You are irreplaceable.
Winfyre was the first place that ever felt like home. The moment I stepped over the borders, I never wanted to leave. I thought it was geography, but it's you. If I could've stayed…but no. I can't think of that. I may think of you because I'm impossible and selfish. I should have left two weeks ago when Lind threatened me, but I didn’t want to. These last two weeks were some of the best of my life.
Ugh, what I wouldn’t do for one of your hugs right now. You know I have every single embrace of ours memorized? I don’t mind sounding like a fool on paper or admitting this to you—I would have stayed. Forever. With you. I know you don’t think of me like that, and I was content to be your friend.
Hell, I was overjoyed to be your friend.
It’s more than likely I will never see you again. That should bring you some relief even if it breaks my heart. But I don’t deserve Winfyre Ridge. I don’t deserve you or Iris or the families…
Anyway, as worthless as this might be, I am so, so sorry.
I never wanted to hurt you. But Orion isn’t dead. He has someone you care about, too—an old friend, Lind said. It’s a fair trade. I should have known I never could have escaped them. In fact, I’m certain they let me go so that I’d come to Winfyre for some wicked purpose.
Please be on your guard, and stay safe. There are those quadrants in Veda that need to be looked at for weak spots in the patrols, and you still need to streamline the office workflow.
Don’t forget to get some sleep once in a while, too.
I’ll never forget you, Xander Bane, Dragon of Winfyre.
Tiani
p.s. Get yourself a girl, stud. You’re too amazing to waste away as a bachelor.
Emotion stirred and expanded against my chest. My hands shook as I read it again. And again. Tiani’s words cast all of our interactions in a different light. Rage at Lind and Orion surged through me. Dammit, I should have known that bastard wouldn’t stay down, I should have—
A faint sense, like a distant voice calling my name, went through me. I half-turned as though expecting to see someone waving to me from a far-off peak. The sense sharpened, and unease trickled down my spine.
Suddenly, the wind rose with a snarl that became a scream. What the hell—
Agony tore through me. A grinding, bone-deep pain that seared me from the inside out, and I wasn’t even conscious of falling until my knees hit the ground. My hands grabbed at my head, and I fought to keep my thoughts straight, to hold on, but it was too much…
Don’t let go.
“Tiani?” I forced myself upright and stared around. The wind was gone, and a strange sense of letting something slip away came over me. I held up my hand.
Like a hand had slid from my grasp.
“Tiani.” My hands hit the earth as a gut-punch of understanding came over me. “No.”
The pain was receding, and I grimaced, trying to shake it off. Because as much as that pain ripping through me had been pure torment, it was only an echo. As much as it had hurt, it wasn’t me; it was my mate.
It was Tiani.
My last thought before I blacked out was, How could I have not known?
Chapter Twenty-Five
Xander
I thought I could hear the roar and hiss of a distant river, echoing up to where I lay on the stone. Laughter and footsteps, along with a familiar, gruesome, and sibilant voice, patiently biding its time.
We must wait and see if she wakes.
Rage burst through me, and I tried to wake up, but, try as I might, I was trapped, paralyzed. Mist moved over my skin and entered my nose. It was so damn cold, and it was like iron chains were cementing me to the ground.
A flutter, like a butterfly tossed in the wind, rose and fell in my chest.
You lose, Bane, the voice said in my ear. I’ll make sure you lose everything.
Like hell, you will. My eyes snapped open.
“Xander!” Lor was there, and relief crossed her face. “Oh, he’s awake. No, don’t sit up.”
“No, it…” I had a scrambled sense of time and space, feeling as though I’d been flung across the universe and back. My body pulsed with pain, and I convulsed a little. “Augh, dammit.”
“Don’t move, idiot,” Tristan’s voice said hoarsely, and he appeared over Beylore. “Breathe.”
Something heavy pressed against my right shoulder and prevented me from moving. “I’ve got him.” Kal was on my other side, grim-faced, yet pale and looking oddly young. “What the hell happened? What was that? Why did you pass out? Is it the wards—what?”
