Chapter 19 Message in a Bond, oh
MESSAGE IN A BOND, OH
MURIEL
They were already moving when the bond blazed open for ten full seconds, and Muriel gasped.
Images. Not just emotions—actual information flooding through the connection at a rapid rate.
Brandon's exact location overlaid on her mental map like coordinates.
The cabin's layout as he understood it. Four kidnappers guarding him at all times.
The pattern of wards extending outward. Detection spells around the perimeter.
Everything she needed to find him.
Just that quickly, the cloak snapped back into place and left her reeling.
Well, that’s new.
She’d sensed general feelings and emotions through the bond before, but never a high-def stream of images and information like that. She’d have to ask Brandon about that later—once he was safe.
“He's two miles northeast,” Muriel said, her voice steadier than she felt. “In a mountain cabin built into the hillside. There are at least four men guarding him, more outside.”
Jason raised a dark brow. “You’re having visions?”
“Yes. No. I mean, I don’t think so. I think Brandon is communicating through the bond.”
Jason's dark eyes gleamed with approval in the moonlight. “Excellent. That gives us an advantage. Matt?”
The massive golden wolf huffed agreement. Around them, a dozen more wolves melted out of the shadows, silent as ghosts. Jessie’s beautiful sable wolf pressed close to Matt's flank, her eyes bright with predatory focus.
“Zarek and his males will approach from the south,” Jason said. “They’ll trip the wards at strategic intervals to create a distraction and draw them out. Matt's pack will circle from the north and east. They won’t be expecting wolves.”
“What about me?” Muriel asked.
“Find cover and stay hidden. You’ve been a tremendous help, but we’ll take it from here. Once we've secured Brandon, we'll signal and you can—”
“What? No!” she insisted, wondering where this sudden burst of courage was coming from. She avoided confrontations, not ran into them. “He might have more information to share. You need me.” He needs me.
“We need you alive,” Jason countered. “And we need the Codex protected. These aren't amateurs, Muriel. They're trained mercenaries who are counting on you to rush in there to save your mate. Do not forget that you are their true target.”
The words stung because they were true. Brandon had been taken because of her. The urge to protect him was fierce and overwhelming. If remaining out of sight was the best way to do that, she would.
That didn’t mean she was staying behind.
“I'll stay hidden,” she said, lifting her chin. “But I'm coming with you.”
Jason studied her, his black eyes calculating. Just when she was sure he was going to refuse her again, he nodded. “Fine. But you will do exactly as I say. If I say run, you run. Understood?”
“Understood.”
Just that quickly, they were moving.
They ran through the forest, and Muriel struggled to keep pace even with the Codex—now secured in a leather satchel across her body—lending her strength.
Jason moved like shadow, barely disturbing the undergrowth.
The wolves split off and disappeared to the left. Zarek and his men went to the right.
The cabin materialized exactly where Brandon's information had placed it. It was a weathered structure built against the mountain, taking advantage of the natural slope. The windows were dark. A single blacked-out vehicle was parked out front, barely distinguishable in the shadows.
The surrounding woods were quiet. Too quiet. No owls screeching. No crickets chirping. No rustling of leaves in the non-existent breeze.
They stopped just outside the wards, where the tingle of energy ghosted across her skin.
“Up,” Jason commanded softly, pointing to a massive oak twenty yards from the cabin's perimeter. “Stay hidden. Stay quiet.”
Muriel wanted to argue, but the tactical sense was sound. From that height, she'd have a clear view of what was happening. Watching helplessly while others fought the fight she’d brought to their door.
She climbed.
The oak welcomed her, its branches shifting to make the ascent easier. She settled into a fork thirty feet up, concealed by dense foliage, and watched Jason's hands move in complex patterns below. The wards shimmered, then dissolved.
Jason had magic?
With the wards gone, the air suddenly felt lighter. A gentle breeze caressed the leaves and lifted tendrils of her hair. Placing both hands on the branch, she closed her eyes and sent her senses outward. Down the tree. Into the soil.
Zarek and his men were to the south. The wolves were fanning out on silent paws, creating a barrier to the north and east. A sleuth of bears—bears?—had the west face of the mountain covered.
The cabin’s front door opened, and three men dressed head to toe in black walked out on the porch, weapons raised.
