Chapter Nine

“H ave you heard the voice at any other time?” Rival asks.

“Nope,” I reply quickly, not wanting to sound crazier than I already do.

Killian raises one eyebrow at me in question, “Farren,” he warns lazily.

I grimace; it kind of sucks having someone around who knows me well enough that he can call me out on my bullshit.

“You guys really do know each other well, don’t you?” Storm asks, his ever-present frown deepening even further.

“Yes,” Kill replies simply, smirking when the lack of any other information clearly annoys Storm, which is no doubt what Kill intended to do.

I feel like they are brewing for one hell of a fucking fight, and I decide to intervene before that happens in the dorm room, and we end up with the place destroyed. You don’t have to know them particularly well to know that if they came to blows, no one would be able to stop them. I plan to avoid that or at least make sure they’re in a place that they can’t damage and just hope that they don’t kill each other in the process of working out their hurt.

“Yes, I have heard it since developing my gifts. Only one other time though, a couple of years ago, and it saved my life.” I admit reluctantly.

“What!?” Killian barks, sitting up straight, his eyes flashing. “When was this?”

“A lot happened in those years that I couldn’t fucking get hold of you,” I hiss back.

A flood of emotions fills me as my mind tries to drag me back. All consuming fear, anger, pain, desperation, and finally, defeat. I was so fucking close to giving in. Killian’s face becomes enraged, and he stalks towards me, pulling me off the couch, picking me up and settling back down with me on his lap as he buries his face in my hair and his tail wraps around my waist tightly. His reaction is too strong for him just to be reacting to my words, and I realise that my emotions must have leaked through the connection to him. The others are all watching us curiously, all of them concerned apart from Storm, who looks entirely indifferent to the whole situation as he leans back on the couch and looks, for all intents and purposes, relaxed as fuck.

As my eyes land on Loki, I become confused. He looks absolutely devastated, and a dark rumble starts in his chest, growing with intensity.

“Whoa, what’s wrong with you?” Reaper demands, studying him closely.

Killian tenses beneath me, kisses my neck and then quickly plops me on the lap of a very shocked Rival, I start to scramble to get off, but his arms tighten around me.

“Just let me hold you for a second,” he mutters barely above a whisper, “I can’t explain it.”

I take a second to check in with myself and to see if I’m okay with this. I’m not used to anyone holding me apart from Kill, but surprisingly I feel as safe and comforted in Rival’s arms as I do in Kill’s. It’s a weird feeling, but I relax into his arms.

“Loki, can I have a word?” Kill says firmly, not giving him much of a choice as he strides over to him and pulls him away from the rest of us and into Loki’s room. Before he goes through the door, he looks back at me, “this isn’t over. I want to know what happened.”

I scowl at his demand. Which he, of course, ignores and then drags a still growling Loki through the door.

Killian

I cross my arms over my chest as I block Loki from exiting the door and watch him pace the room, trying to get himself under control. I have a feeling I know what’s going on, but I don’t want to mention it until I know for sure that’s what is happening. I want to know what Farren meant. The flood of emotions she accidentally sent me through the bond almost brought me to my knees. I need to know who I have to kill. Before I can do that though, I need to see if my suspicions are correct about Loki’s behaviour, which needs to happen now; it can’t wait.

His deep growl continues as he paces, his fangs elongating even further as he threads his fingers through his blood red hair and pulls it harshly, still pacing. I give him the space to calm down. There’s no point trying to talk to him when he’s like this, and if he felt even a fraction of what I did, then he’s going to need to get his vampire side under control. The last thing we need is for him to go feral.

When a vampire goes feral, they lose all reasoning, their minds are completely taken over by their base instincts, they kill indiscriminately, and there’s nothing that can bring them back. They become even more deadly because they run purely on animalistic instinct, and they get stuck in their bloodlust. Part of the point of the academy is to train the students to deal with the feral vampires; amongst other things, we are the defence against all threats, feral vampires, rogue fae, any supernatural who’s terrifying the population or stepping out of line and going against the laws that were made to try to protect the individual species that reside here and maintain peace, we’re the ones that are called to take out the threat. If there’s another war, we’ll be on the frontlines. The academy trains killers who police the realm. Of course, some high-up officials get away with more than most, Farren’s father and my own being two of the worst. The system is broken.

Back to vampires, they cannot be allowed to wander free and are notoriously difficult to contain. Death is their only option. Extreme torture or emotional turmoil can cause the switch, and often when a vampire loses its true mate, that can cause them to go feral as well. Of course, true mates are supposed to be a myth now, much like Centre Bonds were supposed to be, and yet, I’ve received good intel that a Centre and her Bonded have just started at the Blood Moon academy and are causing a stir. Things are changing, and I feel like the fates are gearing up for something big. Which is a pretty fucking terrifying thought in itself, but if my precog gift is to be believed, then we play a part in it, and that scares me to my fucking core.

