Repeating what I had done for Z’fir, I covered his hand with both of mine and closed my eyes to focus on the mental threads around me.
My awareness expanded from my mental shields to my strengthened connection to Z’fir and those around me. I could see the other Circuli’s golden strands extending to the ceiling, presumably toward the mental web hanging in the sky in an atmospheric layer around Destima.
Now, I understood why the Queens separated their web into clan hubs. It was difficult to distinguish anyone’s mind from the jumble, unless I knew each individual mind. Perhaps I would over time, but for now, it was chaos in need of organization.
I would worry about that once my clan was complete.
V’dim’s desperation flooded me, coupled with confusion and agony, but I couldn’t seeV’dim’s thread. Just like Z’fir, there was no direct path between us. Reaching for Z’fir’s connection, I gave it a gentle tug, knowing he would be able to guide me to V’dim.
They had been bonded since their time in the hatchery and were almost like two sides of a single moon. Separate entities but sharing one mental shield.
Like Vowels and me.
“Lead me to your bondmate,”I pathed, not wanting V’dim to suffer any longer.
I felt an ethereal hand grab mine, carrying my awareness down my emerald-gold connection to Z’fir and through his mental walls. There I saw turquoise and emerald mental strands fused as one, wrapping around two separate mental shields—V’dim’s turquoise and Z’fir’s emerald.
My coiled mental thread dove straight for Z’fir’s emerald thread, but only a wisp of a golden thread led to V’dim, seeming flimsy beside my new connection to his bondmate.
That wouldn’t do. I needed to reestablish our connection, and quickly, so I could ease his suffering.
Focusing, I let my instincts take over and allowed myself to reclaim my nestmate as a clan member. Opening my mental door to V’dim, I reinforced our foundation and shot another golden thread out. It followed my connection to Z’fir then broke off toward where V’dim’s began. Striking his turquoise mental shields near the base of his original connection to me, Iwilledhim to be with me.
Instantly, he offered me a strand. Relief flooded our connection, followed by a rapid barrage of his emotions. At any other time, I would have thrown up my shields, but, now, they were a reminder that he was alive, and mine.
Slowly, I guided his thread, like two lovers holding hands, twisting his turquoise with my gold around our original bond thread. Looking up, I saw my original golden mental strand separate from the sea of threads in the web, fusing with these two new ones to create a direct path between us.
As soon as his turquoise thread touched his door into my mental shields, I permanently fused us, preventing a disconnection from ever happening again.
A wave of pure bliss traveled to me from V’dim, echoed by Z’fir.
“You are mine, V’dim,”I pathed to my Ulax prince, sending him all my love.“I’ve reclaimed you.”
“My Queen,”he replied, his voice like a calming mist against my skin.“I knew you would come back to us, and now that you have, all will be well.”
Chapter Eleven
V’dim
The first thing he sensed when he became aware of his surroundings was a jolt like his body had been shocked by a power core. He needed his nestqueen to soothe him.
His bondmate had taken the brunt of his pain while he explained what had happened and insisted that he held on because their nestqueen was coming to reclaim him as a member of her clan.
Now that she had reclaimed him, everything had changed.
Gone were the thousands of thoughts and feelings from others. Now, all he felt was what radiated from his clan’s web. Oddly, he was at the core but shielded from the rest of the network. Selena’s protection didn’t prevent him from reaching out, and he assumed he would be able to accept requests to speak, but the hazy chatter which had always accompanied his rule of the network had vanished now that Selena had taken over.
His connection with his bondmate hadn’t changed, but he could, now, see the same, twisted bond threads leading to their nestqueen, something different from other clans.
Other clans were tied to their nestqueen, like they had been to Selena, before she had reclaimed them. Now, their connection was similar to his bondmate’s.
What that meant for them, he wasn’t sure, but he was willing to accept it, so long as he had his nestqueen back.
“How are you feeling?” Yuwal asked, his voice cutting through the room’s murmurs. “Do you have anything to report?”
Opening his eyes, V’dim winced at a flood of brightness coupled with the strain he had from not using his eyes for a while. Glancing down at his arms, he sighed at their sickly pallor. He tried to lift his limbs from the mattress, to no avail.
“My body doesn’t ache for a nestqueen, now that she’s here,” he whispered, his throat parched. “How many days has it been?”
