Page 18 of Pack Rage (The Splintered Bond #4)

Chapter 17

An Unexpected Bond

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T he quiet hours of the long day I’d spent learning about Grigor vanished in a second of panic. She was here , the last place I ever wanted my wildflower to be discovered.

And she would be, I had no doubt. The Eastern Mansion was still on lockdown, and that meant dozens of armed Enforcers on alert both inside and out. Aidan might be an evil Alpha, but he was a thorough, paranoid one, and his shifters were well trained.

I’d been keeping my bond with Flor closed down to make certain Elina’s slight drain didn’t affect her, so I hadn’t dared to reach for her with my mind and read her thoughts. The only way I would be able to sense her would be if she were so close…

“She’s touching an exterior wall. Sleeping, I think. Her mind is quiet.” Grigor had risen to standing and had a hand pressed as close to the air circulation holes as he could reach. He had his eyes closed and moved his fingers in a small circle on the concrete, like he was picking a lock. “She’s no more than a few hundred feet away.”

“Why the hell is she here? ” My wolf was enraged that we couldn’t get out of the cell to rush to Flor’s side. I was horrified. But as he lowered himself calmly to the floor again, Grigor didn’t appear concerned.

When he lifted his head, I realized I’d been wrong. He was shaken to the core, his eyes filled with fiery sparks. “She’s here to save us. We don’t have time to gather our strength. When she wakes, she’ll come inside. She may be waiting for nighttime.” He glanced at the door as if considering going to open it, then raised his hands, which were trembling with weakness.

“Pain,” I gritted out. “You can feed on pain. How?”

He blinked at me, his jaw dropping open. “If you think for one second that I’ll harm you,” he began, but I’d already let a claw shift, and ran it down my right arm, holding it up.

“How much pain do you need?” I demanded. I had silver on, and I twisted so it burned my wrists. The silver hissed and spat as my blood dripped down onto it. “We have to get out, now. ”

“Stop!” He cursed in some languages I didn’t know, including one that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, then held out his hand. I gave him my arm, but instead of licking the blood—or however something like him fed—he pressed his fingers over the wound. A warm flush permeated the skin, and when he dropped his hand, I was healed. And he was even weaker.

Well, shit. “Don’t you want to go to her? Do you even love her?”

“Do you? I would burn the earth to a cinder for her.”

“I would light the match,” I agreed. “So, how much pain?”

He grumbled something in Russian that had to be an insult from the tone. “There’s a better way to gain strength. We combine it. The bond creates its own power.”

“Bond. Like you did with Luke and Glen?”

“Too weak. Too… indirect,” he rasped. His teeth had lengthened slightly as he spoke, the canines extending over his lower lip.

I groaned, understanding instantly. “Promise me two things,” I said, holding my arm up to him again. He tilted his head, the dark hair falling over one of his creepy red and black eyes.

“What?”

“Promise me that you’ll never kill another innocent. Not one. No going mad and burning down villages.”

He gave a quick nod. “I’ll allow you to kill me first.”

I kneeled at his side and growled my final request. “And swear to the moon you’ll never call this thing a mating bite.”

When he set his teeth to my arm and bit down, it sounded like he might be choking back laughter. I almost choked from the feeling of power that rushed through me.

The first wave smelled odd, leaving a taste of ozone on my tongue, and the sharp bite of lightning in the air. The electricity , he said in my mind. I flinched, not ready for the intrusion.

I was really not ready for what came next. An intense surge of dark power entered my arm and climbed up my chest. It barreled into my own Alpha power and slid around it, wrapping itself like a steel vine around the nearly empty well of my own power, then squeezing. Luke’s bond within me flared to life, alarm racing from where he’d bitten me. Flor’s bond sparked next, and I felt Glen and Finn as well, in the distance. Worried, fearful. I had no time to send reassurance back.

Grigor’s grasp on my arm tightened to the point of pain as he dug his sharp teeth deeper. I could feel some of my strength moving into him, and his sliding into the spaces left behind. The two energies were as different as night and day, and the places where they met felt uncomfortable, as if small thorns were embedding themselves into my soul. Thorns that bore traces of her. My wildflower.

His magic leaned on mine, asking for entrance, showing the only key that could ever convince me to bind myself to him.

