Page 108 of Tethered Fates

‘At least it’s not Teagan.’ An awful thought.

But at least he was safe, whole, alive.

Then I watched my brave boy break from Summer’s spell and fall into the shining end of her dagger.

Felt the snap of our connection breaking. Of Teagan…going away.

Worse than a broken nose, leg, or every bone in my body.

Summer screams in agony.

There’s a sudden bright light. She drops the Blood Mage Tome, her spells with it as the demon doorway flares like a bonfire—bright red and ugly—before she’s sucked in. Vanishing. The doorway burning out of existence.

Gone.

Gone.

Oh my god, Teagan. Our bond.

Gone.

The animalistic, guttural noise that splinters from Kai sounds like he’s dying.

I sprint to Teagan’s fallen body, collapse beside him, reaching for our bond—Oh god, it’s gone—to find his chest is now just a broken, empty cavity.

“No, no, nononono.” Desperately, I rip out a chunk of flesh at my wrist, spit it on the ground, and cup his soft cheek to pour my blood into his slack mouth. “Come back to me. Teagan. C’mon, sweetheart. C’mon. Please. Please. Please.”

I wait for him to call me slick. To make fun of my stamp collection. He should be bobbing along to ABBA, eyes sparkling.

“Teagan,” I say his name like a stern, desperate order. “C—” My voice cracks. “Come back!”

Kai won’t stop screaming. He clings to Teagan, clawing at him like he’s willing to rip Teagan open further if it means he’ll find his soul to bring him back.

But nothing we’re doing is working.

The bond is gone.

Snapped clean when everything about this is anything but. Teagan can’t be taken from this world that he loves so much while Summer dares to live.

“TEAGAN!” I cry, my tears dropping on his cheeks, his forehead, his mouth. “Come back to me. You have to come back to me. We have so much life to live. Come back. COME BACK!”

But a vampire can’t bring back the dead.

I’m pushed away hard enough that I fall. Bran kneels beside Teagan, holding onto the First Blood Mage Tome that Summer dropped, a spellbook that burns anyone who touches it, but for some reason leaves him unharmed.

“You will not deny me my destiny,” Bran tells Teagan, voice as sharp as the dagger that pierced his chest. “Elio, over here. Now.”

“What are you doing?” I demand. “Bran!” I shout when he says nothing as he quickly flips through the spellbook pages that should be eating away at his fingers like acid.

Elio scrambles over, dropping down as Bran sets the large tome in front of him. “I can’t fix this.”

Bran levels him with a look that could peel skin from bone. “Only an untainted blood mage can heal, and that is a healing spell.” Bran stops searching through pages, apparently finding the one he was looking for and jabs his finger between swirling red runes. “And you will perform it, Elio.”

“B-but he’s dead—”

“If you do not, I will make you suffer in unimaginable ways.” Bran’s voice leaves no room for argument.

Elio trembles.