Chapter 7 #3
He hesitates, then nods as he snaps at the bartender behind me, “Leave us.”
The bartender flees the room.
“Yeah,” Reck sneers at his brothers. “Your duplicitous bond is back. Looking perfectly whole and completely free to do whatever the fuck she wants, like always.”
Rath takes another step back, as if clearing space for whatever he sees in my gaze. Rought stands shoulder to shoulder with him. They cross their arms, widen their stances, and settle in to wait.
I return my attention to Reck.
He sways on his feet, altered enough by the mage brew he’s consumed that he’s unsteady.
His dark-eyed gaze, not even a hint of the cu-sith in his eyes, flicks to the soul bonds in my hand, then back to me.
Silence stretches between us, tight and loaded with everything we’re never going to actually say to each other.
“What the fuck, Zaya?” he finally snaps, unease threading through his ever-present anger. Well, it’s ever-present around me.
And I know the why of that now. Why he hates me, seemingly loathing the mere idea of me. I’m holding that why in the palm of my hand.
“You want to punish me?” he snarls, opening his arms wide. “Fine. I’ll take it. Like I always do. Then everyone else can fawn all over you, like they —”
“You used to call me Larkspur,” I say numbly.
His gaze flicks again to the severed soul bonds. He takes an unsteady breath, shaking his head as if trying to clear some of his instinctive anger from it.
The two of us will never move forward with these severed bonds between us — literally and figuratively. It might not be possible to move forward at all. Not together, at least. But I know we won’t have any chance until what should have been is gone forever. For both of us.
“Yes,” he finally rasps. “You … you remember?”
“No,” I say, still steady. “And I never will.”
He shakes his head, gaze flicking again to the soul bonds, then back at me.
“Larkspur …” I whisper. “Because of the color of my eyes?”
“Yes.”
“My eyes aren’t that color anymore.”
His chest heaves. “Zaya …”
Pulling the severed bonds closer to my chest, I peer into them again, even though I now know what I’ll see.
I already know what image will tumble to the forefront, called forth by hopes and dreams I never knew I had.
“We had plans. The four of us, yes. But also … just you and me, Carlos. Places we wanted to visit, trips we wanted to take. Dozens of years to spend with each other.”
“Please don’t …” Reck lifts his hands as if ready to plead with me. Then he catches himself, clenching those hands into fists at his sides instead. “What good is this? You want to hurt me? I can’t be more destroyed than I already fucking am.”
“I think you can. I know I have been.”
“What is that?” he asks finally. Shakily. Staring at the soul bonds now.
“Does it feel like it belongs to you?” I ask. “Because it feels like it’s mine.”
He nods, the motion seemingly on the edge of unhinged.
“The armoire opened?” Rath says quietly.
“It did.” I try to smile at him over Reck’s shoulder but only manage a grimace.
“Fuck,” Rought mutters, running a hand through his hair. “Fuck, fuck.”
“Enlighten me,” Reck says, trying to regain some of his edge.
“You brought your father back to the intersection point that night,” I say.
“I didn’t,” Reck says. “He must have followed me, but … you should have been safe there! We all should have been safe there.”
“Except Oso was Disa’s soul-bound mate,” Rath says.
I swallow, offering a slight nod to acknowledge his conclusion.
“And after I died …” I look down at the soul bonds, vibrant but inert.
Then with a mere thought, I allow them to fall open in my hands, releasing them.
They drape across my raised palms, entwined.
All four ends appear cleanly snipped, not torn free. “Disa took our soul bonds.”
Reck looks from the bonds in my hands to me. He’s utterly overwhelmed now, utterly undone. “Larkspur …”
“No longer,” I whisper. “I’m no longer the girl, the woman in this future. A future carved from the essence of the universe. Do you want to know what else your actions forced Disa to take from us?”
I understand I’m not being fair, not being as clear as I can be. But I’m struggling myself, struggling to move through, move past this moment. I know I need to bring him with me, somehow, even if it’s just to finally acknowledge all that has been destroyed between us.
Reck shakes his head. “No, love … no … I … can’t …”
I step toward him, the bonds still slung across the palms of my hands. The ends drag on the floor, completely lifeless. “Do you want to know what will never now exist?”
Reck slowly, inexorably, collapses to his knees, torso upright, head thrown back. He squeezes his eyes closed and takes a shuddering breath.
I wait, my heart and soul numb. Though I know this moment will embed deeply within me. I know I’ll never shake this loss, never mend the hole this knowledge will leave in my soul. And I’m forcing that on Reck too, following some innate instinct to do so.
