Pack Ruin (The Splintered Bond #3)

2. Live

2

Live

brAND

M y blood turned to ice, colder than the water around my feet, as my little mate—caught in the earliest stage of her shift—shuddered, foam collecting at her mouth and blood seeping from her eyes.

She stopped breathing, and I shouted, “ No! ”

Glen was beside me as I laid her on the bank inside the Mountain border, weakness filling my own limbs, my own soul, as she began to pull energy from me down our bond.

“Take it,” I whispered, though it felt like knives slicing away my soul. “Take all of me, but live, my love. Live.”

Glen had pressed his hand to the center of her scarred chest, and was doing compressions, chanting the same word I was sending down the bond. “Live. Live. Live.”

Her blood flowed, thanks to him. But she was growing colder, more still.

Forcing myself to adjust my position so that her head was in my lap, I closed my eyes, praying for insight. I breathed deeply, focusing on what had happened. Whatever it was, the attack had not come from the physical world. She was dying from a spiritual wound.

I knew more about those than most. I’d watched my father slipping away from the world when my mother died. I understood now how he’d felt then. If she wasn’t alive, he didn’t want to be. He’d admitted once that it had felt like his soul was bleeding to death. That he’d cauterized it, and stayed, but only for me.

“Our souls weren’t just connected, son,” he’d admitted, the only time he’d allowed himself to speak of it. “Our souls were one. I could feel everything she felt. I could see through her wolf’s eyes. And when she was taken… it was as if my eyes had been gouged out. I sent every scrap of energy I had to her wolf, until I knew I would die. I prayed for death. I begged the moon to take me.”

I’d cried like a baby when he said that, though I hadn’t been a child for a long time by then. He held me until I could listen again. “And then you laid your small hand on me and called me back. You needed me, you cried. You needed your father. The moon spoke into my soul, and commanded me to live for you.”

Shaking away the memory, I focused on the golden cord that held me to Flor’s dimming light. Our souls were one, Dad had said.My soul and Flor’s had only just begun to connect. Still, I threw my consciousness down the golden line and poured everything I had into widening my connection to Flor’s soul, and making us one.

Her wolf was there, and I had an impression of a snarl, and then a whimper, and bright topaz eyes warning me away. Wanting to protect me.

But her wolf was too weak to stop me, and once I pictured what I was attempting—that I was fighting to save them both—her wolf subsided.

In that moment, I saw into the light of her being, as if every thread that made up her spirit lay spread out before me. I hadn’t even known such a thing could happen. That the innermost fabric of a shifter could be visible to her mate’s inner sight. But Flor’s wolf soul opened before me, and I rushed inside.

Her inner being was as scarred as her chest, jagged lines of energy tracing patterns on the roof of her spirit. What should have been filled with her fierce power was emptying, silently draining her as quickly as a burst dam.

When I dove deeper into her, I saw the problem immediately. A sucking vortex was taking her light down, swallowing it, and pulling my golden glow with it.

But the lines were glowing, too. Were they her other bonds?

I concentrated on a green, glowing one that was far narrower than mine. As if the one at the end of it was far away.

Finnick. I grasped the green cord and called out his name in my mind. Begged for his help.

He answered without words. In an instant, I felt his energy swarm up the bond and pour into Flor’s soul. It rushed in like a steady, cool stream, bright and harsh.

It wasn’t enough. She needed more power.

More connections.

Glen was next to me, keeping her heart beating. The incomplete bond between them was so tenuous, when I grasped for it in that spirit state, he fell to the ground, snarling.

“Brand! What the fuck? She’s not breathing. I have to keep her blood moving!”

He was right. I let loose, and he cursed, picking himself up and starting the chest compressions on our mate again.

Was she already dead? I hesitated, and my wolf surged, taking control.

My wolf nature had always been closer to the surface. Sometimes, it was hard to keep my human form, and being this near to my home had made it even more difficult. My wolf was stronger than my human side, so I shifted quickly, keeping Flor’s head on my paws. He ran on spirit paws into her soul, filling it with his own energy, demanding her to fight.

Her wolf whimpered in reply. Dead. Dead.

NO. LIVE!

No sooner had my wolf barked the command than another presence was there. A dark, feral energy that raced toward the silvery-gray vortex and began to fill it with red and blue light. My wolf recognized it as magic. It was forbidden. Wrong.

But if it saved her, I didn’t care if it was the darkest, most evil sorcery ever to exist. I didn’t care if it would taint my own soul.

An odd, metallic laughter filled my mind. It is, brother mate. And it may.

My wolf laid its ears back, but relaxed as I felt Flor’s heart begin to beat steadily. I held my breath as the vortex of energy started to swirl more slowly. The slice and pull of my energy as it filled her, and the vortex, grew less painful.

Well done. Hold her. I will try to save him. The voice grew fainter before it vanished into dark laughter. So many courting gifts, my sweet one. Such an expensive little mate.

My wolf passed out from the effort of keeping my mate alive, and I shifted back while unconscious.

When I opened my eyes, Glen was holding Flor on his lap. I sat up, my own limbs weak and shaking, as if I’d been ill for months. “Is she…”

Glen nodded, but his gaze remained fixed on the forest. “Your mate is fine, Alpha Heir Becker,” he stated clearly. “She is unconscious and will need to be carried to the Den to recover.”

I swiveled my head when I heard cursing. A group of my father’s wolves stood under the canopy of the forest, milling around in confusion. I wasn’t sure how long they’d been there, but they glared at Glen like he was the enemy.

One of them was in human form, and he stepped forward. It was Josiah, one of the males who I’d trained with for years. “Alpha Heir?” His expression was stunned when he met my gaze. He dropped his immediately, but peered back up from the corner of his eye. Suspicious. Nervous. As if he didn’t recognize me. “Is it really you?”

“What do you mean?” I snarled. “You don’t recognize me, Josiah?”

He tilted his head to the side, exposing his neck in a sign of submission. “My apologies. I do know you. But you’ve… you’ve changed.”

I blinked, looking to Glen for an explanation. He shook his head. “You’ll have to see it to believe it, brother.”