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And through their connection, Blair experienced every second of the mental and physical torment he did. Anguish. Despair. Complete and utter shame.
She’d never sensed such agonizing emotions from the proud Raeth. Nothing between them had ever been tinged with such negative sentiments. While their courtship had endured its share of cynicism and doubt, nothing had come close to the misery that’d befallen Kaien after he’d left.
The outpouring of Kaien’s devastation had come to an abrupt halt several minutes ago. All that she sensed now when she reached for him was a void where his mind had been.
It was all she could do to keep her head above water when he was clearly in danger. Remmus, breathing soundly only feet from her, had begun stirring but hadn’t awakened.
“Remmus, wake up!” Blair shouted, driven by her inescapable need to find her mate. “Come on, hotshot, snap out of it!”
Murmuring an apology, she lodged a solid kick to his solar plexus with the toe of her boot. She breathed a sigh of relief when he blinked awake and groggy awareness flickered on behind those seafoam green eyes. Wearily, Remmus pulled himself into a sitting position, then cocked his head in confusion as he spied Blair chained against the wall.
“Into the kinky stuff?”
Blair hissed at him. “Kaien’s gone to confront Torrin—get me out of these!”
Recognition flared in Remmus’ eyes a bare second before he jumped to his feet and wavered slightly before following Blair’s pointed finger to the key on the table. Releasing her from imprisonment, Blair felt her supernatural nature return to her with a jolt.
“Take me to Kaien!” she demanded, roughly grasping ahold of Remmus’ shoulder with desperation. “He’s in trouble.”
A jerky nod as the Raeth’s features pinched in concentration. Remmus paused briefly before seemingly doubling down on his efforts, then turned to her with a confused shake of his head.
“I—I can’t teleport to him.”
“Excuse me?”
“The teleport aborts.” Brow furrowing in concentration, Blair could almost feel Remmus’ energy swirling around them, but finding no purchase. “I can’t go to Kaien.”
“Then let’s go to Nina!”
Seconds later, Remmus’ teleport took them to Nina’s side, in the familiar den of her home. The Raeth sovereign was already frowning, every facet of her body supernaturally still in a way that made her look as if she was carved in stone.
“Nina, Kaien is—”
“In trouble,” Nina murmured, still not meeting their eyes. “I’m unable to reach him via telepathy nor teleportation, and I feel his energy depleting. He’s dying.”
“Dying?” Blair saw red. Every instinct in her body demanded that she go to him without delay and save him from whatever disaster he’d fallen into. “We have to reach him!”
Nina began pacing the room, her demeanor that of a prowling panther dead set on sinking its jaws into prey. “I can’t teleport to him; it aborts.”
“Why would that happen?” Blair demanded.
“If the teleport lands in a place that puts me in immediate danger—or if the location is somehow compromised or inhospitable. It’s happened so rarely that we seldom know how to categorize the events, but it’s largely due to unconscious self-preservation.”
“He went to confront Torrin.” Blair’s hands wrung in front of her, agitation and adrenaline making them shake. “That human is doing something to him.”
The Raeth sovereign bared her teeth. Nina’s anxiety was so thick that it was nearly tangible. Her sire’s nervousness was something she’d rarely—if ever—seen. And now, when it was Blair’s mate in trouble, dread prickled over her like a thousand stinging insects.
“He’s unresponsive.” Nina’s voice caught. “I have his location and I’m remote teleporting him back. I don’t care where he is—I won’t have him vulnerable and alone.”
Nina stopped moving, suddenly standing stock still in the middle of the room. In a burst of power, Blair felt psychic energy swell, electric against her skin, heavy and hot in a way that sunk into her bones and burned her from the inside out.
Idly, she acknowledged that Nina’s other lieutenants, Mere, Xavier, and Celeste had suddenly appeared. Likely sensing their sovereign’s anxiety, they’d arrived via their own teleports. But Blair had no time to ponder the development when her concentration was fully on her sire.
And then, Kaien appeared in a blink of energy, unmoving, at Nina’s feet.
For a moment of pure panic, Blair was frozen. Before her, the Raeth bled steadily from his mouth and his nose, crimson mapping over his handsome features like a macabre painting. Eyes shut, he was utterly still, no indications of life except the weak murmur of his heart she could hear through her returned vampiric senses.
Crouching next to him instantly, Nina’s hands moved to cup his bloodied face before she gasped. She barely whispered the words, “Silver poisoning.”
