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Lunara snorted at herself, trudging back to the wall of darkness and throwing her shield up. She was just about to step inside when alarm bells pealed within her.
Deep within, like…
The mate bond.
Her heart turned over hard enough to buckle her knees and she fell, crying out. Another, the agony choking her. She fought against the theft of her breath. Against the vise tightening around her torso and the hand at her throat. It was bad enough that Ax winked out of being, Lunara in too much pain to keep him with her.
Brand.
Without another thought, she misted to his tower chamber, still scrambling upright when she materialized. Magnus was there in the sitting area, beating against her shield.
“The balcony,” he rasped, pleading.
Lunara was there in an instant, almost collapsing again when she saw Brand.
His forehead was pressed between the pillars of the stone balustrade, gaze fixed on the Horned City as he clutched it. All the emotions slamming into her—the pain—became clear.
Finally.
Devastating, but necessary. Essential. He needed to be cured of any lingering doubt. To face what was done to his people. What was done to him.
This is why he asked for Magnus to be left outside tonight.
Lunara lurched forward, reaching, and she had to fight against every particle in her body to stop and turn around. To make the conscious decision not to go over there and fold him in her arms.
In the chamber again, she found Magnus prowling with both hands buried in his hair, Pet flashing over his features.
“He’s alright,” she whispered.
He turned on her with fangs bared. “You let me in there right fucking now, witchling.”
“I’m sorry, but no.”
“No?”
“He asked to be alone, Magnus.”
His fists slammed into the barrier. “I don’t give a starry shite. Let me through. He needs me.”
The fucking audacity of that statement boiled her blood, somewhere between wrath and misery. She wanted to lash out at him, scream that she was Brand’s fucking mate and was still standing here instead of comforting him, but she bit it back.
“Brand already told us what he needed tonight,” she hissed. “He made his choice. Who are we to take it away when he has so few of them lately?”
The look in his eyes was the same torment hemorrhaging from her own damned soul. The same torment that seized her steps and forced her to leave him slumped out there on his own.
Brand didn’t want any of them, and they both knew it. Both felt it.
“It is what it is.” Even though it hurt. “Let it happen. All we can hope is that he’s better for it in the morning.”
Lunara didn’t wait to hear his response, misting away.
The wind tore at her with an icy vengeance, whipping her hair into a frenzy. She let it happen, imagining a pair of strong, calloused hands coming through to part the curtain and tuck it away. Let it transport her to another time for a gasping couple of breaths. Another burst through the ether and she was sitting on the bench he’d made.
Brand might not want her next to him, but there were other ways for her to feel close.
The Serpent Sea crashed below, as if it felt the turbulence of its Son and wished to meet him wave for wave. From this quiet pocket on the mountaintop, she could just make out the tower chamber and the tiny dark spot on its balcony.
Lunara forced herself to look at the Horned City, its wreckage apparent even in the darkness. No, she wasn’t right beside him, but she was with him nonetheless. Watching over him. Feeling it all in tandem. Cradling the single thread that was spinning itself to life and giving back whatever she could down its fragile length. Hoping something, however small, made it through.
