17. Rakk
RAKK
The pain hits me like a collapsing mountain.
One moment I'm racing—leading the pack with my equu stretching into a powerful gallop beneath me—and the next, something inside my chest explodes with force that steals every breath from my lungs.
I fall. Don't remember dismounting. Don't remember the ground rushing up to meet me. Just the sudden, horrifying impact of stone against my back and then the wet, tearing sensation of ribs caving inward.
Internal organs rupturing. Bone fragments piercing lung tissue. The metallic taste of blood flooding my throat.
Except I wasn't trampled. Nothing touched me.
Through the haze of agony, I watch the stampede thunder past farther down the route. Watch riders continue racing, oblivious to anything wrong. My equu prances nearby, uninjured and confused by my sudden absence from the saddle.
But the pain—gods, the pain—
It's exactly what crushing weight beneath an equu would feel like. Exactly the damage Serah's body would sustain if she were trampled in a racing accident.
The soul-binding flares white-hot beneath my skin. Ancient symbols burn across my chest and arms as magic channels catastrophic injury away from Serah's fragile human body and directly into mine instead.
She fell. The knowledge slams through me with more force than the physical pain. Someone drove her off the cliff edge. She's being crushed right now beneath hooves and weight and—
Terror detonates through my control like wildfire consuming dried timber.
I’ve been holding myself back. Swallowing every instinct to claim her properly, protect her completely, make the entire clan understand that touching Serah means death.
Pretending I'm civilized when every fiber of my being has been screaming to burn the world down for her.
The restraints I've kept wrapped so carefully around my magic don't just crack.
They shatter.
Power erupts from my body in a violent shockwave that flattens warriors standing nearby. The canyon trembles. Stones crack beneath me as raw magical force pours outward in waves that taste like fury and ancient bloodshed and something far older than the Bone Warrior Clan's recorded history.
Zurkar's voice cuts through the chaos—sharp and commanding but edged with barely concealed panic. "Everyone back! Get away from him!"
Warriors scramble to obey. The ones who don't move fast enough get thrown backward by another pulse of power that radiates from my broken body.
I can't stop it. Can barely control it. The magic has been building for weeks—growing stronger every time I touched Serah, every time the soul-binding channeled pain into my flesh, every time I forced myself to be gentle when my entire being wanted to claim and conquer and make her mine in ways that would terrify her.
Now it pours out unchecked. Unstoppable.
Through the red haze of agony and power, I feel every person in the immediate vicinity. Their emotions slam into me—fear, shock, curiosity, and beneath it all, the familiar undercurrent of those who harbor darker intentions.
Drogath. Korr. Three others whose names I don't know but whose guilt burns like acid against my magical awareness.
They did this. They coordinated the attack. Drove Serah toward the cliff edge with deliberate precision while making it look like a racing accident.
They tried to kill my mate.
The realization ignites something primal and utterly merciless inside my chest.
I reach for them with magic I've kept hidden my entire life.
Magic that Zurkar warned would consume me if I ever unleashed it without control.
Magic that my father deemed too dangerous to acknowledge publicly because strength comes from warrior prowess, not mystical abilities that mark you as different.
Rakk the Warrior. Rakk the Heir. Rakk who leads through physical dominance and strategic brilliance.
Never Rakk the Sorcerer. Never Rakk whose power could reshape reality if he stopped holding back.
They wanted to see me lose control? Wanted to test my leadership by targeting the one thing in this world I would burn everything to protect?
Let them see what happens when I stop pretending to be less than I am.
I find Drogath first—his emotional signature burning with satisfied vindication over what he believes is a successful execution. He thinks Serah is dead. Thinks he's saved the clan from the weakness of human-orc mating.
My magic wraps around him like a noose.
Then I pull.
Drogath drops to his knees with a strangled scream. Not from physical force. From the sudden, overwhelming weight of every cruelty he has ever inflicted upon others.
The soul-binding taught me how to absorb pain. How to channel suffering into myself and bear the cost so others don't have to. But magic flows both ways. If I can take pain, I can also give it.
I make Drogath feel every whipping he supervised.
Every human slave he brutalized for sport.
Every warrior he broke through intimidation and violence masquerading as discipline.
Decades of inflicted suffering compress into seconds and crash through his nervous system with the force of divine retribution.
He collapses completely, convulsing against the canyon stone.
Korr falls next. Then the three warriors who helped box Serah in during the race. Their screams echo through the canyon—high and animal and utterly broken.
Good.
Let the entire clan hear what happens to anyone who touches my mate. Let them understand that mercy has limits and those limits were crossed the moment someone decided Serah's life was negotiable.
"Rakk!" Kaelen's voice cuts through my fury. "Brother, you have to stop! You're going to kill them!"
Part of me—the part still clinging to sanity—registers that I'm currently kneeling in a spreading pool of my own blood. That my ribs are shattered. That the soul-binding is destroying me from the inside out even as I channel catastrophic magical force through a body barely holding itself together.
I don't care.
Let me die here if that's what it takes. As long as everyone understands that Serah is mine and harming her means pain beyond comprehension.
Drogath's lieutenant—Korr—stops moving. His body goes slack against the stone, chest no longer rising with breath. The other three warriors still twitch and whimper, but their suffering has crossed from conscious agony into shock-induced unconsciousness.