“It’s…” I didn’t have the breath in my body as my brain slowly parsed through what had happened. Cold fear gripped my throat, and I had to close my eyes. I tried to reach out, to fumble across the miles and find her, but everything was numb inside from that blow. “No, please…”
“What is it?” Tristan asked.
“It’s Tiani,” Lor said in a soft, harsh voice.
“How? What?” Kal asked.
I looked up and saw that my sister was holding the letter. Her eyes were on mine, wide and terrified, filled with horror and commiseration. No reproach or anger. Even though I deserved the latter. Her black skin had gone ashen, her normally pink cheeks washed of color.
The gravity of the situation was such that I couldn’t even be furious with her for reading my letter. Tristan and Kal were talking, but neither of us acknowledged them. There was a question in her eyes, and I nodded, once.
“It changes everything,” she said.
“What is it?” Tristan asked and reached for it, but I made a sound of protest.
Holding it out of reach, Lor shook her head and held out her other hand. “We need to go see Iris. Now.”
Before any of us could react, there was a rush of space and darkness, then we were in the living room of Kal’s and Iris’s house. Head pressed into the hardwood floors, I felt the reverberation of the panels as someone ran across the room, sensed a cool breeze as a door was flung open, and heard a distant sound of retching.
Kal made a disgruntled sound. “For Spirits’ sake, Tiger.”
"Warn me next time," Tristan said weakly, reentering the room as I sat up. He went into the kitchen and returned with two glasses of water, coming over to hand one to me. "You okay?"
Head spinning and gripped with agonizing fear for Tiani, I managed a nod. “Thanks.”
“What was that?” Kal asked.
“I think I know,” Lor said and paced around the room. She looked up as Iris fluttered in, pulling off a scarf and looking around. Her eyes first went to Kal, as though to reassure herself he was all right, and then to me. “He’s fine. It’s Tiani.”
The curly-headed blonde pulled in an uneasy breath and released it in a slow gust. “I knew I should’ve said something sooner. But I only got my letter last night.”
“What?” I asked and winced, rubbing my chest. Everything was still disoriented inside of me, and I was having trouble making sense of my instincts. “Kal, you should tell Luke and Rett to check on the wards. I can’t…” I put a hand to my head. “What is happening?”
“May Iris read your letter, Xander?” Lor asked.
I sighed and nodded, watching as Lor held it out to Iris. Over the past few months, Iris had become one of Lor’s closest friends and confidantes. They often worked together on issues around Orion or the Riftborn in Winfyre. In some ways, Iris now worked as the Coven’s Cobalt liaison. I watched as Lor gripped Iris’s shoulder as she read.
Iris gasped and looked at Lor. “Oh no. He’s back. That means…”
“Yes,” Lor said in a grim voice that sent a shiver up my spine, and I forced myself to my feet.
Everyone made a sound of protest, but I walked up to my sister. “What is it?”
“Well, Lor and I were looking into why Orion would want to keep shifters in a suspended state of animal form,” Iris said and chewed her lip. “Whenever we had time, that is.”
Lor rubbed her face. “P
recautionary.”
“And we found something,” Iris said slowly and stared at Tiani’s letter unseeingly. Her eyes closed, and she let out a pained breath, as though she’d figured something out. “Oh no.”
“Tell me,” I said, and my voice cracked. “Lor, what? What is it?”
"We found that he'd also been experimenting with using the foul gifts of the Excris, their tools and dark magic, to trap shifters in their human state, too. He wanted to control shifters’ states, or, in extreme cases, sever them.”
“Severed shifters?” Tristan asked in a dry rasp. “Can he do that?”
“Animal form is a lot trickier,” Iris said. “But human, yes, with the right augris metal, we think he could potentially dampen the connection. The only thing is that it takes time and a willing participant to wear it, to give up that part of themselves…”
A crack went through my chest, and a memory assaulted me, of Tiani fiddling with her left wrist, fingers nervously working it in an old habit, and the brief, strange flash of bracelet that wasn’t there.
“Oh, God,” I said. My chest ached.
Tiani, no, please no. Tell me that’s not the deal you made.
