Page 85 of Lord of the Lone Wolf (Bonded Hearts #3)
Maseo
A chill seeped through Maseo’s clothes as he stood before Fate’s Gate the next morning.
The stone archway, rumored to be as old as time itself, rose before him as a monument to impossible choices.
The massive doorway dwarfed the multistoried temple beside it.
The surface was covered in moss so ancient it seemed woven into the stone.
Ornate carvings of dragon spirits adorned the weathered blocks, their eyes appearing to watch with eternal vigilance, while runes spiraled around the frame in patterns that spoke of magic older than memory.
The oldest tales claimed that passing through its threshold could rewrite one’s fate.
It had done so for Auslin twice before, leading him to fall in love with Kitsuki.
Maseo could only hope it would be kind to him.
His pulse thundered in his ears as he stared at the gateway that would either save him or damn him forever.
The irony that he had to die to live would have drawn a bitter laugh if he had any air to spare. The path to love and freedom led through the one realm where his father’s corrupted soul awaited, filled with centuries of patience and malice.
Nasume . The name alone sent revulsion crawling through him. Maseo had believed himself free when he drove his blade through his father’s gut in Norello, thinking his long nightmare was over. But death wasn’t strong enough to defeat a monster like Nasume.
The necrotic wounds beneath Maseo’s bandages throbbed with dark energy, each pulse a reminder that his father’s influence poisoned his blood.
Black tendrils of necromancy had spread further overnight, creeping toward his heart with insatiable hunger.
He tasted decay on his tongue, bitter and metallic.
It was an unwelcome preview of what awaited if they failed.
“I’m terrified,” Maseo admitted, the words slipping out before he could stop them. “Not of dying, but of seeing my father again and having to deal with all those years of torment while he tries to break me in ways I can’t even imagine.”
Kitsuki stepped forward, his presence commanding in the face of such uncertainty. “I told you before that you are no longer the broken boy he once tormented. Unlike him, you are capable of love. That strength will be your strongest weapon. It is why you will be victorious a second time.”
Maseo’s gaze moved between his two companions, men who had seen worth in him when he saw none in himself.
The knowledge that they loved him enough to risk everything for his salvation felt too large to process.
He brushed his thumb over the protective ring Kitsuki had returned to him.
“I still cannot believe this is real. That you both want me. That someone like me could be worthy of this.”
“You’re everything we’ve been missing without knowing it,” Auslin replied.
For so long, Maseo thought of himself as damaged beyond repair, worthy only of scraps of affection from those who pitied him. But looking into their eyes and seeing the genuine love and desire there, he understood that he’d been wrong about his own value.
“The chance to form a trinity bond with you is worth fighting for,” Maseo said with conviction. He would not run from his father’s shadow anymore. He would burn it to ash.
“It is time.” Kitsuki stepped closer, his hands framing Maseo’s face with infinite tenderness. “You will defeat Nasume, not only because you must, but because he no longer defines who you are.”
Maseo leaned into the touch, drawing strength from Kitsuki’s unwavering confidence.
“You will reclaim every fragment of your soul that he has stolen,” Kitsuki continued. “You will forge yourself whole again and return to us. I will use every ounce of my strength and will to anchor you to this realm and bring you home. You are ours, as the trinity bond demands.”
The fierce possessiveness in those words, the absolute refusal to accept any outcome other than Maseo’s success, sent warmth flooding through him. For the first time, he understood what it meant to be truly wanted.
When Kitsuki spoke again, his voice carried the authority of his inner dragon. “Never forget that we have claimed you. We refuse to relinquish you to the likes of Nasume. Death itself cannot keep you from us, for we will tear through every realm to retrieve what is ours.”
His lips found Maseo’s, claiming him in a kiss that promised a king’s refusal to surrender what was his.
Maseo melted into the embrace, savoring how Kitsuki’s hands held him like something precious and irreplaceable.
It was desperate and tender, filled with all the love they had not had time to explore and all the moments they were gambling on having in the future.
