Chapter 4

Azlan

"Aunt,"I say, grabbing her arm as she pulls stoppers from three vials of potion.

She shakes off my hold, a look of determination cemented on her face. "What do you expect me to do, Azlan? Sit back and watch my own son die in front of my eyes?" She tsks with her tongue.

"But Aunt," Ellie protests, the tears coming thick and fast down her cheeks.

"I know what it will mean. I've made my decision. There is no point arguing with me and every point in helping me. He was always better than me, far better than his father. He needs to live," her steely voice falters, a sob gurgling in her throat, before she regains herself and continues, "he has to live."

I stumble back from the table. I thought I knew my aunt. I thought I knew my family. Selfish, self-serving, cruel. I always lumped my aunt in with her husband. A cold, close-hearted snob. Concerned only with herself, her looks and her position in society.

Pain stabs through my heart. I've never doubted myself and my decisions. I have always been sure of myself, in my beliefs, in my abilities, in my cause.

But how wrong I have been. How fucking wrong. Rhianna. Tristan. My aunt. Fuck, even what I've always believed about our republic and the threat in the West. All of it lies in tatters. Our capital lies in ruins, burning and smoldering out there in the lightening dawn. And my mate, my girl, my Rhianna, out there somewhere without me.

I search for her through the bond, reaching for her automatically, innately. I can feel her, faint and distant, her emotions and feelings making no sense to me. I call to her. Fuck, I scream with all my might. But I receive no response, no reply.

Where the hell is she? What the hell has happened?

My gaze flicks back to my cousin. My aunt is treating the wound, dabbing the potions into the mangled flesh, Stone, Rihanna's friend and Ellie all working together, whispering the healing incantations, all their faces pale with fright, the tears still trickling from my sister's eyes.

Is he really her fated mate too? Three of us? Stone, Tristan, me.

Can that really be?

Fated mate pairs are rare. Quadruplets? It's not something I've even heard of. As if reading my thoughts, my aunt murmurs, her eyes closed, "The fated mate bond has been sealed between them."

"Wh-what?" I say. Sealed?

"Very recently. It is brand new," she says. "You must be ready. When I release the curse, you must be ready to help him. The pain caused by their separation will be immense. You must give him something for it."

"There is nothing for that kind of pain," Winnie says. "The only way to release the bond is through … you know …" she trails off, her cheeks glowing a bright red.

"And here I was singing your praises, Miss Wence," Phoenix says. "Where on earth did you get such inaccurate information?"

"Erm," she chews her cheek, "the internet."

Phoenix sighs with exasperation. "How many times have I told you students in class? The internet is not a reliable source of information." Winnie's entire face flushes red. "You have triggerwot in the house?" he asks Ellie. She points to one of the vials in my aunt's box. "Then we'll be ready to help him."

The Moreau boy shuffles on his feet beside me. Someone has wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and he clutches it with both hands, eyes locked towards his friend. I blink, scratching my head. Only now contemplating the strangeness of his appearance among us. I left him at the border days ago. How the hell is he here? How the hell did he get here?

I go to ask him. And then I stop, remembering his secrets, remembering all his secrets. He loves Rhianna too. Loves my mate. Or is it more than that? Is this strange fucked-up tangle of fate more twisted, more perverted, more damn complicated than any of us ever contemplated?

More pain spirals through my chest. I think of Rhi, how new all this has been for her, how confusing. How often I've seen her lift her chin in defiance, square her shoulders when really she's scared and frightened. Did she know about Tristan? Has she felt the pull of the bond towards him? And how the hell did that make her feel?

There are so many things I still don't know about her and so many things she has yet to discover about me, so many secrets we've been keeping from one another. Guilt swirls with the pain in my chest. She never told me about the bond with him. Never asked me about it. Was she scared of me? Of my reaction? Fuck! Fuck!!

There's a moan from the table and I snap my eyes back that way. My cousin looks as much like a corpse as he did moments ago, but the noise came from his mouth, his eyelids flickering ever so softly. My aunt holds his hands in hers, muttering words I've never heard before, and the tang of dangerous magic tarnishes the air.

I dart forward and grab Ellie by the wrist, yanking her away.

"Get back," I shout at her.

"Wh-wh-what?" she says, gaze fixed on our aunt and our cousin.

"Ellie get away!" I pull her right back against the wall, shielding her body with mine. The curse is dangerous and dark and I can feel it hissing in the air like a live snake, angry and vengeful and ready to strike. "It could latch on to you!" I yell. "Phoenix, Winnie, get the hell away."

The two of them jolt at my words and hurry back, as the ground beneath our feet shakes, the air vibrating with violence as if a wind has broken through the windows and sweeps through the room. The magic hisses more loudly, our hair beginning to flap around our faces, the lights flickering on and off.

My aunt grunts, her face purple with concentration, her hands clutching at her son. He jerks, jolts, his body lifting and then slamming down on the table. She sings the spell, bellowing it, and yet the wind that whips around the rooms is so strong, I hardly catch the words. I cling to Ellie, push my own magic forward, creating a shield I hope will protect us both.

