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With his mind shut off like that, all he knew how to do was scream.
It came out of him violently—he couldn’t have stopped it if he tried. There was too much of it for anyone to hold back. So much, it fried his vocal cords.
But somehow, the way his throat clicked soundlessly in anguish and terror was the worst of all.
Was this why his stolen eggs had screamed so loudly for him? Had they felt this same terrible loneliness where there should have been a bond?
It was no wonder dragons were monsters.
Every one of them had been born into pain.
“Raven.” It was Sandrine, and her voice was clearer now, and closer than it had been before. Sorin anchored himself to it, and as she continued to speak, little by little, he was able to shake the terror and regain his grip on reality. “You need to breathe. Come on and breathe with me. Everything is okay. You’re here, and you’re safe.”
With Sandrine’s help, the world gradually came back into focus, and Sorin discovered he was lying in bed with Sandrine sitting at his side. With one hand she stroked his hair, and with the other she held his hand and ran her thumb affectionately over his knuckles. Sorin remembered having done the same to Owyn when he was young and having nightmares, and it made his aching heart crumple.
He missed his family.
Did Sandrine miss her son, too?
“There you are,” Sandrine said, smiling. “Don’t think you can check out of our conversation that easily, kiddo. I survived raising a snarky teenager—I’ll survive you, too.”
Sorin’s lips wobbled and he tried to laugh, but it came out as a crackling sob. His throat was too raw and painful to be of any use, but he supposed it didn’t matter.
He didn’t need to speak.
The worst of his panic was over, and while he was nowhere close to finding inner stability, he’d found enough clarity to know what he needed to do.
Sandrine wiped his tears away, then busied herself with fetching him water and a pack of lozenges, which he gladly tore into. He was midway through his second lozenge when she next spoke. “It gets worse when you’re stressed,” she said, looking across the room, her gaze fixed somewhere far away. “You need to take it easy. What can I do to help?”
Sorin frowned. “Unless you can go back in time and bring me my eggs, there’s nothing you can do.”
Sandrine frowned, too, and didn’t push further.
It seemed she had nothing to say about that.
5
Bertram
Sorin did not call again.
Worse, he did not write.
Weeks became months, and as time went on, it became increasingly clear what was happening—Sorin was cutting him off, no doubt to protect him from whatever he was planning. With Grimbold unwilling to listen to what Bertram had to say, Sorin had no choice but to take matters into his own hands, and that meant things were about to get messy. The Vanguard was about to rise up, and for the sake of each and every Pedigree omega whose well-being was at stake, they would make sure they were heard.
Still, despite the silence, Bertram wrote to Sorin every day.
He penned his way through pads of paper and used up stamps like tissue paper.
It wasn’t hard to find time to write while undercover in California, where he spent most of his days eavesdropping on influential Topaz hotheads in the hopes that—if they were planning retaliation against the Amethyst clan—he would be able to intercept it before his brothers, their mates, or their unsanctioned children ever knew.
Some days, he didn’t have much to say.
Others, he let loose and spilled his heart onto the page, letting the words rush out of him.
But no matter how long or short the letter, they shared two common themes: one, that Bertram missed Sorin deeply; and two, that despite his failings, he had not given up on the Vanguard.
It would not be easy, but he would do what he could to keep them all safe.
