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KADE
My soul tears in two and I scream as I’m ripped into a form I cannot bear. There was me before, and there’s me now. Before Zara and after her. She was warm and alive in my arms; her being in balance with me. She and I had found our equilibrium, and her magic had stopped trying to consume mine.
Then she was gone, yanked away from the blood weave by an unhinged darkness that knows no limits to its depravity.
Now, all that remains is a void so absolute it threatens to consume me.
My knees hit the ground, the blood weave’s pulse writhing through my veins like feral vermin, feeding my rage and pain.
“Zara!”
Her name tears from my throat, raw and broken. The walls of the room warp and twist as my magic lashes out uncontrollably, the aftermath of the weave’s energy wreakinghavoc. I try to focus, to pull her back, but the connection between us feels distant. Or worse, frayed to the point of no return.
I scream in silence, pulling at my hair and rocking, doing anything to contain the madness and pain swelling in me. I lose track of time as the seconds bleed into minutes, which stretch into infinity, and all I know is that she’s gone. And the longer I’m without her, the more the madness takes hold, insidious and poisonous. My blood hums with fury, with a primal and uncontainable need to destroy anything and everything in my path to find her.
Only her.
I stand and turn to the door, fixing on it as it becomes the only thing standing between me and what I need to do. My reason kicks in and there’s only one possible explanation, only one solution to the problem I’m facing. It’s unhinged and unlikely, but no other explanation makes sense.
My brothers did this.
No one else knew of Zara, and Galen knew of the blood weave. They are the only other warlocks who can enter our mansion and they’ve betrayed me. They’ve already meddled, already interfered, and they tried to twist Zara into their schemes, and now she’s gone because she didn’t fit into their plans.
I’ll make them pay.
In blood and pain, twice over.
The room turns into a chaos of shattered furniture and scorched walls. I assume I unleashed magic and its remnants move around me, unchecked, and the crackles in the air beg to be released again. The blood weave’s energy surges again and its pain is an agony I’d never imagined relishing, enjoying it because it means she’s still alive.
It wouldn’t hurt like this if Zara was dead, and that meansI can still find her. I can still save her. I can be the hero I never wanted to be, and I can burn the fucking world down as I do it.
Energy surges through me and I let it fuel me. I let it consume me. I’ve become unhinged and I no longer care about control. There’s no point in order now she’s gone.
This is what my brothers wanted, and it’s what they’ll get.
The doors burst open with a violent frenzy of energy. They slam against the walls with a deafening crack, and I stride through without hesitation. I descend the stairs, anger roaring in my screams as I demand their presence and race through the mansion, letting my magic loose.
Galen stands at one end of the banquet room, his expression calm but his eyes sharp. He’s always been the most composed of us, the one who plays the long game. But that doesn’t make him right and it doesn’t make him better than me, and in this moment all it makes him is a target.
Darius stands off to one side, his posture tense. Unlike Galen, he doesn’t bother masking his concern.
“Kade,” Darius starts, his voice edged with warning. “Calm down.”
“Calm down?” My laugh is bitter, guttural. “She’s gone! Do you understand that? Gone! And it’s your fault.” I point a shaking finger at Galen. “You couldn’t keep your manipulative hands off her, could you?”
Galen edges forward, his movements deliberate. “You’ve lost that whore of yours and you think I had something to do with it? The blood weave is clouding your judgment, brother. I warned you that this would happen.”
“Don’t you dare patronize me,” I snarl, closing the distance between us in an instant.
My hand shoots out, grabbing the front of Galen’s shirt, and I slam him against the wall behind him. The impact sendsa crack spattering through the stone.
His calm demeanor shatters as his back hits the wall and his magic sparks to life in response. His lips curl into a sneer, but before he can act, I release the torrent of energy inside me, praying it’s enough. A pulse of crimson light surges from my core, slamming into him and throwing him across the room. His body collides with the massive banquet table, shattering it into splinters.
“You think you can manipulate me?” I growl, advancing. “You think you can take her from me and walk away unscathed?”