Perhaps this is the same process by which Bellamy’s threads of fate, of life force, had to be debrided for Presh to help heal her soul.
Reck opens his red-rimmed eyes. He hasn’t shaved in days.
He’s lost weight that I’m not certain he can afford to lose, not with a beast such as the cu-sith as his other half.
“Tell me, then. I’m tired of walking around mortally wounded.
So … so tired of … not having you. Not having my soul-bound mates.
My universe-gifted family.” Tears slide down his cheeks.
An answering wetness pools in my eyes, hot and painful.
He already knows.
“Children?” he rasps. “How many? We talked for hours that last summer together, of traveling, then settling back in Vancouver in one of your uncles’ empty houses. Of … two children.”
“A girl,” I say, struggling to get words rather than sobs out. “With dark-gold curls, sun-kissed skin, and the sweetest singing voice.”
Rought takes a shuddering breath. Rath presses his hand against his mouth, as if stifling a moan … or a sob.
I keep my gaze on Reck. This is for him and me to get through. For right now, at least. “And a dark-haired boy, tall, with the widest smile.”
“Both with purple eyes,” Reck says. “Powerful because their mother was destined to be the next Conduit. But we had decades … decades to love and learn …” He shudders again, grief stealing his voice.
I look down at the severed soul bonds. I look into them — just for one more glimpse of the children of my blood, the souls that were to be mine to love and protect, to nurture. To bind the four of us together throughout time. A genetic connection that would outlast even our long lives.
Then I let it all go.
The bonds tumble from my hands, beginning to fade back into the aether the moment I release them.
Reck shouts, lunging forward and falling onto his elbows as if he might actually catch them.
Their inert energy dissipates over his hands.
He sobs — a terrible, grief-filled cry. Then he goes still.
The door behind me crashes open. Presh, DeVille, Gigi, and Coda tumble through it, but their entrance is suddenly stilled as they take in the room.
I step back from Reck, who remains bowed before me, head down.
He grabs for me, cinching his fingers tightly around my ankle. “Tell me we can fix it, remake it. I’ll do anything. Anything for even a hint of that future we dreamed of.” He looks up at me then, prostrate at my feet.
I look at Rought and Rath, both similarly devastated. Another tear snakes down my cheek, and I speak to all of them as clearly as possible. “The Conduit doesn’t get that sort of life. Doesn’t get to bear children. It’s … it’s too much power, I think. I’m … I’m not quite human anymore.”
Rought nods. Though we haven’t discussed it in detail, this isn’t news to him.
Rath takes a deep breath, firming his stance. I wait, ready for him to reject me now. I’ll survive it. It will hurt, even though we haven’t completed our bond — the bond the celestial dragon must be holding for us — but I’ll survive. I always do.
“We build our family,” Rath says, pausing as if he’s run the words in his head but wants to make certain he gets them out properly.
“That’s what we did before, the four of us.
Moment by stolen moment together.” He tips his chin toward the small crowd of people waiting for me at the door.
“We still have our decades together, Zaya. We’ll just make new plans. Together.”
I hold his gaze, listening to the promise — and the challenge — threaded through his words. Then I wipe the remaining tears from my face, smile, and nod.
He nods back, though he doesn’t have a smile for me. Not yet.
I twist my ankle out of Reck’s hold, though he lets me go easily.
“Tell me what to do,” he whispers. “I’ll do it. I’ll do any —”
“Just give me space, Reck. Time. I really don’t want to see your face right now. The echo of it on the dark-haired boy who was supposed to be mine, ours, is painful enough in my memory.”
He takes a shaky breath, clenching his hands into fists and pressing them to his chest over his heart. Fighting through his own grief — and so he doesn’t reach for me again, I think.
I turn to Presh and the others, opening my arms because I need them all right now. A distraction and …. a respite. I manage two steps before the young awry is within my grasp and holding me fiercely.
“I was so worried,” Presh gasps, looking up at me but not letting me go. “I knew … I knew you’d be okay, but …”
“Okay is an overstatement right now,” I say, unsteady as I feel more of the numbness wear off. It was the right choice, I think, to acknowledge and release the bond. But the grief lingers, soul deep. “But being back with you will help.”
She nods. Then she rises up on her tiptoes and whispers in my ear, “The Outcast has Bellamy locked up.”
I huff a laugh. “And you’d like me to do something about it?”