When they parted, Maseo’s lips tingled with the memory of Kitsuki’s touch. “I never thought someone would want me enough to fight for me.”
“You must come back to us,” Kitsuki’s dragon insisted, his forehead resting against Maseo’s. “Promise us. Whatever happens in that realm, no matter what underhanded tricks your father tries, remember that you have a home now. You have love here. You have a future worth living for.”
“I promise I’ll return home to you both.”
Auslin stepped forward, his eyes bright with fierce determination. “I’ll be beside you every step of the way. You aren’t alone anymore.” He reached out, his hand closing around Maseo’s. “Trust that our bond will guide us home when the darkness tries to claim us.”
Auslin’s kiss differed from Kitsuki’s. It was softer but no less passionate, filled with hope and the promise of a love that could survive anything. Maseo lost himself in the sensation, overwhelmed by the knowledge that two incredible men cherished him.
“I love you both,” Maseo said when they parted, the words coming easily despite how foreign they felt on his tongue. “More than I ever thought I’d be allowed to.”
He turned toward Fate’s Gate, positioning his back to the monument. The forgotten runes pulsed with a waiting energy, the dragon spirits watching with eternal patience. One step backward and he would fall into the Beyond Realm. One step, and everything would end to begin anew.
“I’m ready,” he said, his voice steady.
Auslin drew his soulkeeper’s sword. The purple fire dancing along the black diamond blade cast strange shadows across his face, highlighting the anguish of loving someone enough to kill them.
Maseo’s unwavering gaze met his. “You’re not killing me, Auslin. You are giving me the only weapon that can win this war, so I can come back to you whole.”
Auslin raised the sword, bringing the point to rest over Maseo’s heart.
The tip pressed against the fabric of his tunic, a pinprick of pressure before the coming pain.
Auslin’s hand was steady now, his focus absolute despite the tears tracking down his cheeks.
“I know why this has to be done, but that doesn’t make it easier to… ”
“To love me enough to let me go,” Maseo finished, offering a reassuring smile. “To trust that what we have is strong enough to survive. I am not afraid, because I know what awaits me when I return. Nothing will stop me from coming back to you.”
The purple fire flared brighter, responding to their connection.
“I love you,” Auslin said, the words carrying all the hope and desperate devotion in his heart. “Now and always.”
The declaration made dying worth it. He rested his hand on the hilt of his own sword, prepared for the journey. “I love you, too. Both of you. Forever.”
And then Auslin moved.
The sword plunged forward with devastating precision, sliding between Maseo’s ribs in one swift, terrible motion. Steel parted flesh and muscle, severing arteries and penetrating his heart, which had only just learned to love.
For a moment that stretched into an eternity, time stopped. The blade buried to the hilt in his chest, with Auslin’s face inches from his own, their eyes locked in perfect understanding and unbearable horror.
Pain exploded through Maseo as his body convulsed. His muscles spasmed as his heart fought to beat around the steel that had torn it apart. Blood gushed from the wound, soaking his shirt and painting Auslin’s hands and face crimson.
Worse than the physical agony was Auslin’s devastation, his beautiful features crumpled by a grief Maseo had caused. He wanted to offer comfort, but blood filled his mouth, spilling over his lips in thick streams that choked his words.
Purple fire erupted from the wound, a judgment of the Death Power unleashed.
The flames were not heat but pure spiritual force, burning his soul free from its failing body with a soulkeeper’s authority.
Through it all, he could feel Auslin’s magic wrapped around his own, a protective guide through the throes of dying.
Maseo’s legs gave out, his body crumpling against Auslin as his lungs filled with blood.
Each attempt to breathe produced only a wet, rattling gasp.
His hands clutched at Auslin’s shoulders, trying to hold on as his strength bled away.
With one final, desperate flutter, Maseo’s heart stilled.
The silence in his chest was deafening, a void where life used to be.
Yet the fire kept burning, keeping him aware as his body died around him, each flame a thread connecting his soul to Auslin’s.
