Chapter 7 FOUR BOND, ONE HEART
ALICIA
I wake to the sensation of drowning.
Not in water but in them. Four separate pulses beating against my consciousness like competing heartbeats, each one demanding attention, each one screaming mine, mine, mine. My eyes snap open, and I immediately wish I'd stayed unconscious.
Ray looms above me, his storm-grey eyes dark with something between relief and murder. To my left, Monty bends down close enough that I can smell cedarwood and guilt. On my right, the silver-haired stranger, whom I had just met once, watches me with his captivating ice-blue eyes that feel like he knows so much. And in the doorway, backlit by torchlight, stands Logan, my Logan, except he's not smiling like he used to when we were children. The physical weight of their intense stares together is choking the breath out of my lungs. Their closeness overwhelms all the senses.
"She's awake." Ray's voice is both strong and shaky. His hand hovers near my face but doesn't touch, like I'm made of glass and rage in equal measure.
"About damn time," the silver-haired one mutters. Kai. My mind remembers his name without asking permission. "I felt her dying from three territories away."
"We all felt it." Logan finally steps into the room, and the fourth bond blows up hot enough to make me gasp. His hazel eyes are harder than I remember.
I try to sit up. Four hands move to help me. They collide.
"Back. Off." Ray's Alpha command breaks through the room like a whip, and Monty immediately withdraws. Kai doesn't move. Logan's jaw clenches, but he steps back.
"She's not just yours anymore, Alpha." Kai's voice is quiet, lethal. "Get used to it."
The tension is a living thing, coiling around us like a snake. I can feel their emotions bleeding through the bonds. There was Ray's possessive fury, Monty's desperate concern, Kai's predatory focus, and Logan's confused longing. It's too much. Too loud. I press my hands to my temples, trying to block it out.
I feel as though I am going to break under the weight of their shared emotion, like a drum being pounded by four frantic rhythms.
"Stop." My voice comes out broken. "Please, just…stop feeling so much."
Silence crashes down. Four pairs of eyes lock on me with identical intensity, and I realize I've just confirmed what they suspected: I can sense all of them. Everything they feel, I feel. We're connected in ways that should be impossible.
The door slams open. Elder Pascal enters, robes sweeping the stone floor, his weathered face carved with grim purpose. Behind him, three other elders file in, their expressions ranging from pity to horror.
"Out," Pascal commands, looking at my mates. "All of you."
"Like hell…" Ray starts.
"Out." Pascal's power fills the room, ancient and immovable. "Or the girl dies within the hour. Your choice, Alpha."
Ray's hands ball into fists, but he moves toward the door. Monty follows immediately. Logan hesitates, looks at me once, and leaves. Only Kai remains, staring at Pascal with those unsettling ice-chip eyes.
"The lone wolf doesn't take orders," Kai says softly. "From anyone."
"Then watch her die." Pascal doesn't blink. "The Rite of Balance requires truth. With you hovering like a wild dog, she won't speak freely."
Something passes between them, some masculine understanding I don't comprehend. Finally, Kai rises, fluid as smoke, and walks out. But not before his fingers brush my ankle, sending heat straight to my core. The bond purrs.
When the door closes, Pascal's face transforms from stern elder to something almost compassionate. Almost.
"Child," he says, and the weight of centuries presses into that single word. "Do you understand what you've done?"
"I…" My throat closes. "Ray and I, we didn't know we were related, we didn't…"
"Peace." He raises one gnarled hand. "The corruption of your bond with Ray is... unfortunate. But it can be managed." His eyes sharpen. "What concerns me more is what your body did to survive."
I remember walking through the forest, feeling like I was being torn apart from the inside. Remember the moment four different threads of something latched onto me, pushing me back to life when I should have died.
"The mate bonds," I whisper.
Pascal nods slowly and leans closer. "You have bonded four males to your soul in the span of hours, Alicia Rowe. Four males who now share a single mate. Do you comprehend the chaos a single discision you made have created?"
The room tilts. "I didn't mean to…"
"Intent is irrelevant." Another elder steps forward, a woman with silver streaks in her black hair. "The bonds exist. They cannot be undone without killing all five of you."
"Then what do I do?" The question comes out small, childlike.
Pascal exchanges glances with the other elders. When he speaks again, his voice is carefully neutral. "There is a final ritual that should be done. It’s ancient and dangerous, called the Rite of Balance."
Hope flutters in my chest. "What do I have to do?"
"You must complete the mate bonds with all four males." His eyes bore into mine. "Fully. Intimately. Before the next full moon. Twenty-eight days from now."
The hope dies. "Complete the bonds. What do you mean?"
"Claim them. Mark them. Lie with each one and bind them to you in blood, body, and soul." Pascal's expression doesn't change. "Only then will the bonds stabilize enough to save you and Ray both."
My mouth goes dry. "And if I don't?"
"The corrupted bond between you and Ray will spread like poison through your new bonds. You'll all go mad with pain, turn on each other like rabid animals, and die screaming." He says it like he's talking about the weather. "I've seen it before. It's not a pleasant death."
A laugh bubbles up my throat, edged with terror. "So my choices are fuck all four of them or watch everyone die in agony?"
"Essentially." Pascal almost smiles. "Though I'd recommend approaching it with more ceremony than 'fucking.' The Rite of Balance requires respect, intention, ritual."
"Ritual." I grab onto the word like a lifeline. "What kind of ritual?"