Page 1 of The Bonds of Nyx
1
IVY
MATE…
The word felt so foreign in my mind, and yet the weight behind it was right. Powerful.Real.It echoed in my head and although I wanted to throw the concept away and never hear the term again, I knew it for what it really meant.
Fate. Destiny. A force so powerful it could bring entire worlds to their knees.
And my mate, the holder of my heart, the other part of my soul, was dying in my arms.
The fighting around me faded to a distant hum, a pounding that was drowned out by the gentle beat of Adrian’s slowing heart. His bright green eyes, still ringed with gold, were focused on mine, but the life that gave him his soft smiles and charming personality seeped out of him. Blood clouded his natural scent of mint and rain, clogging my nose as I tried to calm the thundering beat of my own heart.
He will not die. He can’t, I thought, pressing my hand into his abdomen. As his mouth opened again, blood trickled down the corner of his lips.
We’re running out of time…
I leaned down and softly pressed my lips to his forehead. “I’ll fix this,” I whispered, swallowing the burn of tears, “I promise.”
The warmth blooming in my hands turned into an unbearable fire that scorched my insides. It raced up my forearms andtowards my chest, splintering across the rest of my body like a strike of lightning.
It was all-consuming, powerful, and dangerous. And it was allmine.
As the fire crackled across my skin like shattered glass, I fell into the overwhelming sensation of life that crashed through me. It started in my chest, winding around my pounding heart, before slithering its way down my arms. My muscles clenched painfully, tightening with the magic pouring through me and into my mate.
I gritted my teeth against the sudden agony and closed my eyes tight against a flash of violet light.
Darkness and pain crept along the edges of my vision. I fought against the dizzying urge to pass out, but a wave of nausea swept over me, almost as hard and fast as the fire-like power burning through me.
I barely managed to open my eyes and take in Adrian’s awe and fear before darkness claimed me, and swallowed me whole.
~
Voices garbled by my lack of complete consciousness sounded around me. Some were close to my muffled ears and others seemed far off in the distance. Warmth, comfortable and peaceful, wrapped around me like a blanket, so unlike the painful fire that erupted within me and continued to throb like a day-old bruise.
My eyelids felt heavy, and despite being cocooned in darkness, I started to detangle the voices around me.
“She’s waking up.” The soft Irish lilt belonged to Maeve. Her voice sounded a bit further away, but her scent drifted closer to me, a delicate perfume that tickled my nose. I could almost see her clearly; the sharp arch of her brows and the streak of silver in her otherwise obsidian hair.
A snort sounded somewhere behind me. “How can you be sure?”Thea. There was a slight tremble in her voice, but otherwise she seemed calm. A whisper of spun sugar and cookies drifted over me. “She looks asleep to me.”
“Her heartbeat.” Gruff and to the point.Elias. “She’s just not opening her eyes.”
Because I don’t think I can, I wanted to reply, but my mouth was stuffed with cotton and tasted stale, dry. I tried to open my eyes, but they remained heavy, glued together with exhaustion and the remnants of sleep.
A hand brushed across my cheek, and that comfortable warmth turned into something else. Somethingmore. It pooled in my belly, wetting the fabric between my legs.Holy shit. It was potent and burning but not unpleasant.
Definitely not unpleasant.I could feel each stroke of his hand down my entire body, shivers of desire coursing over my tender flesh.
“How long until we reach the safe house?”Adrian. I could feel the rumble of his voice beneath my cheek.He’s okay.
His scent wrapped around me, and I breathed it in greedily. Warm mint, like his favourite drink and the rain that came with a storm, tucked me into a gentle embrace. I sighed, and the rumble of the car’s engine lulled me back into the darkness. This time, I didn’t resist.
~
I wasn’t sure how much time passed before I was able to open my eyes. Darkness greeted me as I blinked away sleep, the only light coming from the dashboard of the SUV. Otherwise, night consumed the lonely highway we drove along, with only the occasional blip of headlights to break up the never-ending darkness.
Sitting up, I rubbed a hand over my face. My eyes and cheeks were crusty with tears I didn’t realise I’d shed. When I pulled myhand back, the flash of a memory appeared, of my hands coated in blood, of the copper scent clogging my nose.