The silence screams back at me.
I can't process what I'm seeing—my family—my powerful, immortal family—reduced to death, lay scattered across our home. The Christmas tree lies toppled on its side, ornaments shattered across the floor, yet somehow its lights still twinkle stubbornly, casting colored shadows across pools of blood.
I reach deep for my light. Golden sparks dance weakly across bloodied palms—
Morgan's head snaps toward me, nostrils flaring. "Caput percutite!" she snarls.
My head slams backward. Skull meets marble with a sickening crunch. White-hot agony obliterates thought. Fresh blood drips down my neck as Christmas morning fragments into spinning shards.
The light within me gutters like a candle in a hurricane. Each throb scatters my focus, power slipping through numb fingers.
Morgan chants ancient syllables that darken the air. Frost crystallizes on broken ornaments and pooling blood. Shadows in corners lengthen, reaching hungry fingers across the floor.
"Stop," I rasp through blood-slick lips.
Rhyland's torment hammers through our bond, shorting out coherent thought. I taste his pain, feel his terror—our connection transmitting every nuance directly into my soul.
"Vinculum amoris disrumpere," she intones, voice resonating at frequencies that make my teeth vibrate. "Animas separare!"
My blood betrays me, answering Morgan's call. It seeps through my skin—not flowing but floating—crimson beads rising from my pores like macabre dew. The droplets hover, suspended in the air around me as her chanting intensifies.
But it's not just blood she's stealing. With each scarlet sphere that pulls free, I feel Rhyland's essence being extracted—the part of him that lives in me, that merged with my very cells when we bonded. His power, his immortality, the fragments of his soul that became mine.
The connection between us unravels strand by strand. Each droplet that joins the crimson cloud carries away another memory, another piece of what makes us one. My veins burn hollow as they empty, my mate bond hemorrhaging into the air around me.
My body lifts inches off the floor, suspended in Morgan's invisible grip as she harvests what was never hers to take. The blood orbits me in a grotesque constellation, each droplet pulsing with Rhyland's stolen essence. My vision dims at the edges, the void inside me expanding as Morgan strips away not just my life, but the foundation of who I've become.
Something tears inside my chest. The mate bond stretches taut, thinning visibly. I scream as invisible hands pull at that sacred connection. The agony transcends understanding—my essence extracted through my sternum, one cell at a time.
No. No. No.
"Don't," I choke, feeling something fundamental fracture inside me.
Rhyland's pain fades like a radio losing signal. The blessed warmth of his presence recedes with each syllable. My soul reaches desperately across the widening chasm, grasping at dissolving threads.
"Rhyland!" His name tears from my throat.
Blood streaks marble as he drags himself toward Morgan, fingernails splitting against stone. His Christmas pajamas—little lightning bolts I'd bought as a joke—now soaked in blood.
"Animae tuae non amplius ligatae!" Morgan's voice cracks like a whip. "Fractae et separatae!"
Our bond shatters like struck crystal. A thousand razor-sharp pieces slice through my chest. The following emptiness is absolute—a void where Rhyland's presence should be.
My sobs echo off marble—animal sounds from a creature mortally wounded. So fucking empty. Hollowed out where a soul used to be.
"Mens dominari," Morgan purrs, fingers weaving patterns that dance before shattering.
Rhyland jerks upright, movements disjointed. His ocean-blue eyes go vacant. My proud warrior becomes a marionette responding to Morgan's will.
I thrash against invisible bonds, blood soaking my Christmas pajamas. The engagement ring catches light, a cruel reminder of promises now hanging by threads.
"NO!" The word emerges garbled through blood and tears.
His feet drag across marble, leaving smeared bloody footprints. His hand twitches—one final rebellion—before they disappear through the shattered doorway.
Christmas snow swirls in, settling on abandoned presents and pooling blood like a mockery of the perfect morning that had been ours moments before.
Sulfurous smoke erupts before me, acrid and biting. My nostrils burn as Brax materializes, his monstrous form solidifying from darkness as he gently sets Emily down. The transition from demon smoke to his hulking ten-foot charred form is instant—obsidian skin cracked with glowing embers, horns curving from his skull.
