2
“Wait. Do you mean like in romance books? Oh…” She laughs.
“I would have been happy with a friend, but if you want to call me your fated mate that’s even better.
I’m definitely down for a spicy dream instead of a nightmare.
” She brazenly slides a hand up my chest, and I freeze as warmth trails under her palm leaving sparks everywhere she touches.
“I could almost believe it too, because you feel incredible,” she continues.
“I swear, all I can think about is jumping your bones right now. God…why can’t all my dreams be like this?
You don’t have tentacles by any chance, do you? ”
I frown. “Tentacles? No, I do not. Is that a problem, mate?”
She pouts, but she doesn’t look too disappointed. “It’s okay, I figured that might be too much to ask.”
I open my mouth, intending to let her know that I could use my power to ensure she never dreams again, but before I can speak, she presses her lips to mine as a single tear slips down her cheek.
And I’m lost to her. Instead of banishing her from my mind, I surrender to the light, allowing her to indulge in her fantasies.
One night…
That’s what I tell myself. One night, and I’ll leave her alone forever.
My mate is an addiction I can’t deny. Days pass, and while the dreams change as often as my mate changes her faces, her appearance constantly morphing, each night I’m drawn to her, desperate to make her dreams filled with ecstasy and my nights filled with warmth.
Every time, I tell myself I’m only visiting so I can finally rid her of her dreams for good before severing the connection, and every night I stay until she wakes in the human realm.
I never ask her what her life is like in the waking world.
I’m already walking a fine line, and if I ask, I know I’ll end up falling in deeper.
Raith is the first one to pick up on my change in mood.
My eagerness for sleep. The odd smiles that pull across my face during waking hours.
Fuck, since when had I smiled so big in the centuries I’ve been immortal?
When a week has passed, I finally confide in my brother, and he convinces me to pull him along into the dream.
He was supposed to provide me with the support I needed so I could say my farewell and sever the connection, but instead, we make our mate scream, her cries of ecstasy echoing throughout her broken dreams. The pair of us spiral into her, cherishing her together.
We are addicted lovers without an ounce of remorse.
Only pleasure, darkness, and drunk on sunshine.
Until the queen discovers our mate.
We’re not sure how.
I vow to sever the connection to our mate, to appease the queen.
I beg on my hands and knees in the shadow palace, ready to kiss the very ground the queen walks on, something I’d never subjected myself to for any reason, but I would if it would spare my mate.
The queen’s magic can be dark and volatile. Unpredictable.
But my pleas aren’t enough.
“Promise me, she won’t be harmed,” I remember my words like it was yesterday. “The magic of your curse should be focused on me and the others, not on our mate. She’s innocent in all this. Spare her your wrath.”
“We were hand selected,” Queen Krosia says, sneering down at where I kneel. “The war must be won at all costs. One human is not worth the lives of billions of souls.”
Her words create a vice around my heart, and I breathe deeply, struggling to keep my shadows under control. Power bubbles under my skin, sizzling through my veins. “Her sacrifice is not needed. The prophecy states we must only beware of our bond to our mate. And we have not bonded.”
The queen scrutinizes me.
I forge on, teetering on the edge, so close to losing control. “You said yourself, the curse you place on us will make it impossible for us to find our mate. There’s no way she will be a danger to us. She doesn’t need to be involved.”
The queen sniffs. “Provided you give me access to her dreams, the curse will be effective, and your connection will be severed, but your mate will not be harmed.”
There’s only one way for the queen’s curse to reach my mate.
Through the connection of dreams. I shouldn’t believe her.
I know deep down, the queen cannot be trusted, and yet, I bow my head.
I don’t see another way out of this. Not when the queen has threatened to hunt down our mate in the human realm if I don’t comply with the terms of her curse.
I had known from the beginning the connection had to be severed.
As long as my mate lives, she will be fine without us.
As long as she’s safe, I don’t care what happens to me.
“Don’t let the queen find her,” my brother’s plea reaches my ears, his words desperate.
But he doesn’t understand. If I don’t do this it’s his life on the line, too.
The queen knows all my weaknesses. Betrayal shines in Raith’s eyes when I let the queen in.
Her magic barrels into my mind, racing along the connection of dreams. Thane and Galen feel the effects of her curse, but they never visited our mate.
The only pain they feel is the curse burning into their skin.
They remain bound, and unable to move at the back of the room as the curse takes hold of them.
But Raith feels a fraction of what I do as he stands chained a few feet to my side.
He hears our mate’s screams of agony as the queen’s curse burns through us and races to our mate.
The connection is brief, but the agony tears through the very essence of her being.
It’s a pain no human could endure. An agony I share alongside her, screaming as my power fights, rushing to consume the queen’s magic.
To sever the connection. To save her. But it’s too late.
A heartbeat later and the connection is lost like the threads have been burned, and any tie I had to my mate is gone.
She is gone. I feel the depth of it inside me. The emptiness. The light has died. The sunshine has been obliterated. I’m still roaring, but the queen is too prepared. My power grows, threatening to destroy all around me, but before I can unleash my magic, I’m put down.
The other originals combine their power, throwing me into a sleep state that I don’t wake from for days. It’s an endless void of darkness, because that’s all I am now. Darkness without her.
When I wake, I hear a deal has been struck.
Provided Thane and the others keep me under control, we’ll be allowed to continue our work at the academy.
We’re too valuable, but the queen’s threats are real.
Decades go by, and the queen doesn’t visit in person.
All I see is betrayal in Raith’s eyes every time I look at him.
But slowly, Thane coaxes me back to life. If one can call it living. It’s death. Like I’m one of the wandering lost souls in the shadow realm.
But I focus on my purpose. We need the queen.
To win the war. And over the years, she believes I’ve come to understand her actions.
Eventually, she lets me close to her again as the main liaison for Shadowbone Academy, but the moment the fold is closed, I will come for her.
I will end her. Only so I can see her blood spilling over her throne.
Downing my drink, I think of the woman in the next room, and I remember how the nemins had tormented her as we’d watched.
And how badly I’d wanted to tear them apart.
I want to entertain the thought that she could be the same mate I lost, but this human feels different, and in any case, no human could have survived what the queen put my mate through. No matter how much I wish it were so.
No, this human will also die. She’s hopeless. A clueless being with barely any coordination. It’s a wonder she’s still living. And if she has been affected by that same curse the queen has placed on us, then the queen’s magic must have reached her via some other way.
But even as I think that, and even if she is a different mate, something still stirs inside me. I fight to smother it with darkness. This world and all the realms will not survive if I have to endure the loss of another mate.