“Why would he want this kind of control?” Kal demanded, incensed and not realizing what we’d all realized. “Is he that sick of a twisted bastard?”
“Partly,” Lor said. “But I think there’s a larger end game. Something we’re still not seeing.”
“Is there any way to know for certain?” I asked and looked at Lor and Iris.
“Did she ever show any signs?” Lor asked Iris.
“Maybe,” Iris said and reached for Kal unconsciously, gripping his arm. It was a movement of fierce protectiveness, as though Orion were going to burst through the door and try to sever Kal, and one of reassurance. “Tiani was always private, though. I never…I tried not to pry.”
Kal snorted, and she shot a glare at him. “Well, it is ironic.” He cleared his throat and glanced around. “Also, what am I missing here?”
“Tiani was a shifter,” Tristan said, already catching up. “Probably a damn powerful one.”
Kal’s jaw dropped, and his eyes went to me, knowledge glimmering there. “Was?”
“I can’t imagine a true severing would work,” Tristan said, and Lor nodded jerkily, while Iris pressed her face against Kal’s shoulder. “It would be a manipulation to suppress the instinct to shift, to get the switch stuck, so to speak. You couldn’t turn it off. We’re not humans with beasts inside of us, like the Skrors say. Or even part beast. We’re one and the same, a flip of the coin, another form of an old power…” He trailed off and ducked his head. “Sorry.”
“In English,” Kal growled. “I have a headache.”
“Severing won’t work because it would be like splitting this body in half, right down the middle,” I said bluntly and drew a vertical line down my sternum. “Tristan is saying it’s an attempt at that, and maybe it even gets close, but it’s more closely aligned to heavy shifting or suppressing shifting.” I swallowed hard. “The real thing would…”
“It would be fatal.”
A charged silence filled the room. Tristan put his hands over his face, and Lor was staring out the window, while Kal had pulled Iris closer, closing his eyes and resting his chin on her head. Iris leaned into him, and her eyes swam, meeting mine.
“Xander,” she said in a soft and wavering voice. “Can you sense her?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “My bearings are all off. I can’t even sense the wards right now—it’s like all of my instincts have been put into a blender and tossed over a cliff.”
“So that pain…” Tristan said in a hushed voice. “That wasn’t you; that was…” He gripped my arm. “What do we do now? What do you need us to do?”
For the first time in years, I didn’t have an answer. I stood there, mute and helpless.
“You go after her,” Lor said.
“Leave Winfyre?” I asked and shook my head. “Out of the question. That leaves only you—”
“Us,” Kal rumbled. “And I agree. If this is Orion, he won’t be expecting that. In fact, I guarantee he’s banking on your staying.”
“Or he’s trying to lure me out,” I said, a bit harshly, as my head cleared more. “It already worked on Tiani. ‘An old friend.’” I gestured around me. “Who? Everyone’s here.”
“Orion knows how to manipulate her,” Iris said, and her gaze became shadowed. “Tiani’s never had a family, so she’s always valued and cherished her friends.”
“She’d also never think that it was a trick,” Kal said and shook his head. “The poor fool.”
“But why wouldn’t she just ask? Tell us?” I turned away and paced to the windows. Outside, the wind was picking up, clearing out the clouds and bringing warmer weather. Spring was in the air, and yet it mocked me. “She picked a poor time not to trust us.”
That hurt. What did I have to do to earn her trust?
“She did tell us, though,” Iris said. “She just didn’t think she was worth saving. Or maybe she had to face her demons.” I turned to see Iris sinking down onto the couch and Kal giving me a dark look. “Oh, Tiani. She holds so much inside, so much on her shoulders.”
“Sounds like someone else I know,” Kal muttered ominously.
“You’re one to talk,” Iris said and frowned up at him.
“Yes, but I was always like that,” Kal retorted. “Alex wasn’t.”
“Alex?” Iris looked from him to me. “Your full name is Alexander? How come I never knew?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Sorry, slip of the tongue,” Kal muttered.
“What?” Tristan said, and we all jumped. He was staring at me. “Alexander…”
“You didn’t know, either?” Iris looked puzzled. “But why?”