Tristan's eyelids snap open and his eyes roll around in their sockets. His body convulses and judders. But my aunt holds him tight, refusing to let go, battling with the magic that's singeing her hands a deathly black, forcing the curse from his body.

"Is it working?" Ellie whispers from behind me, clinging to my hand as Stone swears and Winnie buries her face in her boyfriend's chest.

My aunt's voice becomes high pitched, louder still, sparks flicker from her fingertips and her eyes glow an icy blue, her hair dancing around her head.

The hiss of the curse winds higher and higher and the magic in the air turns so electric I feel it crackle painfully against my skin. The wind whips and snaps, the entire room shakes and I dive to the ground, taking Ellie with me, covering her head with my arms. The pressure is so fierce I think my skull might crack, and I yell at my aunt to stop.

But then there's a flash of light, so blinding, so white, it wipes away all other colors. I close my eyes, shield my face and Ellie's.

And then quickly as it came, it's gone. The wind drops. The room still. The light hazy with dawn.

A scream of agony rips from Tristan's throat and before I can stop her, Ellie's darting from my hands and forcing the triggerwot between his lips. The scream morphs to a long drawn-out moan, that withers away to nothing as his rigid body softens.

Tristan pulls himself up to sitting, blinking rapidly, peering through the smoke that lingers in the air. He's weak, his arms trembling. His eyes swim in and out of focus until finally his gaze alights on his mother and he's on his knees on top of the table, reaching for her in the next moment.

"Mom?" he cries, the pain in his voice more unbearable to my ears than that scream.

She's slumped in a chair, her breath feeble and rattling in her chest, a dark shadow crawling across her skin.

"Mom!" he shouts, skidding off the table and landing beside her, taking her bony shoulders in his hands. "What's wrong? Mom?"

He shakes her, but she simply gasps for breath, her own gaze not leaving his face.

He swings his head around, noticing the rest of us for the first time, all of us but Ellie hovering on the floor, knocked off our feet by that blast of magic as the curse left his body and entered my aunt's.

His eyes land on Stone. "Professor! Professor! Help me! My mom … help me!" Stone's own gaze drops to the floor. And Tristan, wild, desperate, hunts for someone who can aid him. His eyes connect with mine.

"Az–"

"There's nothing we can do, Tristan," I say, standing to my feet. Ellie rushes to Tristan's side. The tears descending her cheeks in violent sobs that rattle her entire body. "It's a pernicious curse. Your mom took it from you to save you."

"No!" he says, shaking his head. "No!" he repeats, his gaze back on his mom, horror and pain – so much pain – crashing across his face. "Mom, no!" he chokes out. "No!"

She's struggling for breath, the dark shadow tight and dark around her throat. Somehow, she manages a smile. It's weak, but more honest an expression than anything I've ever seen on her face before. She lifts her hand, resting it against his cheek.

"My beautiful boy," I read on her lips.

"Mom, please," Tristan says, shaking her with less force now.

"Be careful, Tristan. Of your father."

"Mom. Don't. Give it back to me. It was mine. My time. My death. Not yours. Not yours!"

She smiles warmly and I can see how proud she is of her son.

"I love you," she says, and then her eyes drift shut, the last breath whines out of her throat and her body slumps.

"No!" Tristan screams, cradling her lifeless form. "NO!" He repeats the word over and over again, each one more faint than the last. But then his jaw hardens, his eyes too, and loud, angry, erratic spells crash from his lips, his magic flickers in the air. It's weak, depleted, useless. Most of it drained by the battle, his injury and the deadly curse. "My magic," he moans.

Ellie wraps her arms around him, tugging him gently away from his mom.

"She saved you, Tris," she whispers to him. "She gave her life for you."

"Why?" he whines uselessly. "I don't deserve that."

"Because she loved you."

Rhianna's friends approach the slumped body of my aunt and gently Winnie lifts her into a more comfortable position, a more dignified one, so that if anyone walked in now, they might guess she was simply napping in her chair.

"She shouldn't have ... she shouldn't … why? How? How the fuck did this happen?" Tristan says, his face as tear-stained now as my sister's, tugging at the strands of hair on his head.

"You were hit, badly wounded in the attack in the hall," the Moreau boy says. "Remember? I tried to heal you but I couldn't. You were …" he holds his friend's distraught gaze, "you were dying. There was no other way to save you."

Tristan storms around the table, fury raging across his face. He knocks his hand hard against his friend's chest. "You should have found a way. You should have stopped her."

"Tristan," I say firmly. "There was no other way."

"It should have been him, not her," he screams. "Not her. She deserved better. She deserved more. He made her life a misery."

He doesn't say who he means. But I can guess.

"She loved you, Tristan," Ellie says.

He buries his face in his hands, rocking his head from side to side. His shirt is ripped and singed and soaked red with blood. He's lost his shoes and his hair is black with soot.

He groans like a wounded animal, snot and tears streaming from his chin. Then he snaps his hands away and looks around at us all wildly, his eyes streaming with pain. He spins around, his gaze spiraling over the six of us circling him. And then he jolts to a halt.

His face cracks in even more pain, as his body snaps taut like a wire yanked tight.

"Where's Rhianna?"