Chapter 33 - Above Cursed Winds

A sudden spike in Zia’s anxiety alerted her before Gideon’s shout. The Elemental monarch had showed up minutes ago, looking for his wife. It seemed that Rona had vanished the same time Jeremiah had.

But when Gideon had gone in search of them, the shout of absolute, bone-melting terror had all of them sprinting toward his location. It took thirty seconds for them to find the cause of Gideon’s distress, and only a millisecond for Zia to register the scene before her.

At first, she couldn’t process what her eyes were telling her. Jeremiah lay sprawled on the ground, his throat torn open, while Gideon restrained a snarling vampire by sheer force. Roots had banded around her arms and legs, her face a mask of seething fury, while she struggled fruitlessly against her wooden restraints. Fortunately, they held and secured her across the room from her clear victim.

Jeremiah wasn’t moving.

Dread locked her limbs. Every breath was a mouthful of glass as she forced it into her lungs. Trembling, one foot finally skidded forward, then the other, and then she was running.

She finally reached the stricken man lying in a pool of his own blood. Crimson seeped sluggishly from the gaping wound on his neck where Rona’s fangs had apparently been forcibly ripped away. When Zia’s hands finally started working again, and they lifted to touch his torn flesh, something happened.

A shot of electricity tickled across her skin, a connection blooming silently in the depths of her mind. Suddenly quiet, Zia tentatively thrummed a psychic finger across the beautiful burst, wondering where it’d originated. As soon as she touched the mental weave, she stiffened in shock.

A mating bond.

Barely formed, unfinalized. A fledgling link that’d budded in response to her reaction to Jeremiah’s near-fatal injury. Frozen, she stared as his lifeblood continued to lethargically pulse from the wounds on his neck.

“Zia!”

Key’s voice yanked her back to the present, and immediately, her hands hovered above his wound. Deftly weaving the tissue together again, Zia compartmentalized her work and what she’d just discovered, needing all her concentration to aid the man dying in front of her.

Her … mate.

Blinking back the tide of tears that burned, Zia glanced at where he’d sprawled. Arms out wide, both wrists showed the beginnings of deep purple bruises, bearing witness to just how much he’d struggled, and just how viciously Rona had attacked him.

Deep, visceral wrath swelled within her, but she couldn’t concentrate on anyone but Jeremiah. Slowly healing the mess of tissue at his throat, she yearned for those summer-blue eyes to open as his neck slowly mended. The moment he was no longer in danger of losing his life, she sought out the one responsible.

Zia’s teeth bared. “What the hell happened?”

Surrounding the vampire were Nero, Gideon, and Luna, all three of them speaking in low tones. Rona remained restrained by the roots, but she was no longer struggling. In fact, it seemed the vampire was pacified, her eyes blank and sleepy.

“Rona was coerced,” Luna growled. “She stood no chance of resisting it; the compulsion was far too powerful.”

Nolan jerked in surprise where he stood off to one side, his eyes colliding with Zia’s. When he opened his mouth, Key called his name and captured his attention. A brief telepathic exchange ensued between the two, and Nolan nodded once before falling silent.

Shocked at the development, her attention jerked back to Jeremiah. While he’d suffered Rona’s attack, someone had clearly targeted him. Given their recent adventures, the odds of it being the Raeth connected with the Citizens was far too coincidental.

“Jeremiah,” she whispered, “please wake up.”

Gideon and Nero spoke softly behind her, and as soon as Luna was done healing Rona’s mind, Nero released her from the psychic stasis he’d placed her in.

The result was instantaneous. “Jeremiah!”

The vampire’s cry was beyond agonized, as she staggered over to where Zia continued to heal the unconscious elemental. Zia purposefully had to resist the urge to loosen her own wrath.

But as Rona’s hands delicately came up to clutch at Jeremiah’s arm, Zia realized her error. Rona loved the Elemental, and the fact that she’d been coerced into harming him had mauled her on the inside.

Luna crouched beside Zia, adding her own healing strength to Jeremiah’s recovery. Nero hovered above them, gently resting a hand on Gideon’s shoulder and squeezing.

“He’ll be fine.”

Zia hadn’t realized until then just how pale the Elemental monarch was, how his eyes seemed shadowed with the heavy burden of regret and concern. He’d just seen his wife ruthlessly attack his best friend, and he’d made a split-second decision.

Fortunately, it had been the right call. Zia didn’t envy him the nightmares that’d follow.

A cough sputtered from Jeremiah’s lips, then, his entire body tensed. The moment he opened panic-stricken eyes, Zia leaned in and whispered, “You’re okay. It’s over.”

The fear that punched through his emotional signature dissipated, and he searched the crowd assembled above him until he found the vampire.

“Damn, Rona.” Another weak cough. “If you wanted a taste, all you had to do was ask.”

Relief, diluted with equal parts burning fury at his misplaced humor, coursed through Zia’s veins. It was a testament of Jeremiah’s good nature that he hadn’t been surprised when Rona was sobbing above him as he woke, nor the fact that it’d obviously been due to some type of nefarious influence.

