“I'll do what I can.”
“Not good enough,” Rowan growled.
“Now,” Kian gasped, and their eyes held hesitance as Damien’s shadows enshrouded them.
I stood within the summoning circle, holding my arm. The last time I had been in this circle was with Trixie when we had broken the bond.
“Is this where you broke our bond?” Grayson's disembodied voice pierced my ears as I turned to face him, his pinky bone clutched in my hand.
He had formed inside the circle.
“Yes, and that has proved to be a mistake.” A sigh escapes me as I stare up at him.
He looked awful. He was sickly gray, and his eyes sunk into his skull with black bags underneath them. His veins were black and throbbing under his skin. “I don't think it was a mistake. You took away my weakness and gave me strength with dark magic.”
“Perhaps you’re right about that. Dark magic is strong,” I murmured, raising my hand and staring at the throbbing veins in my arm.
“I knew you’d come to realize that.” He smiled, rotten teeth barely hanging on to his gums.
“Even if it’s strong, itwasa mistake,” I reinforced, feeling the power, the magical energy of my mates around us as the red glow of the crystals glared off of his dull eyes.
“Why can I not use my magic?” He growled as his white fur, tipped with black, sprouted on his skin as he roared. “What are you doing?”
“It’s over, Grayson.” I dropped his bone and the lock of my hair into the circle between us.
“No!”He launched forward and wrapped both of his hands around my throat and squeezed. His rotten sulfur scent enveloped me.
Wincing, I stood there, not attempting to remove his hands. I didn't want to risk going incorporeal for fear of it messing with the ritual.
The edges of my vision blackened, and my knee jerked up into his groin with more strength than I’d ever possessed before. A rush of air flooded my lungs as my knees wobbled to keep me upright.
He dropped to the ground with a groan.
The dark magic that felt so heavy within my own separated and seeped out of me. Grayson’s did the same as the dark magic formed into a black gelatinous blob on the ground between us.
All of my emotions flooded back at a high level, and my heart pounded in my chest.
The anger in Grayson’s gaze faded as confusion replaced it.
The lump of black goo floated in the air, and his eyes met mine. “Wren,” he rasped, and the bond snapped violently back in place between us.
A piercing scream tore from my throat, along with Grayson’s.
I dropped onto my hands and knees in front of where he was crumpled in the circle.
Pain ebbed up and down my body, searing into my chest. Our teeth were bared as we stared at each other.
It was like my blood was on fire, melting me from the inside and burning my organs.
My mates stepped out of the shadows around the circle, various pained expressions on their faces as Kian chanted in that language I never understood.
“This isyourfault,” Grayson croaked, his voice sounding like his again. A very exhausted version of it. “My parents, the pack, Mirella…this.”
Hatred simmered in his eyes as he stared at me, but I could see the true pain the dark magic had caused him.
“I’m sorry the dark magic infected you, but I couldn’t be bonded to you anymore.” Tears welled in my eyes as I kept my chin tilted up to look him in the eye.
If I had known dark magic would have infected him, I would have dealt with the pain of the rejected bond. I didn’t mean to ruin his life, even with how terrible he was to me.