A shimmery form glided up the path toward the men. It was a woman—correction, the ghost of a woman—in a flowing white dress and silvery hair nearly touching the ground. Even non-corporeal, she was breathtaking. For a moment, the men stared as if in thrall.
A beat of stillness, then the specter was past the men, entering the cabin.
From the south, chaos erupted. The sounds of snarling and shouting rent the night.
Zarek and his team materialized from the shadows, along with half a dozen more men in black. The vampires moved with inhuman speed, but the Collectors were ready. Magic flared. Steel rang against steel.
Matt's wolves swept in from the north, a tide of fur and fangs, powerful and graceful. They hit the Collectors like a wave.
For a moment, it looked like it would be over in seconds.
Then the cabin's side door opened, and two more operatives emerged. These weren't foot soldiers—Muriel could see it in the way they moved. Powerful magic gathered around them, black and oily.
These weren’t simply mages, but sorcerers wielding dark magic.
One raised their hands, and purple light exploded outward in a concussive wave. Wolves yelped, thrown back by the force of the blast. Even Jessie tumbled, hitting hard.
“No,” Muriel breathed.
Jason engaged the second operative, his hands glowing with a purple light of his own.
Muriel blinked.
He was holding his own, but barely. And now Zarek's team was struggling, three operatives pressing them back with coordinated attacks that spoke of years working together.
Things had taken a turn for the worse.
One of the Collectors raised a hand toward the wolves, gathering magic. Muriel recognized the spell's signature from one of Brandon's grimoires—a binding that would freeze them in place, make them easy targets.
No.
The Codex blazed hot against her back. The oak beneath her thrummed with power. And Muriel suddenly felt it—the network of roots beneath the cabin, spreading through the hillside like veins. The trees surrounding the clearing. The earth itself, wild and eager and waiting for her to ask.
She'd been sheltered. Protected. Afraid. Letting others fight her battles for her.
No more.
Her mate was in that basement.
These people had hurt him.
Muriel pressed her palms to the oak's trunk and called.
The forest roared in response.
Roots erupted from the earth like serpents, wrapping around the caster’s ankles. He went down hard, his binding spell sputtering out. Vines shot from the tree line, fast as whips, entangling another mercenary's arms. Above her, storm clouds gathered and lightning flashed.
Jason's head snapped up, finding her in the tree. His eyes widened.
Muriel didn't stop. She could feel the magic sliding into place like pieces of a precision puzzle, coming together perfectly as the elements answered her call. The Codex fed her knowledge, showed her how to shape the magic, how to command instead of request.
More vines. Roots violently shifting beneath feet, tossing the Collectors onto their butts. Branches sweeping down like clubs when they tried to get back to their feet. The forest itself fighting alongside the vampires and shifters, wanting to help.
The mercenaries who'd thrown spells at the wolves scrambled backward, but the ground beneath them turned to mud, trapping their feet. They sank to their knees, cursing.
The silvery form of the spirit shot out of the chimney and floated over to Muriel. Muriel stared into fathomless black eyes, made even blacker by the radiance of the specter.
“Muriel?” the ghostly female asked, her voice like icy chimes, at once beautiful and cold. When Muriel nodded, she said, “I’m Marcella. Brandon is in the basement. They have suppressor cuffs on him. Jason awaits you at the window to the west.”
Muriel dropped from the tree before the ghost finished speaking, her descent controlled by branches that lowered her like a lift. Her feet hit the ground running.
Jason met her at the cabin's west side, where a small window sat at ground level, reinforced with old iron bars.
“Can you—” Jason started.
Muriel was already kneeling, hands pressed to the earth. The ground buckled and the iron bars groaned, bending outward.
It was enough. Jason kicked the window in, and Muriel didn’t think twice about diving in.
The drop was only six feet—the root cellar built into the hillside, partially underground but with one wall at ground level. Muriel landed on packed earth.
Brandon was tied to a support post, blood on his face, but his eyes were sharp and aware and brilliantly aquamarine.
“Thought you’d never get here,” he said weakly, but he was smiling.
She was across the space in seconds, hands going to his face, checking the damage. Split lip. Swollen eye. Bruised jaw. Ribs that made him hiss when she touched them. “Can you walk?”
“Once you get these cuffs off, yeah.” He nodded toward his wrists. “I've been working on them for hours. They're almost broken.”
Jason landed beside her, moving to examine the suppressants. “Clever. You've been channeling natural magic through the gaps.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not like I had anything better to do.”
