Page 36 of Tethered Fates

“Only once complete, shall the raven’s call be known.”

The silence in the room is thick enough to choke on.

Bran’s manic smile grows. “Haven’t any of you thought it was strange that most immortals go their whole lives never finding their soulmate? Yet yours just appear in your lap?” Bran asks, like a little kid finally able to say the secret he’s successfully hidden.

I tug onto my connection with Teagan again and again. Every breath sharp and shallow.

“Two thousand years it took to bring all your soulmates together with nothing but the prophecy from a crazed light mage who was powerful in foresight,” he tells us, opening his arms wide as if revealing a magic trick. “But it worked, and here we all are.”

“Did you know all this time Apollo wasn’t dead?” Vidar snarls. “Did you know we buried him alive?”

Dark amusement flashes across Bran’s face, and it sickens me. If Rurik ever found out…

“You will all find and claim your soulmates,” Bran orders with the same gravity that once convinced a village that he was a living god, “because I demand what is owed to me.”

“And what—” I bite out, filled with a seething rage that we’ve been tricked. That our lives, our soulmates’ lives have been manipulated for this fucking lunatic. “—are you owed?”

The morning sun rises higher, and Bran becomes nothing but a shadow outlined in a blaze. His eyes crimson, his teeth bone white.

“My. Soulmate.”

Chapter Fourteen - Teagan

Vidar holds Kai’s face between his tattooed palms. It’s ridiculous the way they gaze at each other, like nothing would keep them apart and damn anyone who tried.

It’s ridiculous that I’m jealous.

Sen prowls into the room, and my whole world narrows to a single point—him.

Maybe some forgotten instinct should’ve woken up and screamed ‘vampire’ when I first met him standing half out of his sleek car. But I didn’t care that there was a lethal, hungry edge to the way he scanned me over.

Or maybe it only intrigued me more.

Now, as he stares me down, there’s no mistaking what he is. It’s written in every sharp, alluring line of his face. My hands itch to capture this feeling, to poke and prod until I understand. To be covered in all his decadent colours.

It’s fucking weird to want him so badly. If my dick could get hard, I’d be rock solid.

Sen stops dead, then breathes, “You’re awake,” like a sigh of relief.

I don’t know how to react, so I stay silent.

Sen moves closer, but I scramble up the sheets until my back hits the headboard. He halts, chiselled jaw ticking, and plants himself at the foot of the bed.

“Good to see you’re okay, Teagan,” Vidar tells me once he’s stopped mooning all over my brother.

I glare at him. Kai is a vampire because of Vidar. Was hurt because of Vidar. I have no plans to forgive him. Vidar only offers a half-smile in return, which makes me glare harder.

“As interesting as this is,” the silver-eyed man remarks, “I’ll go join the others in the kitchen.”

“Thank you, Grey,” Sen says, nodding to the silver-eyed man who winks in return before leaving, passing two men I only now notice. One who looks annoyed with his arms crossed, the other…

He slinks inside, and at first glance, he’s an average white dude with messy brown hair. But his presence is as apparent as when Summer pressed a blade against my arm.

Sen and Vidar stand taller, their muscles bulging.

“Aren’t we all just one big happy family?” he drawls in a lilting Welsh accent.

Vidar pulls away from Kai, hunting gaze locked on every move the other man makes.