Page 56 of The Bonds of Nyx

If he gets too close, I might hurt him, too. Fear shot through me at the thought, and I threw up a hand. “Stop,” I ground out, my voice hoarse, like I’d been screaming for hours, unheard until now. “Please. I can’t hurt you, too.”

“Ivy, Angel, you can’t hurt me.” His voice was so sure, and I could almost believe him. But then I saw her face. Kerry. My mother. Her gaunt cheeks and vacant expression. The words ‘she won’t make it’reverberated through my ears. I hadn't thought I would ever be capable of hurting her, and yet, here we were. She was gone. Dead. Her body taken to rest in an unfamiliar place.

I wanted to throw up. Scream. Anything but stand here. Eyes on me, pitying me.

“Ivy, look at me.” The command in his voice sent a shiver down my spine, but my eyes snapped shut. Instead of his handsome face, I saw death.

The blonde woman with the blade in her gut.

The shocked man with the knife in his throat.

Their dying words as they vowed for my death.

Then there were the others. The soldier guarding my family and his screams as the house shook.

The girl undercover telling us to shoot her so she could remain with the enemy.

The shadows and how they’d almost taken another from me.

My throat tightened as I stumbled back a step. The voices around me grew louder as I opened my eyes. Violent magic slithered over my skin, sparking with a purple haze over my flesh. The marks I’d noticed over a week ago now played along my heated flesh in strange patterns I didn’t recognise.

“Sweetheart?” Another shiver down my spine. I turned my unseeing gaze on my second mate. The one I’d killed for. The one my magic had tried so hard to protect. I brought his face to the forefront of my mind, but it was immediately overtaken by the image of his pain as he fell into my arms: the blood dripping down his chin, the light dying in his eyes.

Another stumbling step back as his presence ignited electricity along my sensitive skin. I felt others approaching, too. Their worry tasted bitter in my mouth. I wanted to tell them to step back. To stay away. But words died on my tongue.

“We need to get her out of the house,” someone else said, their harsh voice grating against my ears.

“What she needs is to be anchored, but I don’t see that happening. She’s going to fucking explode,” another said.

A third spoke up softly and said, “We are not equipped to handle her if she does.”

I squeezed my eyes shut against the onslaught of voices. The harsh, nightmarish voice from my dreams urged me to run. Run, run, run.Run away from the ones who would protect you, as you are not fit to be their queen.

I didn’t want to believe it, but I knew the voice was right. I was not fit to be queen.

So, I ran.

Voices shouted behind me, but through the haze of magic, I could see only the door leading out of the house. Then, there was the path into the darkening forest, where the light of the real world could not penetrate. My heart thundered with each step, my blood thrumming in my ears, deafening the sound ofthe others in pursuit. My mates wouldn’t be far behind me. The vampire would have surely caught me if it weren’t for the sun still hanging low in the sky.

Each step away felt like another shovel of dirt burying me alive. I couldn’t breathe. The air burned like ice in my lungs, but I propelled myself into the trees. I ran until sticky warmth coated my arms, and my legs ached with the need to stop. Even then, I pushed aside the pain and continued my path through the forest with no end in sight.

It wasn’t until strong arms wrapped around me like chains did my body failed me. My legs gave out from beneath me, and the person holding me tightened their embrace, trapping my own arms to my body, trapping me against them. My blood sang in my ears at the person’s proximity, but it wasn’t one of my mates. It wasn’t my wolf, my bonded, the one who calmed the raging storm. And it wasn’t my mage, my sweet prince who I had yet to claim.

I sucked in a breath, and the intoxicating scent of smoke and cinnamon filled my senses. It wasn’t anything I recognised, but I grew drunk on it as I breathed it in.

“Time to toughen up,” a rough voice whispered in my ear. There was a slight lilt of an accent I couldn’t identify that softened something within me. “Time to stop running.”

An image flashed in my mind. The monster and the cheering voices as I failed every demonic test in my nightmares. I groaned as the memory burned bright in my mind. “I can’t,” I whimpered, my voice scratchy, my mouth dry. “I can’t.”

There was a hiss behind me, but the arms didn’t loosen. I could feel the heat radiating off my skin. Was I burning him? Was the magic slithering across my flesh too much?

“Going nuclear—letting your magic win—won’t do anything for you, and you know it.” He grunted, and I felt myself falling—

No, not falling. He still had his arms around me, but now we were on the ground, his legs another cage around me. Through my own sharp breaths, I could hear his. Through the fabric between us, I counted each thundering beat of his heart as it crashed against my shoulder.

One. Two. Three. I sucked in a breath and released it slowly.

“You can’t let the magic control you every time something goes wrong,” he continued, his rough voice softening, the accent thickening. It was almost magical, and something about it was so familiar to me. It tickled a long-lost memory, one hidden behind the burning magic. “You think blowing up will solve your problems? That pushing the only people away who are capable of handling you will protect them?”