“Rona was coerced, Jeremiah,” Luna explained. “Someone compelled her to attack you.”

“Lovely.” Eyes heavy lidded, the wind Elemental made no move to stand. “I’ve always wanted to be on someone’s hit list. But this feels like a good time to nap.”

“Come on, Jeremiah,” Zia managed, “you can play Mario Kart with Myko while you recover.”

Barely perceptible, Nero flinched beside her. That’s when Zia knew with no shadow of a doubt that the nascent mating bond she had felt between them was real. Any sovereign worth his salt would know the telltale signs, even one as feeble as the barely-there connection that’d formed between her and the Elemental on the floor.

When she lifted her eyes to his, she found only concern hidden in the sienna-brown gaze. For Nero knew, just as Zia did, what’d become of her fated mate.

* * *

Night had fallen before Key decided to visit. Jeremiah, quickly recovered from his near brush with death, had taken Myko under his wing once more. Now, he was showing the boy how to tile in the basement shower. Zia hadn’t even known he’d bought tile.

Despite what had transpired only hours earlier, Zia chose not to speak a word of it to Jeremiah. She knew very little about Elementals, but from what she’d heard, they couldn’t sense the bond the same way Raeths or even werewolves did.

If she told Jeremiah the truth—either truth—their time would inevitably be over. Before that, she needed to speak with the Foreseer.

As Zia belligerently washed the dishes, Key manifested on a stool along her kitchen counter, the woman’s long white-blonde hair tumbling over her shoulders. Zia barely withheld her snarl.

“You told me he wasn’t my mate, Kiyonne.”

“I never lied. You simply weren’t ready for the answer.” Oddly somber-faced, Key’s eyes were shadowed with grief. “I told you he belonged to someone already.”

Fear and anger forced tears from her eyes, her focus blurred, while her soapy hands clenched together in a silent prayer. She tried to remember that Key was one of her closest friends, one of the only women who truly understood her.

“But you know what’ll become of my fated mate, Key.” Tears continued to dapple her cheeks, and Zia angrily batted them away. “You were the one who told me!”

“I haven’t forgotten, Zia. But this is all in the plan.”

“What plan, Key? What plan?!” Shivering, Zia lost hold of a plate and it clattered to the countertop in a riot of sound. Abandoning her quest, she crossed her arms and glowered at the other woman. “Answer me.”

Key didn’t, lost to the abyss that frosted her iris white. For a moment, she simply stared unseeing out the darkened window, gazing into the beyond. Stained silence lulled between them, and with every passing second, Zia’s anxiety battered her.

Just when Zia was ready to admit defeat, Key spoke.

“The plan is more important than one person, Danzia. If we fail, our lives are forfeit. The plan must succeed. The plan must move forward.”

Zia threw her hands into the air. “What are you even talking about? Do you realize how crazy you sound? Have you finally succumbed to the madness that comes with foresight?”

The ivory lightning that pierced the amber of Key’s eyes rapidly receded, rendering the woman’s gaze pure gold. So startling was the change that Zia flinched, realizing that for the first time in ages, she had Key’s undivided attention.

“Zia.” In a single word, Key had ensnared her, completely capturing her every attention. “Our future is never fixed, regardless of the brief windows into time I’m gifted. Foresight allows me to see variations of an impermanent future: what can be versus what will be.

“Some visions are flashes of fiction, while others are virtually concrete,” Key continued, a lock of her hair twisting around her finger. “The only things that are immovable have already come to pass.”

“Then why have you told me that my mate will fall?”

The sweeping cascade of her silvery blonde hair shifted as she tilted her head. “Because he will. Jeremiah’s fall will happen, it’s nearly inevitable, but what happens afterward is still being written.”

Zia’s anger almost sizzled between them. “Then he’ll die because of you! If you had told me that he was my fated mate, I would’ve stayed away! I would’ve ensured we never came to this impasse!”

“What has happened cannot be changed. You alone can alter your path, Zia, but you must walk this trail whether you want to or not.”

“Why?” A cry now, Zia crumpled against the counter, the sticky trails of tears staining her cheeks. “Why must I walk toward ruin?”

“Because the fate of our world depends on this—this and every other path I’ve placed in motion.” For a moment, Key’s twelve hundred years caught up with her, the ancient look of weariness well-worn across her ageless features. “I’ve been fighting for twelve hundred years to ensure our survival. Your story—your path—is but one chapter.”

* * *

“Z?”

The single letter brought a tremor to Zia’s hands, her breath leaving her with such swiftness it’d been comparable to being punched in the gut. She remained, frozen, perched atop a stool, unable to immediately respond.

After Key’s departure, she hadn’t managed to leave the kitchen, opting instead for solitude while she struggled with what she needed to do. Myko had taken refuge on the couch downstairs, tucked up with blankets and pillows and enough dinosaur action figures to guard against the impending hurricane.

