I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.
How could I possibly explain that it felt like my soul had been hollowed out with a rusted, serrated spoon? That the new power thrumming under my skin wasn’t a comfort but a tangled, chaotic snarl of unwound yarn. The frayed and severed threads of the tapestry that was Jude, now lodged in the empty space where my heart used to be. Every breath was a reminder of the void.
The words spoken by the Major General replayed in my head on a loop.His corpse is ripping holes in the Veil.It couldn’t be. I’d sense him if it were truly Jude out there, wouldn’t I? Thebond between fated mates was supposed to be an unbreakable tether, a compass point that always led home. But my internal compass was spinning in a void, pointing nowhere. There was only a hollow, silent ache where the warmth of his presence should have been.
We’d only just tied. The first, fragile strands of our bond, a delicate web of promise and potential. We hadn’t had the time, the years or decades, to weave those strands into the thick, unbreakable cord that was the true root of a soul bond, the kind that could span realms and defy death itself. A fledgling connection could be severed cleanly, leaving one alive but forever maimed. Was that why I was still breathing? Because our bond was too new to drag me into the grave with him?
Not that I wanted that at all. I’d mentally battled the idea of giving myself over to him heart and soul, only to have any fight squashed by his steadfast and instant devotion to his grandfather, little brother, best friend, and our team. He never hesitated to do the right thing and take care of others, no matter the cost. Reckless, yes, but a perfect fit despite my attempts to pretend otherwise. What would be the point of continuing to live, knowing half my soul was permanently gone? How could anyone survive that?
I’d only just managed to whisper the wordsI love youwithout him pulling away in fear. His trauma had been a wall I had been patiently learning to climb. If he was gone, stolen before we could truly solidify our bond, did that mean I wouldn’t unravel, too?
And what about the Major General’s comment? Who, or worse yet,whatwas tearing the Veil? The shadow god? The image of Jude,myJude, being used as a puppet, his beautiful power twisted into a weapon by the thing that wore his skin like a suit, was a fresh kind of hell.
The military dealt with zombies a lot like the movies instructed—total annihilation. There wouldn’t be enough of him left to bury. And that brought tightness back into my lungs, pressure in my chest, like a fist around my heart.
The van hit a pothole, jolting me out of the daze. Victor’s silent presence in my mind soothed the panic, a reminder that I wasn’t alone in this nightmare. But in the vast, silent landscape of my grief and this terrifying new uncertainty, I had never felt more scattered and unstable. I couldn’t watch them rip Jude to shreds, even if his soul was no longer home.
49
ANGEL
The scentof ozone and burning chemicals hit my nose before the van began to slow. The smell clawed at the back of my throat, thick and heavy. A weighty magical energy assaulted my new senses. Even the air felt thin and oppressive. A brutal symphony of noise, the shriek of tearing metal, the groan of crushing stone, all underscored by a frantic, psychic scream of unraveling threads. I could feel them snapping—bright lines of mortal terror, lives winking out as their strands were severed.
A heavy haze of layered wards pressed down. A suffocating blanket of haphazard spells that made the air thick as syrup. I had to blink rapidly, fighting to see my team’s solid forms through the visual static. And beneath it all, a deeper horror spread, an invasive power, slick and cold, coating everything like a psychic oil spill. I sucked in a ragged breath, my hands clenching into fists to anchor myself against the spinning vertigo.
Angel?Victor’s inquiry was a pinpoint of calm in the storm.
I gave the barest shake of my head. My control over my other half was solid; the beast within was the least of my worries. It was the living nightmare outside. Writhing, broken threads of reality slurped down by something enormous and dark, as easilyas spaghetti noodles. Had Jude’s awareness been this stark every time we’d crossed the Veil? No wonder he’d needed me as an anchor. I struggled to suck in air and keep myself upright as the chaos pressed in on all sides despite the dozens of wards.
The rear doors of the van were thrown open, military personnel barking orders and directing us out. The team moved as one, their muted power a hum in my senses, forming a protective wall around me. But their solid presence couldn’t shield me from the psychic onslaught.
My vision swam, the physical world ghosted by the violent tapestry beneath. The threads of reality were taut, screaming a silent warning of imminent rupture. The delicate mesh binding our world to countless others was strained to its absolute limit—one more tear, and the whole fragile structure would collapse, dimensions crashing into one another in an unstoppable cascade. I stumbled, only kept on my feet by Wade and Victor boxing me in on each side.
Victor cursed, the phrase guttural and sharp with a terror that needed no translation. I tracked his line of sight, and my breath seized.
The necropolis had claimed the sky. Its heart a throbbing mass of violet and jet-black energy eclipsed the moon. The Veil was tissue-thin, and each beat from that alien current landed like a physical blow, a deep, subsonic thump that I felt in my jaw, straining against the mutilated mesh between worlds.
The military’s shouted orders were lost to the guttural roars of things that should not exist. The tortured shriek of metal being twisted into abstract art alongside the staccato punch of high-caliber gunfire, all pulsed in time to the heartbeat in the sky.
A faceless soldier in body armor darted in, keying open the supernatural suppressant cuffs with frantic hands. He waved his rifle wildly toward the epicenter of the storm, his mouth movingwith words I couldn’t determine. An order, perhaps? As if I would ever lead my team into that meat grinder.
I shook my head, but that sent me careening to the side, unsteady. Wade caught and held me against him, both a shield and an anchor. The team surrounded us, Bobby and Victor in front, Ezra at our back, all of us weaponless as a war raged around us.
Through the chaotic swirl of smoke and shimmering energy, a figure walked calmly through the open tear. Not a monster, but a human form. My heart gave a single, painful lurch. The silhouette was wrong, the gait unfamiliar, but for half a heartbeat, a treacherous flame of hope ignited.
Jude?
Then the figure stepped fully into the wavering light of our world, and the hope curdled into cold acceptance.
It was Nat.
The familiar, bookish archivist—the man with the curly hair and vested sweaters—flickered like a faulty projection. In the space of a single, skipped heartbeat, he morphed. A towering figure stood in his wake, shrouded in a cloak that seemed woven from the darkness. Where a face should have been was a polished skeletal visage, reflecting the chaotic fires of the battlefield.
A low curse escaped my lips. The team shifted around me, their gazes following mine but finding only empty air. I knew with a cold certainty that they couldn’t see him. Just as I had been blind to his true form in the hall of Bowman’s apartment building when Jude had stared, transfixed, at a horror I couldn’t perceive.
He walked away from the weeping tear; his hollow gaze locked on me.
My heart hammered against my throat as I took a single step forward. If the Reaper’s purpose was my end, I would meet itwithout flinching. Wade’s hand clamped onto my bicep like a vise, and in that same moment, a ripple of gasps and curses from my team confirmed it. They could see him now.
