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“What do you mean?” Sin scowled.
Ben met their gazes bleakly.
“He doesn’t plan on returning. His objective is to win the tournament, become the Dark Queen’s Consort, and during the Mating ritual, which apparently involves the exchange of blood and sex and a number of other magical enchantments where they form an irrevocable Bond, he plans to end her.”
“God’s balls,” Sin grunted.
Zai growled along the same lines.
“I mean that literally,” Sin added.
“That eagle has some stone-hard god-sized balls.”
“Yeah…” Ben murmured, raking a hand through his shoulder-length hair in obvious frustration.
“Of course, by some miracle, he might be able to kill the Queen and somehow come out of this alive. But he doesn’t intend to stay that way.”
“Eh?” Sin started. “He has a death wish?”
Ben nodded.
“It’s a long story. The short of it is that he lost his soulmate. He’s been lost for many millennia already. I honestly wonder how much of the time he’s lucid each day. He spends most of it simply staring out at the horizon or down at the bottomless ravines below. It’s like everyday he’s debating whether or not to leap to his death.”
“He has wings,” Zai pointed out.
“But he doesn’t plan to use them,” Ben said.
“How do you know this?”
Ben shook his head.
“Honestly, I don’t know how I’m able to hear his thoughts. It’s not like I can hear anyone else’s. But…if I spend enough time with him, once in a while I hear them even though he doesn’t speak. It’s…”
He looked at both Sin and Zai.
“It’s heartbreaking.”
All three of them didn’t speak for some time at that.
Then, Ben asked, “Is this what happens to all Immortals who lose their Mates? It’s like he’s a walking, breathing, empty shell. It’s like he’s not even here anymore. And maybe he hasn’t been for a very long time.”
Zai didn’t look at Sin, but Sin could feel the other male’s awareness and tension at Ben’s question. He knew where Zai’s mind immediately went—to the Mate that Sin had lost. And what he suffered in the aftermath.
“Aye,” Sin admitted solemnly, for it was only the truth.
“Losing a Mate is worse than death for the Immortal that is left behind.”
Zai flinched at this, though he remained still otherwise, as if he wasn’t listening closely to Sin’s every word.
“Every Immortal reacts differently to the loss of a Mate,” he went on.
He needed to say this, and not just for Ben’s benefit. He needed Zai to understand.
“The deeper the Bond, the greater the damage.”
Ben looked between him and Zai, picking up on what wasn’t said.
“You were lost too, for a time. Weren’t you, Sin?”
