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Chapter 25

Varek

“I would like to offer myself in exchange for him.”

I jump to my feet, my body alive. Energy courses through my veins like I’ve never felt and my mane stands on end.

What is she thinking?

Zhoran grabs me by the bicep but I shake him off and snarl in his direction. Ralon tries to pull me back and I swing for him, using the shackles around my wrist like a weapon to wrap him up. I manage to get the chains tight around his throat before more hunters are on me, tearing him free.

Paige’s mouth is wide open, her gorgeous features twisted in fear. The hunters yank me every which way but all I can see is her. My mate. My woman threw herself down in front of the council and begged to take my punishment for me.

My father would be ashamed of the male I have become. And if I let a single hair on her perfect little head face harm, I am worthless.

“Please,” I shout out above the chaos. The males struggle restrain me but the power of the glows is unmatched. My muscles bunch bigger and I feel like I could fight and kill every living male in this chamber if it meant I could get to Paige. “Do not listen to her.”

I grit my teeth and let the hunters shove me back to my knees, conceding for the moment. I need the council to think with a clear head. I need Kylor and Elyra to pity me.

Mydros has already made up his mind. Insolent and quick-tempered fool.

“Please,” I address directly to Kylor and Elyra, the two that are clearest of mind. The eldest of the Highseers. “Take her from here.”

“No!” Paige cries out, clutching at her chest. I hate to see her this way, but I will not allow this to continue.

“Kylor,” I plead. “Get on with it. Exile me if you must, but Paige will not be punished. She could even now be carrying my spryt.”

My chest caves in as I think of it.

Paige’s eyes widen and she sways like her legs are about to give out. If I were next to her, I would sweep her up into her arms and tell her softly, petting the soft hair on her head, that she is likely already pregnant. I would tell her how happy she makes me. How she has given me purpose when I thought I would never find it.

And that to create life with her has been the gift of an entire lifetime.

But instead, all I can do is watch her from across the chamber as she nearly crumbles.

My pulse pounds in my neck. “If we want to live on, we must look to the future. We must put our mates first. This talk about her being at fault is nothing but lies. I chose to grant her request because I knew it was what I needed to do to bond with her.”

Paige’s hand settles on her belly, her mouth still open as she processes everything I’m saying. She truly hadn’t even considered the possibility.

“A bond means new life. It’s what we need above all.”

Mydros scoffs and chokes out a sinister laugh. “This is outrageous. To get us to believe that you somehow acted with our future in mind, with our best interest in mind, is ridiculous.”

“You don’t understand,” I grit at the arrogant Highseer. Mydros would never challenge me one on one, because he knows he will lose. But now? He believes he holds the power.

He is wrong.

And he’s uninformed.

“The mate bond,” I continue, “It is inevitable. You can’t deny it and you can’t run from it. Even if to you, my actions appear as a betrayal, they were nothing but selfless in my soul.”

Elyra grimaces and shakes her head. “Robbing the mate of another is not selfless.”

But she herself is unmated. It’s a feeling I can’t explain.

I look around the room, taking in all the males that have not experienced the feeling. The pull. The intense desire to attain your mate and create an heir above all else. It is consuming and overwhelming. But no one in this chamber has felt it. Our numbers have dwindled and we have gone so long without a surplus of mated pairs that our instincts are foreign to us.

I can’t keep fighting a battle that the others believe they have won. “If that is how you see it, then I await my punishment.”

“No,” Paige’s voice cracks in half. Her friends find her, wrapping her up in their arms as the tension in the room builds.

I will be exiled. Paige will stay here. And I will never see her again.

She knows it.

I can see it in the way she sags.

My chest constricts as the bond screams inside me.

Just when I think she’s going to crumble, Draxel enters the chamber. He’s drenched in sweat, his chest heaving with deep, ragged breaths like he’s been sprinting to get here.

We lock eyes and he nods respectfully. I give him the same courtesy.

Then, Draxel’s eyes go to my mate and his expression softens, his fists relaxing at his sides.

“I must speak,” he says.

His spear is still slung across his back, his leathers dirty. He must have just returned from the hunt. Or come back early from it to be here. There is a purpose in his step as he holds his head high and addresses the council.

