Usheringa grief-stricken teenager to bed required a level of diplomacy I remembered from my early military days. Ivan kept swaying on his feet, his exhausted gaze locked on the silent printer as if his will alone could make it speak again. My mind circled in a wasteland of static and sorrow, uselessly cycling through worst-case scenarios. How was I supposed to offer the kid hope when I had none of my own?
The logical move was to take the printer. Secure the potential threat. But the raw hope in Ivan’s eyes was a weapon I had no defense against. And Nox, that furry little traitor, made it clear whose side he was on with a set of very sharp teeth and a will to draw blood.
Once I’d closed Ivan, the haunted printer, and both cats in Ivan’s room, I glared at the borrowed apartment with disdain. Without Jude, the place felt as lifeless and personality-stripped as a hospital room. Just thinking of him made my stomach roil.
That phantom pulse beneath my sternum wasn’t just a memory. It was the specter of a thread. A single, thin filament of gold stretching out into a darkness from the shield around me. A wraith of our affection. What did it mean? I’d felt it break, but Jude was there.
He’d unraveled his very existence and woven the tattered remains of his soul around mine like a shield. And if I stood still long enough in the silent apartment, the echo of his presence felt like the ghost of a hug.
How?
And was he still bound like a sick marionette to a shadow nightmare? I’d fallen unconscious at the scene feeling as if my soul had been carved out and ready to follow him into the beyond. Now, that emptiness felt like little more than a fading dream. Real? Maybe I was dead.
My whole life, I’d believed death was the ultimate end. Sure, souls passed on leaving fragments, echoes, and energy returning to the source. But the self? Was consciousness strong enough to sustain a fated mate bond across that divide? Would it fray over time, that golden thread finally snapping? Was that the true death? Not of the body, but of the bond, and the reason a shifter simply faded?
My hands clenched at my sides. The claws ached to extend, the new, monstrous shape beneath my skin writhing with a protective fury that had no outlet. The primal urge roared to the surface. Change. Hunt. Follow that thread into whatever abyss held Jude and drag him back.
I stood frozen in the center of the apartment for a long minute, wrestling with the beast that wanted to do just that. As if I had that sort of power over life and death.
I glared at my hands, searching for lines, threads, strands, anything that indicated direction and connection like the one I’d severed from Jude’s puppet corpse. But anything more than the vague sense of our bond had vanished.
Rage acted as a compass, not a plan. I needed answers, not a one-way trip into the afterlife. And there was only one being in this city old enough, powerful enough, and infuriatingly cryptic enough to possibly have them.
Decision made, I stalked out of the apartment and into the hall. The shadows by the elevator resolved into Keanan and Sylas, Xavier’s ever-present sentinels. Jude called them the “Murder Twins,” which was accurate despite the fact that I knew he’d never encountered violence from them. Their magic aura set my teeth vibrating.
Keanan gave a subtle nod to his twin, and without a word, Sylas fell into step behind me, a silent escort as I headed up one floor to the opulent, warded suite that served as the nerve center for this domain.
The king was in. And I was done asking nicely.
Xavier sat at his desk, not working, just… existing. Even demigods needed rest, but this wasn’t rest. He stared blankly at the computer monitor, where a lazy screensaver drew and erased meaningless lines in an endless, hypnotic loop.
Xavier’s gaze lifted. A flick of his eyes toward the door was all it took. Sylas melted back into the hall, sealing us in with a soft click.
“Sit.”
“I’ll stand.”
A shrug, a shift of massive shoulders. His chair groaned under the weight—a useful reminder that Xavier wasn’t just powerful; he was six-foot-eight of condensed, ancient strength. It was easy to forget when he wore a suit instead of claws.
I started pacing, the confined space doing nothing to contain the restless energy coiling inside me. “Can I get him back?”
Stupid question. He wouldn’t answer that.
I tried another. “Will I fade when the bond finally breaks?”Fuck.There was too much, a dozen crises stacked on top of each other. “I severed the bond… but I can still see it, sense it? Why?” He wouldn’t answer that, but I had to know. There was a lot I needed to know. I grabbed the one that burned hottest. “What are you going to do about Ivan? He’s a kid.”
Xavier didn’t move. “Do you feel like you’re fading?”
“I feel like I’m losing my goddamn mind.” The words tore out of me. “If I stand still, I can almost… sense him. A direction. A pull. But I can’t feel him. I woke up convinced he was in my arms.” I raked a hand through my hair. “I always thought a broken bond just made you give up. This isn’t giving up. This is a slow walk into madness with a ghost of a memory for company.”
I kept pacing, a caged animal under his impassive stare. “And you can’t have Ivan. I need to get things in order—for him, for Jude’s grandpa—before whatever’s left of me unravels completely.”
“I have no intention of ‘having’ Ivan,” Xavier said, his voice flat.
I stopped dead, studying him. Cold, closed-off, untouchable, his default. The armor of age, or power, or sheer indifference, all of it felt like impenetrable marble walls. “You’re fated mates. I saw the thread.”
Xavier let out a long, weary breath. “If you believe I haven’t turned my back on fate’s suggestions before, you are a fool. No one dictates my path, Angel. Especially not fate.”
I couldn’t imagine choosing to walk away from Jude. Hell, that first day in the SED lobby, the moment I caught his scent, annoyed, defensive, and tangled up in a truth he didn’t know yet, it was like a flare went off inside my chest. He stood there looking like a promise of something I never knew I’d wanted before. Gorgeously rumpled, clinging desperately to his coffee mug, and then he opened his mouth, and sarcasm rolled out like a physical barrier. Trauma laced with humor to disarm and de-escalate. It made me desperate tobecomehis shield.
