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She lunges, slamming against the bars of the gate, straining and reaching with a desperation that breaks my heart. I push forward, intending to run to her, but I can’t. An invisible wall prevents me from separating the distance between us. A glance over my shoulder exposes an endless dark void. It goes on forever, stretching into eternity in every direction.
I’m… trapped. Caged. I can’t look away from that ominous black nothingness.
Will I never escape? Will I spend my entire life longing for the taste of freedom and safety?
Helpless, exhausted I spin back around, searching for the loving gaze of my Mother. When her eyes lock with mine, a mutual understanding passes between us like a jolt of electricity. There’s a single, desolate moment when my pain is reflected back at me in eyes identical to my own.
My body sags on a sob. Mother shakes her head furiously, denying our reality. Denying what we both know to be true.
We’re trapped, and as much as we wish it, love alone won’t break us free.
Mother’s face twists in anger. She bares her teeth in a soundless snarl of rage, slamming her fists into the bars over and over and over until her skin splits and bruises bloom.
She sobs, hanging her head in defeat. When she lifts her head, the pain I expect to see isn’t there. Instead, her eyes burn as bright as her hair. The fire of fury rages hotter than the fire still greedily consuming the world behind her.
Her fists clench. Her body tenses. Her face hardens with anger and determination right before she opens her mouth, and screams.
It’s silent and endless and full of hopeless rage. The longer she screams, the harder I cry. I watch for what feels like forever, sure she’ll fall to the ground in exhaustion any moment.
She doesn’t. Her scream goes on and on, silent yet somehow so loud I have to cover my ears. Her back bows and her mouth widens. Strands of hair made of flame burn brighter and higher, spinning and twisting and whipping around her head. Furious, angry sparks split from the strands, arcing wildly through the air like a living manifestation of her rage.
“Mother!” My throat aches, the silent plea ripping past already strained vocal cords.
She doesn’t hear me, too lost to her rage.
Her lips part. My eyes widen in horror as her mouth opens wider. It stretches and expands unnaturally, like something out of a nightmare. The flames give voice to her silent screams with a keening wail of pain that fire shouldn’t be able to make.
The louder the flames scream, the more her mouth and throat morph until nothing remains of her face but a gaping maw of fire and ash.
At that moment, I know. Whatever she was trying so desperately to reach…
It’s already too late.
Chapter 16
Caelan
My tires crunch over gravel as I creep down a dirt road a mile South of the Varenthrall Estate.
I’m actually getting used to the sensation of something crawling under my skin every time I get near the estate. It’s a creeping, skin-prickling itch I can’t shake.
It’s not the property, or even my vicinity to it, that has me to shutting the pack Bond down tight. It’s the silver pool in my chest. The one connecting me to Idril.
It’s a living, breathing entity that warms further as I erase the miles between us.
On the drive here, it swirled frantically, pulling at me with eagerness, like it couldn’t get to her fast enough.
I don’t know why. Bonds don’t do this. They’re not sentient.
Unfortunatly, despite the hours I’ve spent searching, reading, googling and questioning discreetly I’m still just as ignorant as I first was days ago. There’s one thing I know for sure, and that one piece of knowledge is a double-edged sword that I’m terrified to touch.
This Bond makes Idril mine. My Fated Mate.
That fact is the singular most important thing I know, but it also happens to be the one thing I still have no way to prove.
Essentially, I’m as fucked now as I was the moment I realized what it meant.
“You good, brother?” Dax’s voice crackles in my ear as I walk through the forest toward Varenthra’lls property.