For her, it whispered in an icy voice.

For her alone, my wolf agreed.

There was a distant sound in my thoughts, like ice breaking, a soft, ominous crackling, and the resistance I had to him dissolved.

When I’d bonded with Luke, I’d felt the others there, though Grigor’s power had been negligible. I knew now he’d been allowing only the barest thread of his connection to remain, to protect the others. For a terrifying moment, his hunger, a ravenous beast of its own, reached into my soul, swallowing everything—the pack bonds, the Heirs’ braided connections—before it came to the place where Flor’s spirit was entwined with mine, the base of our love.

I smelled her in the cell, her jasmine and cinnamon filling the space. I felt her small hands on my arm for a moment. I heard her call out. Bearman?

Grigor tore his mouth away from my arm. “My queen,” he rasped. And the vortex reversed, his power rushing back into me, mingling with mine. There was more, far more of it than there should be, considering how weak we had both been.

I held him up now, feeling a blaze of heat, as if I stood too close to the white-hot center of a constellation. Behind my eyelids, I could see it: her scar, with its five arms, but each one ended in a star. Three of the five points glowed hotter than the rest. Mine, Glen’s, and Luke’s. Finnick’s was frail, and Grigor’s was a strange texture—a shadowed tendril connecting him, rather than the bright mating bond the others shared.

Then there was our center: Flor. As I thought of her, her power met mine, and flowed into me, filling me with her feminine, wild energy. The combined power from all six of us swelled even higher, as if it were trying to reach some unknowable peak.

Grigor grunted with exhaustion in my arms. I took almost all of his weight, as my arm burned where Elina had marked me. “Let it,” he rasped.

“I can’t.” I had to disconnect myself from the others. I didn’t know how.

But Grigor did. Twisting in my grip, he mustered the energy to fling himself away from me. The instant he did, the connection with Elina sputtered to life, a splinter of her power present in my veins. A pulse of energy shot down my arm and shut her off completely. From my wolf, or Flor, or the remaining connection with Luke? I didn’t know.

My arm flared with heat, all my limbs humming like I was on some strange drug. “Fuck,” I muttered. “Too much power.” I’d only meant to shut it back most of the way, but I’d inadvertently done far more than that. I felt invigorated.

Grigor, on the other hand, had fallen into a heap. He was trying to rise, but couldn’t.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, approaching him. He held up one shaking hand, warning me away, as he tried to catch his breath. Is he… “Are you laughing? ”

“Yes, though there is nothing amusing about this,” he eventually said, as he rolled over onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. “Except one thing, I suppose. My father dreamed of this sort of power.”

“You’re too weak to stand,” I said slowly, wondering if he’d fried his brain.

“Yes, for now. But I can feel the potential. Once I’ve bonded with our queen, with all the bonds between us complete… it shouldn’t be possible. It’s dangerous.” He went quiet. “No one can know. Together, if we make it?—”

I shushed him. “She’s waking up.” I listened to her thoughts, the fear of her being discovered warring with the thrill of hearing her in my head. I was glad she didn’t seem to mind my presence there, and sent a small surge of worry and love down the bond.

Don’t distract me, she thought. I’m in the kitchen. Mama’s here. We’re coming to get you—oh, shit.

Her thoughts became a jumble. She was carrying something; there was a strong scent of blood that was disturbing her wolf. Her wolf. For the first time since I’d taken on my position as Alpha, I could sense her wolf side clearly. My little flower was growing much stronger.

Her wolf was more cautious than Flor, and even more vicious. I approved of her quiet, cunning thoughts, keeping footsteps quiet, staying close to shadows.

“She’s coming down with her mother, and someone else. A maid,” I said out loud. “Someone is bleeding… or there’s bloody food? I don’t know.”

Grigor managed to stand and move to the door, placing his hand on it. “There are guards in the hall.”

I joined him. “Are you strong enough to help me break out now?”

“Give me a few minutes, and I’ll see if I can get through the lock.” One dark eyebrow rose as he looked up at me. “The guards aren’t innocents, right?”

Blood, pain, and fear. I assumed two Eastern Enforcers would provide enough of all three to help the little psycho power up. “Right.”