Drogath himself remains on his knees, gasping. Alive but utterly broken. He'll never lift a weapon again. Never speak against my leadership. The magic has scoured something fundamental from inside his mind, leaving behind a hollow shell where defiant confidence used to burn.
Distantly, I know I should feel remorse. Should be horrified by what I've done.
I feel nothing except savage satisfaction that they'll never threaten Serah again.
"Rakk."
Her voice.
Soft. Shaking. Close.
The fury consuming me stutters like interrupted flame.
I force my eyes to focus through the blood and magic and pain. Find Serah pushing through the crowd of warriors who have backed away in terror from the heir who just revealed himself as something far more dangerous than they ever imagined.
She's covered in dust. Her clothes are torn. But she's walking. Moving. Alive.
Alive.
The relief hits harder than any physical blow.
The magic stutters again. Wavers. My control has been slipping for weeks, but seeing Serah whole and breathing gives me something to anchor to that isn't just rage and protective violence.
She drops to her knees beside me. Reaches for my face with trembling hands.
When her fingers touch my cheek, the emotional wall between us—the one I've maintained so carefully since the soul-binding—shatters completely.
Everything pours through the connection.
Every hidden feeling. Every desperate thought I've swallowed down to give her space.
The depth of love that's been consuming me since the moment I touched her in the healing chambers and drowned in her pain.
The terror of losing her. The agonizing knowledge that I've hurt her so badly she might never forgive me.
All of it crashes between us with the force of breaking dams.
Serah gasps. Her amber-hazel eyes go wide as the full weight of my emotions floods through her awareness.
"Is this—" Her voice breaks. "Is this why I never felt pain? All those times you grabbed me in public and I never had bruises? What did you do?"
Blood bubbles up my throat when I try to speak. The words come out wet and broken. "Soul-binding. Ancient magic. I tied my life to yours during the mating ceremony."
"You what?"
"I hated it." The confession tears out of me.
"Hated not giving you a choice about mating.
Knew I did everything wrong. You were going to be hurt by others because I was waiting—waiting to ask you properly, to let you decide if you wanted me, to give you the choice I stole that night at the festival. "
My chest heaves. More blood. The pain is becoming abstract—too overwhelming to process as individual injuries. Just a vast ocean of suffering that the soul-binding keeps channeling into my flesh so Serah feels nothing.
"I didn't want our mating to be another trap," I continue desperately. "Didn't want you to feel owned or controlled or forced into anything ever again. So I bound my life to yours. All your pain comes to me instead. All your suffering. Even if it kills me, you'll never have to bear it."
She's crying now. Tears streak through the dust on her face. "Why would you do that?"
"Because I love you." The words come simple and devastating. "I love you so much it's destroying me. And I know you might never forgive me for how I humiliated you, but I needed you to have the choice about everything except staying alive. That's the one thing I'll never let you negotiate."
Her hands frame my face. Gentle despite how my blood covers her palms. "You're dying."
"Doesn't matter. You're safe. They won't touch you again. No one will touch you again."
"Rakk—"
"I'm glad they know." My vision is starting to gray at the edges. "Glad everyone saw my magic. Let them fear me. Let them understand that I'm not civilized when it comes to protecting you. If they think they can target my mate and live—"
"Stop talking." She leans closer. "Zurkar! Zurkar!"
The shaman pushes through the crowd with Lola right behind him. Kaelen appears at my side, his amber eyes wide with barely controlled panic that mirrors what I feel emanating from Serah through our broken connection.
"Get him to the healing chambers," Zurkar snaps. "Now. Before he bleeds out."
Kaelen slides his arms beneath my shoulders. The movement sends fresh agony through my destroyed ribs. I bite back a scream that wants to tear free.
"I've got you, brother." Kaelen's voice is steady despite the fear bleeding through his words. "Stay with me."
He lifts me with surprising gentleness for someone his size. My head lolls against his shoulder. The canyon spins overhead—firelight and stone and hundreds of watching faces that range from shocked to terrified to grudgingly impressed.
They saw everything. Saw the heir lose control completely. Saw magic that belongs in ancient legends rather than modern warrior clans. Saw me kill Korr and break three others beyond repair and reduce Drogath to something hollow and destroyed.
They know what I am now. Know that beneath the jokes and the charm and the carefully maintained facade of the jovial warrior beats something ancient and merciless.
Good.
Let them know. Let them fear me. As long as they understand that Serah is protected by power they can't comprehend or defend against.
Through the haze of approaching unconsciousness, I feel her hand grip mine. The soul-binding pulses between us—weakening as my life force drains away but still channeling her terror and confusion and something that feels dangerously close to forgiveness.
Or maybe I'm just hallucinating what I desperately want to feel.
"Stay awake," Serah demands. Her voice cracks. "Rakk, please. Stay with me."
I want to reassure her. Want to promise I'll be fine. Want to tell her that even dying is worth it if she's safe.
But the darkness is rising fast. Pulling me under despite how I fight to remain present for just a few more moments.
The last thing I register before unconsciousness claims me completely is Serah's hand tightening around mine and her broken whisper: "Don't you dare leave me now. Not when I finally understand."
Then nothing.