“I won’t let go,” Auslin swore, his voice breaking as they stumbled backward toward Fate’s Gate. Tears streamed down his face, mixing with Maseo’s blood. “Not in this realm or any other. I will bring you home.”
Ancient magic embraced them as the prophecy fulfilled.
Maseo’s soul separated from his dying body like smoke from an extinguished flame, but Auslin’s presence tethered him to purpose and love.
His blood painted the monument as they fell through shimmer and shadow, through the space between realms where reality was negotiable.
Its dragon spirits roared, their stone eyes blazing with ethereal light, but their blessing could not ease the agony of a heart pierced by steel.
The last thing Maseo saw before darkness claimed him was Kitsuki’s face through the closing portal, twisted with anguish and fierce determination. His lips formed words that Maseo couldn’t hear but understood all the same. Come back to me.
The Living Realm vanished behind a curtain of stars and shadow as they fell into the endless night of the Beyond Realm.
Auslin’s arms wrapped around him disappeared, but the purple fire still burning in his soul was his only lifeline to everything he’d left behind.
His last coherent thought before the void swallowed him was a prayer that the men he loved would forgive themselves for what they had done.
Then there was no heartbeat, no breath, no life in the endless dark.
Until the shadows learned to laugh.
The familiar sound was cruelty given voice as the void rejoiced in his doom. It suffocated the last echoes of the Living Realm.
His father waited in the ruin of all things.
Then the necromancy in his body stirred in recognition as the Beyond Realm welcomed it home.
The death magic awakened the dormant weapon Nasume had embedded in his son’s flesh.
The festering wound in his ruined eye socket blazed to life, recognizing its birthplace.
His ribs burned as the rot that had spread through his chest cavity roused itself with predatory satisfaction.
The sword wound in his shoulder throbbed as the necromancy that Kio had spread stretched like a beast about to pounce on prey.
Four hungry mouths were ready to feast on the only thing keeping him connected to love.
No! Maseo fought with pure will, trying to shield the purple fire threading through his astral form. He had to protect Auslin’s essence. But his soul had no substance as he fell deeper into the darkness, and the necromancy grew stronger, fed by the realm’s atmosphere.
The corruption in his eye socket latched onto the luminous strands first. Maseo’s desperate attempts to save the purple fire only made the death magic pursue it more aggressively.
As each thread of connection snapped with wet, tearing sounds that reverberated through his soul, the necromancy sucked Auslin’s essence into the hollow cavity like a starving parasite.
Stop. Please stop! He tried to resist, but the necromancy flowed beyond his control, transforming love into fuel for decay.
Each severed strand dissolved Auslin’s essence, while his sliced ribs became a cage of consumption.
It devoured the reservoir of purple fire pooling in his chest, ripping out precious memories from Maseo’s mind.
His shoulder wound completed the violation, intercepting the last desperate streams of magic. The necromancy gorged itself, and with every strand, it erased not only his connection to Auslin but his capacity to love at all.
When the last wisp of purple fire extinguished, it left a devastating emptiness.
Where Auslin’s warmth had lived, only cold void remained.
The necromancy had consumed their bond, along with the ability to feel connected to another being.
He was alone, with nothing but the darkness and the echo of his father.
The corruption pulsed in unison across all four wounds, synchronized in their feast of destruction.
What had been his lifeline to everything good in existence became fuel for his father’s embedded weapon, leaving Maseo severed from hope, love, and any reason to fight.
He’d been damned before the battle had begun.
Nasume’s laughter grew stronger as the necromancy completed its work, the trap perfect in its cruelty. His son now faced the Beyond Realm not only alone but stripped of the ability to remember what love felt like.
Because even in death, Nasume would ensure his son had nothing.
The war for Maseo’s soul had begun.
And his father had already claimed the first victory.
Can Kizoshi help Maseo in his journey through the Beyond Realm? Check out “In Death’s Domain” to find out what happens next.
Lost in Shadowfall Vale with his soul fractured and his heart hollowed, can Maseo find his way back to Auslin and Kitsuki? Read “Slayer of the Shadow Tyrant” to continue their epic journey.