My eyes never leave Loki as he continues to struggle to get a hold of his vampire side and pull himself back from the edge.

I can’t believe I’m back here surrounded by my best friends; I knew this was where we were going to end up, but after I lost all contact with Farren a few years ago and couldn’t find her, I thought something had gone amiss, that someone had irreparably damaged the strings that fate had woven, I got no warning, and no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get even a tiny vision on Farren. Those few years were hell, and not because I thought it meant I wouldn’t be back with my family like the fates had shown me all those years ago, but because I had no idea whether she was okay. In fact, I was pretty confident that she wasn’t. Farren has never been entirely safe, her father is an abomination, and there is nothing I would like more than to end him in the most imaginative and brutal way that I can come up with and considering my vast experience in all things torture and my very active imagination I could make his death last for weeks.

Unfortunately, there are things at play that mean I cannot follow through on it, not yet. He has forces protecting him at the moment that would make it practically impossible, and he’s been dabbling in magic that should never have seen the light of day again. Farren has no idea how deep his evil truly runs, but thanks to my gift, I know she will soon.

Finally, the room quiets. Loki is still pacing, but his growling has stopped, and his fangs have retracted back to their usual length, still much more pronounced than my own teeth, but he’s not in attack mode now. Loki in attack mode is a force to reckoned with, more so than usual vampires. Farren was correct in her assessment earlier; all of these men are far more lethal than they should be. Add in their extra talents and, in some cases, their rarity, and that makes them a deadly and formidable group. Which is a good fucking job because if the future I see comes to fruition, she’s going need us all. I just hope we’re enough.

“Talk to me?” focusing back on Loki, I say the exact words I always used to say to him when he started to spiral or got lost in his head when we were younger.

None of us have had easy lives due to one thing or another, and it’s something that instantly bonded us.

At my words, he stops pacing and just stares at me. “What the fuck was that? I swear I could feel all of these dark and devastating emotions. I haven’t felt anything like that for years, it was like an echo of how I felt in the past, but they weren’t my emotions.”

“They were Farren’s,” I state bluntly, my tail moving behind me agitatedly. There’s no point in tip-toeing around it. “It’s the start of the Bond forming. It’s my guess that when you overcame your fear and healed her that you triggered it.” There’s no need to tell him just how profound the Bond truly is, now is not the time for that information to be shared.

He sits down heavily on the end of his bed and runs his hand through his hair again. He’s done it so much in the last few minutes that it’s sticking up all over the place.

“I’m assuming that you aren’t talking about the normal Warrior Bond that we get when the spear chooses your team?” he asks.

I raise my eyebrow at him and cross my arms over my chest, “Does it feel like the Warrior Bond?”

He gives me a dry look but replies anyway, “No, it’s like a completely separate Bond that sits alongside the Warrior Bond. They’re both there, but they feel completely different.” He tries to explain, frowning as he focuses on them both.

“Exactly, they are completely separate things.”

“So I’m Bonded to Farren like you are?” he asks, with more than a slight glint of hope in his eyes.

“You’re at an earlier stage than we are, but yes. This kind of Bond needs to be nurtured, if it’s not properly taken care of, then it will wither and die, and that’s fucking painful for both parties.” I try to explain as much as possible with the limitations that the Fate’s have put on me.

He watches me shrewdly, looking for answers that he knows I can’t tell him, “Are the Fate’s involved?”

I nod, and he sighs, knowing that he’s not going to get any more information out of me. Even if I wanted to, this kind of vision is clearly important enough that the Fate’s have effectively put a gag order on me; if I open my mouth to tell him what’s going on and what it all means, no sound will come out, and I’ll be punished with shocks of pain until I stop trying. All I’m allowed to do is guide without influencing any decisions.

The room falls silent as he digests the information. A myriad of emotions crosses his face as his mind turns over the revelations of the last few minutes, but through it all, that spark of hope in his eyes never dies. I know he can feel the pull. I know he felt it as soon as he laid eyes on her, as I’m reasonably sure the others did too. When it comes to Farren, we’re all hopelessly drawn to her fire, beauty and strength. We never really had any hope of resisting, not that I imagine any of us would want to, not even Storm, although he’s going to fight it the hardest because he’s a stubborn fucker.

Loki’s voice drags me out of my thoughts, and I focus back on him.

