Page 101 of A Bond So Deadly

Raith groans, blinking up at me. “Did we win?”

“Got our asses handed to us,” Thane replies.

Raith grimaces. “Figured. Sorry, I thought I was bein’ careful, but Krosia fuckin’ found me while I was out there.”

“She was already suspicious,” Galen says. “It was only a matter of time.”

I run my fingers through Raith’s hair. “I shouldn’t have asked you to stay out there.”

“You didn’t,” he rumbles. “I volunteered.”

“None of that matters,” Thane comments. “At least, we’re alive.”

Shadows gather close to us, and Knox appears from a pathway, his face a mask of stone.

Thane looks up. “The barrier?”

“Sealed tight,” Knox replies. “There’s no way out.”

My shoulders droop. “This is all my fault. If I hadn’t bonded with Elgen and Tarlaz in the first place, Queen Krosia wouldn’t know about them.”

Galen rests a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t do that, treasure. None of us knew what the queen was searching for, or the truth about the oracle. This isn’t your fault.”

I struggle to believe that. If I hadn’t meddled with the shadows, Elgen and Tarlaz, Queen Krosia still wouldn’t know where they were. The oracle sacrificed themself to stop Queen Krosia from taking their power, and now she has them. I hope Elgen and Tarlaz are all right… Dread coils in my gut as I think about what I’ve unleashed on the realms. I try to tell myself that maybe the oracle had it wrong. That maybe Queen Krosia will use her new power for good, but I don’t really believe that.

“We need to prepare the students,” I say to my mates. “We have no idea how long it will be until the Xalgrith attack.”

“What we need is to find a way to make you stronger, sunshine,” Raith counters.

“He’s right,” Galen agrees. “We need to strengthen your abilities if you’re going to survive what comes next. You heard Krosia. We’re on our own.”

“Maybe when the Xalgrith come we can just explain that Queen Krosia has the power? Then they might leave us alone,” I say optimistically.

“We’ll only be able to communicate with the Xalgrith after the barrier comes down,” Galen points out.

“But I can talk to my animali?” I question.

Galen nods. “That’s different. We’re able to speak to our animali because of our bonds.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Thane growls. “Even if we could talk to the Xalgrith through the barrier, it’s unlikely that they would take our word for it and leave us alone.”

I sigh heavily. Of course, they wouldn’t. King Malgur wants the oracle’s power just as desperately as Queen Krosia did, and he detected the magic on me. The Xalgrith wouldn’t leave until they were sure I didn’t have it.

I swallow thickly. “They’re only after me. Maybe if you give me to the Xalgrith, the king will spare the rest of you,” I suggest, though even saying it makes me feel ill.

“Over my dead body, tiny mate,” Raith rumbles, his voice more monster than man. He shakes his head, regaining control.

“What he said,” Galen agrees, giving me a stubborn look.

“Besides, the Xalgrith would still kill us all,” Thane says. “This is the academy that trains Queen Krosia’s shadow warriors. If they find us vulnerable, there’s no way they’ll leave it standing.”

“Okay, so what do we do then?” I ask.

“The only thing we can do,” Thane rumbles. “We fight.”

My stomach drops as I think of the vast Xalgrith army. How long would we last after the barrier fell? Hours?

Knox turns from the blackened wall where the bookshelf used to be, and he faces us. “What we really need is to make you immortal, but there are two beings who can do that—the oracle and Krosia—and neither of them are here. So if we can’t make you immortal, then we do the next best thing. We bond.”