Muriel knelt beside Brandon, and the Codex pulsed as if happy to see him. She suddenly knew what to do. She could see the framework he'd been weakening, see exactly where to apply pressure.
She pressed her palms to the cuffs, and her magic crushed what was left.
The metal crumbled.
Brandon sucked in a breath as his power flooded back, green light flaring around his hands. “Oh, that's much better.”
“Can you stand?” Jason was already cutting the ropes.
Brandon pushed to his feet, swaying slightly. Muriel caught his arm, and through the bond she felt his pain—but also his stubborn refusal to show weakness.
Above them, the sounds of fighting intensified. A wolf's pained yelp made Muriel's stomach drop.
“They're getting pushed back,” she said.
Brandon's jaw tightened. “Then let's help them, shall we?” He looked at her, and something passed between them—determination, understanding, and that pull she'd been fighting since they met. “Together?”
“Together.”
They climbed out of the root cellar, Jason boosting them up.
Muriel emerged to find the battle had shifted—Zarek's team was holding but barely, two vampires injured. The wolves were regrouping, but the Collectors’ leader—Medraut, Brandon's memories supplied—was casting a spell that made the air crackle with power.
“Muriel,” Brandon said quietly. “Can you feel the ley lines?”
She could. Beneath the mountain, they ran like rivers of molten gold.
“Yes.”
“Good. Because I'm going to show you something my great-however-many-times grandfather figured out.” Brandon's hands moved, pulling power, and Muriel felt it—his magic reaching for the same sources hers did. Natural magic. Primal magic.
“Our magic is the same,” she breathed.
“Almost exactly. Which means...” He grinned, fierce and sharp. “We can pool it.”
He showed her how. Not with words but through the bond, the connection blazing bright as he opened himself completely to her. She felt his magic like an extension of her own, felt how it moved and flowed and answered the same call.
Muriel reached for the ley lines. Brandon reached with her.
Together, they pulled.
The mountain moved.
The cabin behind them shuddered, and part of the hillside began to slide, slowly at first, then faster.
“Fall back!” Medraut shouted. “Retreat!”
But there was nowhere to go. The forest had come alive around them, and Muriel and Brandon were its voice.
Within minutes, it was over.
Collectors were on their knees, bound by rope and root and vampire restraints. Medraut’s cold eyes found Muriel's, brimming with hate and madness, and he smiled.
“This isn't finished, Keeper. The Consilium knows what you have. They'll never stop—”
Brandon swung, connecting his fist with Medraut’s jaw.
“Let them try,” Brandon said. His hand found Muriel's, their fingers lacing together. Green light flickered between their joined palms—his magic and hers, intertwined.
Matt shifted back to human form, grinning. “Remind me never to piss off an earth witch.”
“Elementals,” Jason corrected, looking between Brandon and Muriel with something like awe.
“You good?” Jason asked.
“Good enough.”
Jason tossed him a set of keys. “There’s a car parked about a hundred yards out. Head back to the estate. We’ll clean up here and meet you back there.”
She wasn’t going to argue with that. Muriel snatched the keys out of Brandon’s hands. “I’ll drive. You rest.” She tugged him toward where Jason's car waited beyond the tree line.
To her surprise, he went.
As they walked away from the cabin—now partially collapsed, the hillside unstable, the Collectors trussed up for Zarek's team to transport—Muriel felt the adrenaline start to fade. In its place was a new power. Not wild surges she couldn't control, but deliberate and focused.
“Have you ever done that before?” Muriel asked.
“What? Get kidnapped? Unfortunately, no, not my first abduction.”
Muriel frowned. That was something else to talk about—later. “No, I meant pooling magic like that.”
Eyes closed, head leaning back, he smiled. “No. You’re my first.”
“Is that a mate bond thing?”
“I don't know,” he answered. “I've never had a mate before either.”
The bond hummed between them, stronger than ever, as if it had been forged in fire.
Muriel hadn’t forgiven him completely for not telling her about the mate bond, but that was no longer forefront in her mind.
They'd need to talk about that, once he was healed and they'd both had time to think.
But right now, with his fingers wrapped around hers and the memory of their combined magic still singing through her veins, Muriel felt only relief.
He was okay. They'd fought together. And the Collectors had learned exactly what happened when they threatened her mate.
Everything else could wait.