Her thoughts were focused on Jeremiah: on the way her internal compass pointed unfailingly toward him and her soul cried out for his. The fact she knew he’d perish if he stayed.

Key had given no exception to the curse she’d prophesized eleven centuries ago. The unerring truth had forever altered Zia’s life. She had only one choice: sever her ties with Jeremiah.

“I’m in here.”

Utterly calm, her voice didn’t carry far, but the Elemental heard it. Concern drew his eyebrows together as he entered the room, those beautiful summer blues catching hers.

“What’s the matter, Z? It feels as though you’ve given up, somehow. And I don’t even know what you’re renouncing.”

Heartbreaking melancholy stole through her. The only way he could’ve sensed it was through the budding mating bond that’d connected them. A beautiful connection, fated throughout the ages of time, that could never be allowed to strengthen.

“Jeremiah, can we talk?”

A devastatingly handsome smile lined his lips, mischief sparkling in his gaze. “‘Can we talk’ is by far the most dreaded of phrases, Lady Z.” A masculine chuckle rumbled from his chest before he added, “What are you doing, breaking up with me?”

When her silence spoke for her, the smile slowly dissolved, leaving the Elemental solemn faced.

Jeremiah asked, “Zia, why do I get the impression that you’re going to cut things off between us before we’ve even begun?”

A metaphorical knife sliced through her chest, and her heart dropped to her feet. “Because we can’t be together, even in the casual way we’ve been until now. I want you to leave as soon as you’re able to.”

For one fleeting moment, Jeremiah only stared.

The building turmoil that blistered across their bond wasn’t her own, nor was the taste of his debilitating vulnerability. Hurt dashed over his features, and when he spoke, his voice was barely more than a whisper.

“What did I do?”

“It’s—it’s not you, Jeremiah.” And truly, it wasn’t. “I just can’t do this. There’s too much at stake. My son, he’s everything to me. I can’t put him on the backburner to chase some fling.”

A burning thread of anger smoldered in his face. “I’d never ask you to do that, Zia. When have I ever placed my own needs above yours? Above Myko’s?”

“You haven’t, but it’s only a matter of time.” Zia couldn’t stand to look at him any longer, and her gaze fell to the floor. “All men are the same. You and Sehrin—neither of you would make a good father for Myko.”

“Don’t you dare throw my lot in with his,” he growled.

“At least he’s never pretended to be anything but what he is.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Advancing on her, Jeremiah came to stand in front of where she’d perched on the stool. Arms crossed, she stared him down, intent on ending this conversation as soon as possible.

“You allow yourself to be beaten to a pulp because you can’t deal with your own regret, Jeremiah.” The words that tumbled from her lips weren’t lies, but the venomous honesty tasted bitter on her tongue. “Regret that’s been building since that night Gideon was nearly assassinated. The night you tried to save him and couldn’t.”

Deep hurt stabbed at her through their bond. Jeremiah fronted well, but the apathetic mask he’d donned had already begun crumbling.

Zia continued speaking because she had no other choice. “Gideon died because you failed to save him, because your element refused to comply with your deadly wishes. And praise be, Jeremiah. Everyone downstream could’ve perished had you succeeded.”

Tears burned in her eyes as she persisted, needing to drive home her point. “Why would I want my son around someone who thinks one life is worth more than hundreds? Why would I want to love anyone who thought himself capable of such a monstrous sacrifice?”

“But I could have saved all of them.” Desolate sorrow thick in his words, Jeremiah’s eyes shadowed with guilt so deep it threatened to drown him. “I could have saved Gideon and the people; my element—”

“Realized its mistake with you.”

As soon as the poison passed her lips, Zia paled. She’d wanted to drive the nail into the coffin, to ensure he didn’t return here, but as soon as the words had escaped, she’d recognized she’d gone too far.

A thousand emotions played havoc with his mind, his handsome face mirroring the myriad of thoughts battling within. Bleakness drowned him, from the same source that had once been a renewal of hope. The serenity he’d found with her shattered.

Unable to remain apart, she reached for him.

He jerked away, the pain and disbelief in his eyes overriding anything else.

Zia knew the instant the mask he’d used after Gideon’s death slid into place once more. Though the storm continued to battle inside him—so similar to the storm battering against her windows—a sudden calm descended over his features.

“Listen, Danzia,” despair ripped into her as Jeremiah used her full name, “regardless of what you feel for me, just don’t be with him. He’s toxic—for you and for Myko. Sehrin treats you like you’re a second-class citizen, like your only value is as someone to serve his own needs.”

Jeremiah growled, “It’s nowhere near the truth. Sehrin doesn’t see you, but I do. You’re an amazing, intelligent woman who’s fierce, protective, and unfailingly loyal. Never believe you’re anything less than that.”

She gaped at him. How had she been so cruel to him, and he’d offered her the most sincere compliment she’d ever received?

Zia could only sit dumbstruck as Jeremiah gently grasped her fingers and brought them to his mouth. A single kiss brushed against her fingers, the softness of his mouth lingering for a long moment. Then he was gone.