Chapter 16

Chapter

Sixteen

I wake up groggy, feeling a nasty medicine taste in my mouth. The world is completely spinning as I try to wiggle my arms and realise that I'm tied to a chair. Thick, glowing blue chains are wrapped around me a dozen times from my feet to chest, pressing on my injuries. These magical chains are familiar and designed to hold me in place and drain my magic all at the same time. Great.

My Nexus is still a little drugged up, but she's coming to, and she will easily get me out of these. They used to be strong enough to hold her, but not anymore. We outgrew them a few years ago, thanks to training with the chains over and over. Whoever it is that's taken me is going to regret it.

Only when my eyes focus do I see a man standing a few feet away. I look round and realise I'm in a packed warehouse. There must be at least two hundred, if not more, Vian circled around the edges of the warehouse, watching me. The warehouse is old, half the top of the building missing, and nature has tried to take it back. The tiles on the ground have moss and ivy growing through them, and a whole ass tree has sent branches through the top level to fill it with green leaves. "If you think you only need this many to stop me from killing you, you seriously underestimated me. You just got my friend killed, and I'm not leaving here with a single one of you still breathing."

His laugh freezes my blood, makes everything in me run cold. I know him. I ran from him for months. There is no one in this world that scares me like he does, and he is one of the few people in the world who truly have any power over me. "That's not how you speak to your mate, is it?"

Severi lowers his hood, and sickness rises in my chest. Mate. He is a Vian, and he is bound to my soul. I met him when I was seventeen, apparently when Vian have a similar ceremony to find their own mates, and he sensed me out in the world thanks to his tracking powers. Severi came to get me, and we had to run from him more than we ever did the Nexus of Starlight and people looking for us from there. The Gods bound me to him, gave me a Vian as a mate, and he's an absolute psychopath. The only reason he couldn't find me in Spain was because my Nexus spent every second blocking out the bond and making sure he couldn't. She couldn't do that in Starlight because I didn't let her out.

He has long black hair that he keeps tied at the back of his head, and he is tanned in the way only someone who lives anywhere else in Europe other than here is. He was born in America, though, carrying that accent with him. He's different now than I remember. He's also not a teenager anymore. He's older, the same age as me, I think, or at least close. Now he's a man. Everything about him is filled out. Still, disgust roils in my stomach because I know exactly what he's like. Severi is basically a prince of the Vian. He likes hurting me over and over to see how far he could push my Nexus before she hurt her mate. He made me kill my parents and drain their powers to try and break me.

My Nexus didn't hurt him. Severi is the one person, along with my other mates, who has the power to stop my Nexus. My Nexus, even now, blanches in fear from him just as much as I do. Mates aren't meant to hurt each other, but he has no problem hurting me. Hurting me was fun for him because I wouldn't accept our bond. He could have forced it, but he claimed he wanted me begging first.

He leans down, crouching in front of me, searching my eyes with his dark brown ones. Looking into Severi's eyes is like looking into a pit empty of feeling or life. There is just nothing there, and I don't know how the Gods could have ever bound me to him. "You went running to the mates you rejected? After everything I did for you so you could be free." He tuts and I sneer at him. "I got rid of those parents who were torturing you, restraining your true potential, and I gave you every chance to be a princess of the Vian, but you left. You ran from your mate." He sighs. "For what? Straight back to those weak asshole Nexus? Can they protect you like me?" He laughs into my face. "They can't. Where are they?"

"Fuck you, I'm not talking to you about any of this and especially not them."

"I am your mate." He grabs my neck, tightening it in his grip. "We both know I've got no qualms about breaking your bones and making you scream, so let's leave the bullshit behaviour at the door and talk like adults for once." I gasp as he lets me go. He paces in front of me as I reach for my wrist, hoping to feel the runes there and maybe some sign Onyx is hunting for me, but I gasp in pain. "Your runes are gone. Stop reaching for your wrists. I will accept a kiss in thanks."

"I'd throw up first," I snarl. "How did you get a bomb into that house? How have you been getting your people into Starlight at all?" I hope my other mates are coming for me, and this fucker always likes to talk. It will buy me some time if I get him bragging.

Severi smirks. "Not all Nexus are loyal. Especially not Onyx's father." Shock makes my stomach feel like it's dropping onto the floor. "See, he has ideas of being the Supreme Alpha, and he's quite easy to bribe. Tonight, at the same time we blew up that house, we went after the Supreme Alpha's daughter, too. We took her for blackmail, and she is a pretty little thing. She's currently being used to make the Supreme Alpha kill himself so Onyx's father can take over. He's next in line." Annie? "Of course, the public won't know anything about that. They go on with their little happy lives in Starlight. We've always had an agreement with Onyx's dad, but that agreement didn't stretch far until you came back. I kept trying to get you in that city, which proved a lot harder and more annoying than it should have been."

"Don't you dare hurt Annie, she's…"

"I've been watching you too, mate." He deliberately drawls out the word mate . "What are you going to do when you're tied to a chair? You going to let that Nexus out to play with me? She always hid inside you like the terrified little girl that you are. Pathetic, really. I thought my mate would have this big, powerful Nexus for me to try to drain when I was done with her body in other ways. Tasty, perhaps…but no. Your Nexus didn't even come out to save your parents from dying in front of you. You just drained them and didn't move. Pathetic."

I can't breathe. She didn't come out because my parents wanted me to live. If he saw my Nexus back then, he would use her like a weapon. He would unleash her on the world and force me to back down. We always had a plan if we got caught and my parents wanted me to let them die. It was the worst moment of my life.

"You took their powers, though, didn't you? A handy gift of yours to take the powers of the dead. Almost like a Vian." He winks at me. "Isn't it nice having their powers swimming around in your body?"

"Fuck you."

He laughs at me like the weak little girl he thinks I am. "You were made to be mine, so we will get to that and have pretty little babies to lead the Vian. We'll work out everything else now that you're back at my side."

A cold fury washes over me. I might not have been blessed with the best mate bonds in the world, but fuck am I going down like this. "I am not made to be yours. The Gods made a mistake binding us, but maybe they did it because they knew you were a monster and that I am one, too. They knew I could stop you." I let my Nexus take over fully. I let her come out when I hid her before from him, and I shouldn't have done back then. My hesitation got my parents killed. I won't let it take anyone from me this time.

My Nexus fully takes over, shifting both my eyes to that pale grey colour, and grey fur starts sprouting all over my hands, my nails spreading into long black claws. A half shift so I can still speak. Severi pales as he watches me, stepping away to the crowd, who are getting their guns, swords and various other weapons out. Underneath my feet, all the ivy and moss that has grown through the cracked tiles of the warehouse drains of its colour, because whatever I touch drains of everything. Including its life. I can't stop it when I shift. My Nexus will spread her power wide and leave the ones she wants to rip apart for fun.

Before I fully shift into my Nexus wolf, I look up at the stars once, and I pray to the Gods to keep my other mates alive if they come after me.