I waketo pounding at Luca’s door. Marcus is up in an instant, scribe raised.
“Juniper! Junes, it’s Simon. He’s gone!” Cassian shouts through the door, and I fling myself out of bed and in front of Marcus, dashing to pull the door open.
Marcus growls at my recklessness but when Cassian crashes into Luca’s dorm room, that’s all forgotten.
Because Cassian is in agony. Chest heaving, he clutches at his head and rasps out just two words.
“Our bond.”
Saints above, Simon is suffering, and Cassian is feeling every agonizing second of it through his mating bond.
My phone rings from the bed and Luca snatches it up. “Unknown number?”
I grab the phone and swipe it open.
Screams pour through the tiny speakers. “Juniper! No!” Simon howls with pain. “Don’t listen to him!”
Rad’s voice cuts in, as calm as if the beta I love wasn’t screaming in the background behind him. “I warned you I was done being lenient, beloved.”
The call cuts off and my world upends.
Cassian lets out a ragged cry and falls to the ground, clutching his heart.
“I heard chimes,” Luca says. “Saints! Rad has him in the old temple!”
I grab my scribe off Luca’s desk, but Marcus grabs me by the shoulder, making me stumble backwards.
He turns me and I look up into his eyes, fire in my own. “Don’t make me stun you,” I beg.
“You’re running straight into danger,” he growls. “You have no idea what you’re running into. He could have dozens of Soldiers waiting for you.”
“It’s just Rad. This is personal. This is aboutme.” Somehow I know that this fight is between me and the alpha alone, that he’s taken Simon to make me behave, just as he threatened to. “You have to let me go to him. If you trust me in nothing else, trust me in this. Go. Get Doc and Ian and meet us at the old temple. Please, Marcus. Please help me save the man I love.”
Marcus searches my eyes and understands what I’ve left unsaid. That this battle against Rad is mine and mine alone—and that not fighting it has broken me. That now I will fight with every ounce of courage and strength I can muster.
For Simon.
“I’m coming with you,” Cassian growls out, though his eyes squeeze shut tight in agony. He clutches his scribe tightly in one hand, knuckles white. Saints, I can’t imagine what he must be feeling, how powerful the bond must be between them.
“Comfort him,” I plead. “Send him your love. And get ready to fight for him.”
“To the death if I have to,” he swears.
And we run.
* * *
Tripping over roots,spring’s first leaves throwing dappled sun over the old forest floor, we race through the woods toward the old temple.
Saints, the chimes. I hadn’t even heard them. No one but an alpha could have.
And no one but Luca would have recognized them. I squeeze his hand as we run, hand in hand, pushing each other faster and faster.
I whip my head back to see Cassian lagging and I grab his hand, too.
“All of your love, Cass. And all of mine,” I pant out. I don’t know how a mating bond really feels, if it’s thoughts or emotions or both, how it’s different from my affinity, but I have to hope Simon can be comforted through the bond, that Cassian can rescue him from the pain of it, if only for a moment. “Tell him we’re coming for him.”
When a scream cuts through the quiet woods, Cassian drops my hand and sprints forward, disappearing into the old stone temple.
