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The harsh reality of the situation hit Sorin hard. His field of vision went fuzzy around the edges, and a wave of nausea struck him with such force, he was nearly sick all over himself. The screaming in his head—those shrill, wailing voices—worked itself up into a sudden frenzy so loud and chaotic, he could barely make sense of anything.
One minute he’d been in Sebastian Drake’s lair, and the next…
The next, he’d woken up to see a bloody Bertram toppling off the bed.
Dying.
He was dying.
And there was nothing Sorin could do.
Another wave of nausea hit. The noise in his head became a roar, building up the pressure in his brain until it felt like it was beating against the inside of his skull. Sorin grabbed fistfuls of his hair and tugged, screaming along with it, wanting it out, but it was no use. It stayed trapped inside of him, torturing him, making him wish he could curl up and hide until it went away.
But there was no one else here to help.
No one who could take the burden of responsibility off his shoulders.
Sorin didn’t feel like he could do much of anything like this, but if he didn’t try, there was no chance Bertram would recover. He would bleed out and end up like every other dragon who had succumbed to Sorin’s magic.
He would die twisted in agony, not knowing that everything had been a misunderstanding.
That Sorin loved him more than anything, and wished things didn’t have to be this way.
Tears streamed down Sorin’s cheeks. He didn’t have much strength, but he used what strength he did have to yank the sheet from the bed and ball a section of it in his fist. He didn’t know how to stop his magic, but he had raised four whelps into young boys, and even now, hundreds of years later, he knew that pressure was essential to staunch a bleeding wound.
He pushed the balled section of the sheet up under Bertram’s nose. The crisp white linen drank its fill and quickly reached a point of saturation, so—shaking—Sorin rearranged the bedding and held the new section in place.
But the bleeding did not stop.
“No.” Sorin’s voice cracked. He pushed harder, squeezing his eyes shut, but it did nothing. Section after section of the sheet became soaked in blood, and the dark pool of it beneath Bertram spread.
It truly was the end.
“I’m sorry,” Sorin rasped, tears tumbling unchecked down his cheeks. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t want this to happen. Don’t leave me. Please, don’t leave me. I love you.”
But Bertram did not reply.
The mate bond they shared flickered like a flame on the verge of being snuffed out, and the sensation of it dragged Sorin back to the terrible time in Bordeaux when, at the peak of his suffering, he’d imagined the emptiness that would follow should their bond break.
Only now, it was real, and it was dragging Bertram in.
Why not come with him? the vacuous nothing seemed to whisper. You can be with him here. You won’t have to hide your love any longer. No more pain. No more suffering. It’s more than you were ever given in life.
The mate bond shuddered, and Sorin let loose with an ugly sob that rattled in his chest. His sinuses ran, and he left the mess unchecked.
It was true, wasn’t it?
At this point, death would be kinder than life.
The Vanguard was destroyed and his plans to force the dragons into abolishing the Pedigree were ruined, but even if Bertram survived, they couldn’t be together. Sorin’s magic would end up killing him, just like it was doing now. There were thousands of years ahead of them—thousands of years of love and laughter—but what good was an unnaturally long life without a mate to share it with?
Stolen hours together every few years weren’t enough.
They had never been enough.
But now, without a cause to devote himself to, Sorin had nothing.
So why not give himself over to the nothingness?
