Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 66672 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 333(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66672 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 333(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
It took him a while until he was able to focus enough to realize that the faint sense of another person he’d had since the Xeus’s escape was now gone.
Jules froze, his eyes going wide, before he scrambled off his bed and ran out of the room.
He couldn’t even remember how he ended up in front of their butler’s door. He pounded on it before he could think twice.
Harrison looked sleepy and confused when he finally opened it. “Master Jules? What is the matter?”
“Order me to do something,” Jules blurted out. “Use your Voice on me.”
The butler froze. “Pardon?”
“Use your alpha voice on me,” Jules repeated. “Now. That’s an order.”
Harrison blinked in obvious bewilderment before saying, “Jump.”
Jules didn’t jump—Harrison was neither his relative nor his bondmate. But he did feel the compulsion. He felt it.
His knees suddenly weak, Jules turned and wandered away, ignoring the butler’s questions.
The mating bond was gone.
It was gone.
Gone.
Mating bonds could fade if neglected for a long time, but they couldn’t… they couldn’t just break like this. Not this abruptly. Unless…
Only a bondmate’s death could break a mating bond.
Jules wasn’t sure how he reached Liam’s room.
“Jules?” Liam said sleepily, sitting up.
Jules crawled into the bed and buried his face in his brother’s shoulder. “It’s my fault,” he whispered hoarsely, closing his eyes.
“What are you—”
“He’s dead, Li.”
After a moment, Liam’s arms came up around him. “How—how do you know?”
“I can’t feel him anymore.”
Liam went rigid against him. “What?”
Jules bit his bottom lip, hard. He didn’t say anything. Liam wasn’t an idiot. It would take him only a few moments to draw the right conclusion.
And Liam did. “You mean you bonded to the Xeus? You—you had—”
“He marked me,” Jules said, pressing his wet eyes against his brother’s shoulder. “And the mark took. We were apparently compatible enough for it to take. But the bond is gone now, Li.”
His brother was quiet.
After a moment, slim fingers started stroking Jules’s hair. Liam’s sweet scent became stronger. Soothing.
Jules breathed it in and relaxed, even though he knew Liam was using his omega nature to calm him down. He didn’t mind, not this time.
“It’s not your fault,” Liam said at last. “If you didn’t help him escape, Uncle would have killed him anyway. At least he died free.”
Jules’s eyes filled with tears again. “Maybe I shouldn’t have told Prince Haydn about his whereabouts. Maybe he isn’t as fair as Mother thought—”
“It’s more likely that someone else found the Xeus,” Liam said calmly. “Xeus alphas are fast. He was likely already a good distance away from the coordinates you gave Prince Haydn by the time the prince got your message.”
Liam’s words made sense. They did. Then why did he still feel so shitty?
“I should have stayed with him,” Jules said. “I shouldn’t have left him there alone—”
Liam scoffed. “Please. If someone managed to kill a shifted Xeus alpha, a weak omega wouldn’t have stopped them from doing it. Don’t be stupid, Julian.”
Jules cringed. He hated being called Julian. It was a name for someone beautiful, elegant, and sophisticated. He was anything but. “Don’t call me Julian.”
“Don’t be stupid, Jules, then.”
A faint smile curled Jules’s lips. “Thanks,” he said quietly. “I needed that.”
Liam’s arm tightened around him. “Does it hurt?”
Jules closed his eyes, not knowing how to answer. Not knowing how to put into words what he was feeling. He felt raw and achy, his body hurting from the inside. No, not his body—it was like there was a wound inside his soul. Something intangible but still very much real.
“I’ll probably just need to increase the dose of my suppressants,” he said. “It’ll probably help.”
It had to.
He couldn’t imagine what this pain would have felt like without the suppressants. There were cases of omegas dying when their alpha did. It helped that Jules’s bond had been new and not deep. Had he had a strong emotional attachment to the alpha, it would have been much worse, though at the moment it was hard to imagine feeling worse.
“It’ll be okay,” Liam said, kissing him on the forehead awkwardly. His cheerful voice was so obviously fake that Jules almost smiled. Liam, for all his perfect omega looks, wasn’t actually very nurturing. It always came off as awkward when Liam tried to be a gentle, nurturing omega. “The season will start next month, and I’m sure you’ll forget about this in the excitement of it!”
“Oh, joy,” Jules deadpanned. “If you think that’s actually comforting, I hate to break it to you, but it’s really not.”
Liam chuckled. “You’ll see, brother. We’re going to have so much fun, you and I!”
Jules forced a smile.
Chapter 6
Inner Core
Planet Calluvia
“It was the only choice, Haydn.”
Prince Haydn Schaefer pursed his lips, still looking at the unconscious man in the hospital bed. “Was it?” he said quietly. “We had to act without his consent.”
“Because he was in no state to give it,” his husband said, taking his hand and squeezing it.