Shit. Oh, shit. I took a step toward Tristan, but he held up a hand and stared at Lor. “You…I…I remember…why?” His voice cracked. “Why would you do that to us?”
“Oh, Tristan,” Lor said, and I was surprised to see my sister looking flustered and guilty. “I know, it wasn't a trust issue—it was the right choice at the time…"
“Isn’t that what got us into that damned mess in the first place?” Tristan shouted.
“Don’t yell at Lor,” I said. “It was my idea.”
“Oh, and keeping secrets like that worked out so well for us before,” Tristan snarled at me.
“What is going on?” Luke asked, walking into the room with Rett.
"You agreed to it," I said quietly. "All of you did."
Tristan looked stunned at this and walked over to the couch, stiffly sitting down next to Iris. She patted his hand, and he gave her a bewildered look. Lor came and sat on his other side.
“I hate to say this, but Tristan, we have more pressing matters at hand.”
He dropped his face into his hands, while Rett and Luke shot both me and Kal bewildered looks. Kal’s jaw was working, and Iris was staring up at him, probably silently asking him to explain what the hell was going on.
All the cats are being let out of the bag, today.
“If I lost memories of you, doesn’t that mean I’d have lost memories of Brody?” Tristan asked finally, lifting his head and staring at her. “Why would I agree to that?” Lor had no answer to that and shook her head, only tightening her grip on Tristan’s arm. He shook her off and hugged her, then looked over her head at me. “Go and get her. We’ll keep Winfyre safe.”
“But…”
Lor and Tristan broke apart, my sister patting his cheek. “He always said you and Rett were rivals for the biggest heart.” She turned and looked at me. “Xander, go.”
“I don’t even know if I can find her,” I said. “And outside of Winfyre, hopping is limited…” I trailed off. “But I can’t stay. You all know that.”
Everyone nodded, and Rett spoke up. “No idea what we walked into, but yeah. Go.”
“It’ll be good for you to get out of Winfyre,” L
uke agreed.
“I’m not a hermit on the ridge,” I said and glanced out the window, towards the eastern edge of the Farthing Mountains. My mind was becoming clearer by the moment, and the aches were fading. A sense of rightness was filling me, and there was a tug inside my chest. I straightened, my senses realigning, and reached out, a little hesitant of what I’d find.
“She’s alive,” I breathed, and the relief that filled me was enormous.
“Tiani?” Iris asked from right behind me, and I turned, nodding. “Oh, thank goodness.” Her face became fierce. “Now go get her and bring her home so I can kick her ass!”
Soft laughter went around the room, and I looked up to see that Sierra, Reagan, and Laia had appeared as well. Fallon, Jeques, and Finch followed, along with Rogda, Niles, and Cassidy. I laughed when I saw Drue peek her head around the corner, with Bix and Gabriel in tow.
“I didn’t need proof that Winfyre would be in good hands, you know,” I said dryly.
“Mm, well, Rett said to bring the cavalry,” Laia said.
“And your family,” Reagan added.
Suddenly, feet flew across the room, and Drue threw herself at Iris and me, hugging us both. "Uncle Xander, Auntie Iris, I'm so sorry." She looked up, and her face worked. "Tiani made me promise to give that letter to Iris last night.” Her chin wobbled. “I-I didn’t know.”
“It’s not your fault,” I said and put a hand on her head. “It’s mine.” I let out a huff.
She knew I either wouldn’t read it or would read it too late. I glanced up and met Lor’s knowing face. But she didn't know I have a sister and a big, meddling family.
Tristan stood up and came over, followed by the other Alphas and their mates. We exchanged words and farewells, my mind caught up with thoughts of Tiani.
There was another round of farewells with the others, Rogda giving me a back-breaking hug and a fierce kiss on the cheek, Fallon assuring me the Vixens would handle the patrols, and Jeques nodding along. Finch scowled and handed me a Hopper, admonishing me not to break it. Niles and Cassidy both gave me hugs.
Dragon's Oath (Northbane Shifters Book 5) Page 21