He scrambled to twist his body, dread searing through him while he prayed to any being who would listen that he hadn’t actually just heard that husking voicehere.
“Where are you? Please!”
He couldn’t see a damned thing, but he could hear her clear as day—ragged, pained, begging.
“No, no, no!” His muscles bunched and strained, the chains carving into his bones as he thrashed, but he didn’t feel it.
His little moon was here somewhere, needed him, and he was fucking useless.
“Shh, Luna,” Brand crooned, trying to soothe her, wherever she was. “It’s okay. You’re okay. I’ll find you.”
He didn’t see his captor’s flying hand—only knew he’d been struck when agony splintered across his face as she shattered his cheekbone.
The pain was nothing compared to Luna’s tortured wails in answer.
“If you can forget me so easily, then you should have no trouble forgetting the fickle tart who left you like all the others,” the bitch hissed, her voice like glass crunching beneath his boots. “You should be thanking me for doing you the favor of removing her, before she could taint you further.”
He was too enraged to be confused, to care about the discomfort. “I will fucking slaughter you!” he roared to the ceiling, spots dancing in his vision to mix with the faintest tint of red.
A link in the chains gave the tiniest bit, creaking as he flexed. He couldn’t let this creature live. Couldn’t let her hurt Luna more than she already had.
“My, my. Youarestrong. Just as I’d hoped.” With a snap of her fingers, his shackles healed themselves.
“No, no, no. Okthana, please!”
Brand wasn’t sure which of them was more astonished when the name left his lips—a name he didn’t know, but did.The deep-seated awareness had just burst from inside of him, but why?Why?
“Oh… you do remember.” The tears in her eyes sickened him. “Good.Good.Then we have work to do—starting with reminding you of our purpose.”
Brand didn’t have time to loose the colorful response crawling up his throat before writhing shadows leapt from the chains to engulf his face, forcing their way up his nostrils and down his throat. Suffocating him. Eating him alive.
He had just enough time to watch her dissipate into a dark mist before he was lost.
All he knew, for a long while after, was black and the sound of Luna’s screaming and sobbing.
Darkness and dread shrouded her,holding her below the surface of waking. They locked her within and denied her the satisfaction of unleashing her screams upon the realms. She tried to rouse herself enough to set them free, but he was too strong. Too connected.
Instead, she loosed them inside along with her tears as she searched the invisible places of the world for her other half.
Every lash. Every bruise and break. Every bellow. She felt them as if they were her own.
They were, in a way. His heart was hers, after all, and hers was his—which meant his agony belonged to her, as well.
Shitting stars, what agony it was.
Their internal weeping and wailing wove together, a silent symphony of pain shared.
It should have helped—should have bolstered them to know the other was alive and they weren’t alone—but ithurt. His torment forced her to sink, deeper and deeper. There, the sounds and feelings painted a picture that was the stuff of nightmares. Assaulted her, drowned her, owned her.
Over and over, she clawed her way upwards—towards light and air and living, where she might be able todosomething—just to be wrenched backwards when fresh cruelty was visited upon his mind and body.
Back and forth she went, locked within the blacks and greys of his torture and her own survival.
When his suffering finally eased—when the onslaught disappeared from their eternal bond, and she felt his peace—she should’ve been comforted. Except, that peace drifted away to nothing. Little-by-little, bit-by-bit, until the day she could no longer feel him at all.
That was the first day she finally heard something other than the sound of their shared anguish.
Conversations bled together in a warped cacophony around her and she latched onto them, hoarding every piece she snatched from the confusion.
