Page 6 of Burdened Bonds

“The attack came from over the border.” I confirm. “They had dragons. We were taken by surprise. We couldn’t stop them.”

“Where the hell did they get dragons?” Stone mutters to his friend, shaking his head.

But the enforcer’s attention is locked on his aunt and his cousin. “Pernicious?” he says.

“Yes,” Tristan’s mom says. “Winnie is right. It is a pernicious curse.”

Ellie’s tears fall harder and she turns away.

“Then there’s nothing that can be done,” the enforcer says with that steeliness in his tone once again.

My knees buckle. My heart cracks.

“No, Azlan. There is something that can be done.”

“Aunt!!” Ellie says, spinning back around and reaching for Tristan’s mom. “You can’t!”

“What?!” I ask them, but they don’t hear me. “What?!” I ask, turning to Stone and then Winnie.

“The only way to remove the curse,” Winnie says, her voice so quiet I barely hear it, “is for another magical to take it from him. Another magical who shares his blood.” A tear slides from her eye and she brushes it away with her fingers. “The stronger that blood connection, the more chance of a successful removal. But it means …”

I glance back at Tristan’s mother, already pushing up the rolled-up sleeves of her designer blouse. “The curse would infect the other person instead.”

“Yes,” Winnie says. “It would kill them.”

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 beready. 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.”