Chapter 15 #2
“Hold her down!” he snapped.
The four males pressed down on my ankles and wrists as white fur swept over my skin and my bones ached with the urge to shift. Their heavy weights grew immovable as they all began murmuring, and that horrible tang of magic laced the air.
“Is she fighting the removal?” Sylvan. The bastard was probably enjoying this, watching me to see if I would reveal my hand and give him reason not to trust me.
“No,” the old male muttered. “The Wrathful King is.”
Kaeleron.
Tears fell freely down my temples now.
Oh gods.
Kaeleron was fighting to keep this bond between us intact.
He knew they were trying to break it.
I reached for him through it, not knowing what I was doing, just needing to reach him and let him know that it was okay, that it would be fine, that I would be fine and I would see him again soon.
Another inky tendril severed.
I howled this time, howled so loud and so long that I was sure the whole castle would hear me as I unleashed my pain, my grief and my fear in it. They were taking him from me. Taking Kaeleron. Taking my male.
Instinct raged like a whirlwind inside me, swirled with oily darkness.
Only the crushing pain kept me from shifting into my wolf form to attack them all.
“How much longer?” Sylvan barked.
“However long he can hold out,” came the reply.
Let me go. I screamed as I urged him to do that for me. Let me go. For now. I would be with him again, but I wouldn’t be if he kept this up. I wasn’t sure I could survive this. It felt as if my entire body was being torn apart, not just my heart.
Another tendril gave, sending pain whipping through me like lightning.
He had to let me go.
I knew that he needed me. I knew he was afraid. I could feel it all in the bond. It had never been clearer. I sobbed as I felt him there on the other side, so far away. So much rage. So much pain.
I’m sorry.
I sent those two words through the bond, hoping he would hear them, and followed them with others.
I love you.
I let that feeling fill me, every drop of the love I held for him. I let it rise up within me and wash over me, over the fear and the pain, and the uncertainty. I let it reach him, aware he needed it. He needed my love to carry him through whatever came next.
He needed my love to fill the void that would be left when the last tendril snapped.
For him, I faced the pain and the grief, I faced the fear.
For him, I was brave.
I was strong.
Giving him that strength through the bond.
Be brave. Be strong. We would be together again soon.
But for now, let me go.
“He is weakening.” The male sounded happy about that, and in a way, I was happy too.
Kaeleron had heard me.
I loved him. I loved him so damned much.
I recited those words in my mind, using them as a shield against the pain as another tendril pulled taut and snapped, followed by another.
Nothing could keep us apart.
Nothing.
Not this. Not the unseelie high king. Nothing.
Because I loved him.
I chose him.
I howled as the final tendril frayed and severed.
Howled as a void opened within me, hollowing me out.
Howled as darkness poured in to fill it.
I lay there on the damp covers as if I were dead.
I felt dead.
Empty.
I drifted in the chilling silence where the bond had been.
I wasn’t sure how long I floated there, seeking a connection that no longer existed, sobbing in grief, not pain as I was sure the seelie believed.
A gentle hand came to rest on my forehead, slipping to my damp hair, and then their brow touching mine and a soft whisper.
“Saphi.”
Danica.
I didn’t have the strength to look at her. I didn’t have the strength to tear my gaze from the silent abyss.
Kaeleron.
I wanted Kael.
My lip wobbled as the tears came again.
Danica took hold of my hand, squeezing it tightly, thumbing the ring he had placed on my finger as if to tell me he was there, still there, waiting for me to come home.
“Help me,” Meiryn said.
Danica nodded, rubbing her brow against my temple, nuzzling it in a way that spoke to my wolf instincts and told me I wasn’t alone, and then they were lifting me, moving me from the bed. I numbly walked with them, not caring where they were taking me, drifting in my pain and sorrow, lost in it.
Meiryn lifted my legs, setting them one at a time in a steaming golden clawfoot bath, and then she caught me around the ribs and lowered me into the water.
I didn’t protest as they removed my sodden robe and worked to clean the sweat from my skin, speaking in hushed voices.
I stared straight ahead of me, down the silent line of the bond, aching to feel something. A glimmer of something. Anything.
Refusing to believe it was gone.
I had hated him when he had branded me.
Now I hated that it was gone.
Meiryn helped me stand, and Danica dried me off, and then they pulled a nightdress on over my head and Meiryn all but carried me back to the bed. Someone had replaced the sheets. They were dry. Warmed.
Meiryn gave me a half-hearted smile as she pulled the covers up over me, her blue eyes sombre and concerned. “Try to get some rest.”
Danica curled up beside me, snuggled close. I felt nothing.
No trace of the bond.
I touched the ring, aching for Kaeleron.
Aching to know he was all right.
Because if removing the bond had hurt me…
What had it done to him?