Draxel closes his eyes. A second later, his left peck and bicep fire up bright green, the pattern of glows trickling down his skin. His patterns are different from mine, but just as bright.

His eyes open and he looks down at the luminescence, his lips twitching.

“I have also been chosen by the glows. One of the humans will become my mate.”

I nod to myself, but no one in the chamber seems to be shocked. They must have seen him glow in her presence before.

“Ryan. Is the human’s name,” Draxel says, his voice wavering as he speaks her name. “Varek and I rescued her from the clutches of the Thachiens a week ago.”

Kylor nods, the rest of the chamber quiet as Draxel continues.

“I did not understand the mate bond before this, nor did I yearn for it. I never wanted to take a mate, but the glows—” he stutters, his hand pressing to his chest.

I recognize it in my best friend–the pain, deep and aching in my chest when I couldn’t have my female in my arms,.

“The glows have an intensity that I did not think possible. I could not reject my mate even if I wished it,” Draxel says. “I say this, because when Varek asked me to keep what I saw a secret, I disagreed with him. I took his order as Highseer, but I thought he was wrong.”

Mydros smirks as whispers circulate the chamber.

“But now, I understand why he did what he did. He caved to his mate—a biological instinct that lies within us all. I fear I may succumb to it someday, too.”

Elyra asks, “And what of the safety of your Ryan? Do you not blame Varek for putting her life in danger by hiding her?”

Draxel’s chest glows bright as he grits his teeth. “That is something I will never forgive him for.”

“So you do believe his actions unforgivable?” Kylor asks.

“No.” Draxel clarifies. “His actions were honorable to his mate. And it seems we have forgotten that the bond between mates is our highest law.”

I blow out a relieved breath. I gnaw my tongue as I listen to my friend try his best to explain this inexplicable blessing from the glows.

“I am now in the position Varek was then, and to get my Ryan to accept our bond there are no lines I will not cross.” His tone turns dark. “Any male unmated simply cannot understand that drive. Varek did what he could to secure his heirs.”

Mydros’ lips press into a thin line, his gaze flicking upward. “And we are supposed to listen to the testimony of Varek’s accomplice? Of the Vrut who helped him betray us all? We are not so dull.”

Paige sucks in a deep breath, her eyes pleading with me for answers. She’s desperate to feel my touch, as am I hers. We’ve been apart too long—the bond can feel it. I can’t even stomach if she were to fall sick again because of my absence.

The room breaks down into arguments, the small crowd of Vruts discussing what they just heard. I can hear the judgment, the faint calls for me to be exiled anyway. None of it matters. All I can focus on is Paige. Everything is for her.

Kylor clears his throat, lifting a hand to silence the room. He demands attention and the clan gives it.

“During the last Thachien attack, we lost a pair of mates.”

His gray eyes slide to me as a numbness spreads through my limbs.

“Varek himself remembers what it was like to lose his father to Thachien hands and then his mother to a broken bond. But we all remember what that attack did to our numbers,” Kylor says.

The room goes eerily silent, despair thickening in the air.

“We lost fathers. Brothers. Children. There have been no spryts born in the last twenty years. This cannot go on.” Kylor frowns. “Perhaps Varek encountering his mate, and four other females, eclipses his clouded decision making.”

Mydros’ stare snaps in the direction of Kylor. His eyes blaze with fury.

“Perhaps Varek is wise to put the future before the present.”

“You can’t be serious,” Mydros seethes.

I raise my chin, puffing out my chest. “I will accept whatever punishment the council sees fit to give, but it is important that my people know, I only thought of my family, my clan, and our future.”

My gaze drifts to Paige. I can’t be sure of what Kylor, Elyra, and Mydros will decide, but I am certain that my actions were just. I was awarded the spot on the council, the position of Highseer, because of my fairness. My battle prowess. But also my moral sense of justice. It never faded—it just rooted to a new guide post.

If I must leave, Paige will be safe with the clan. Draxel will protect her along with his own mate. She will be with her friends. She will find happiness again.

And I will live on, clinging to the memory of holding her in my arms, petting her pretty hair, and loving her with all of me.

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