“I’d be lying if I said I was at all disappointed in being Bonded to Farren. There’s just something about her that has pulled me in from the moment I laid eyes on her.” He admits, and the smile I give him is knowing. He continues, “I am so fucking glad you are back, man. Storm’s gotten even worse since you left, any emotion he once showed he shoved behind a wall of indifference, and there was never a crack in the facade. Until now, that is, these past couple of days with Farren, he’s shown more emotion than he has in years, granted it's all anger, but it’s something, and she seems to like pushing his buttons. There’s no fear in her when she deals with him, even though it makes the rest of us super fucking nervous.

“The others are all acting differently, too. I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not. I know Farren’s past is dark, and I’m worried about how they’re all going to handle that.”

“You mean you’re worried about them going on a killing spree and hunting every last fucker that hurt her?” I clarify.

He grins, “Yep, that’s what I meant. I know I want to.”

“It’ll all work out how it’s supposed to, man,” I vow because it will. One way or another, I will fucking ensure it. Even if I have to watch as the world burns around us. I never said I was the hero; I’m not selfless; I will light the fucking match if it ensures that Farren is happy.

“I’m going to hold onto that. I have a feeling the future isn’t going to be an easy path for us to walk.”

I want to say, oh dear friend, you have no idea how right you are. Instead, I ask, “Are you good now?”

I watch as he rubs his fist against the centre of his chest, his eyebrows dipping low as he looks down as if expecting to see whatever is causing him pain.

“You’ll get used to that,” I say, nodding to his chest, he looks up at me quizzically, so I explain, “Farren doesn’t seem to feel it, at least not like I do. Any sort of distance makes it ache.”

“But you haven’t seen each other for years?” Loki asks with wide eyes as realisation starts to sink in.

“It was hell. Why do you think I looked like I did when you first found me? I’d been trying to distract myself from the pain by doing continuous missions without taking the necessary break in between. I’ve never been apart from Farren for longer than a couple of weeks before, so it’s never been more than an ache. It was not pleasant to learn that if I spent a month or more away from her, the ache turned into pain. I could still function, but it was always there. Never again.”

Loki gets up from the bed and places his hand on my shoulder, gripping it tightly in support, “I’m sorry. I’m not even going to pretend to understand how much that sucked, and I never want to find out. Come on, let’s go and find out what caused our woman to feel like that, unravel one of the many mysteries surrounding her and find out who we need to kill.”

I grin as I pull open the door, everyone’s attention turning towards us, their shoulders relaxing as they see Loki back to his usual self. Many people underestimate Loki because of his carefree attitude and usual inability to take anything truly seriously. I wouldn’t recommend it though; he’s deadly.

“Are you guys okay?” Farren asks, biting down on her lip in a nervous gesture that drives me fucking wild.

I’m mildly surprised that she’s still sitting on Rival’s lap. It looks like I might need to have this talk with someone else soon; judging from the dreamy look on his usually stern face, he’s not going to have a problem with the news.

“We’re good,” Loki replies, taking the seat next to Rival and her and taking her hand.

She frowns and looks at him with a confused little wrinkle on her nose before clearly deciding to just go with it. Following his lead, I take the other side of her and put my hand on her knee so she can keep her free hand on Rival’s arm that’s wrapped securely around her waist. Of course my tail decides it doesn’t want to be left out and strokes the back of her hand with its tip, making her smile.

I can’t help my smile as I look over at Reaper, Mayhem and Storm sitting opposite us. Reaper and Mayhem aren’t even trying to hide their interest in our seating arrangement, a flash of jealousy darkening their eyes. Fortunately, I sense that it’s more from not being involved than wanting to keep her for themselves. Storm, on the other hand, is watching, seemingly unaffected if a little pissed. At least that’s what he’d like everyone to think. I know better though. He’s just as interested in Farren as the rest of us are, and he hates it. Being interested leaves him vulnerable to feelings, and he won’t allow that.

He's going to have to get over it pretty fucking quickly. The Fates have a plan for us all, and it requires that we’re all on the same page. I’m not risking any of them just for my brother's stubbornness.

“Farren, before we got interrupted, what did you mean when you said the voice saved you?” I ask her.

She sighs heavily, “Exactly that. I’m not going into details, I’m not ready to relive it yet, and it’s not pertinent information at the moment. What I will say is that I was close to giving up. The voice whispered a spell that allowed me to escape.”

Her words pierce my soul, I almost lost her, and I would never have known what truly happened to her. I believe wholeheartedly that I would’ve felt her death through the bond, but I don’t think I would’ve been made privy to the details. The stillness in the room is telling of the severity of the reaction the others are having to her words.

Fuck.

I am never letting her out of my sight again. I hope she’s ready to have an overprotective deadly assassin stalking her every move because that’s what I’m about to become.