Fragmented bond
Chapter 5

I jolted awake, my entire body aching and my head was foggy. My dragon was silent in a way that had me panicking. Pure devastation came from her in waves and for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her, or why it felt like there was a gaping hole in my chest.

The room I found myself in was unfamiliar and had me sitting up in the firm bed. It was small with light purple walls and other than the bed, table, and chair, held nothing else. The lighting was dim, the crystal lights on low power—with my pounding head, I was more than grateful for this.

As I sat up in the small bed, the covers slid down to my waist, revealing my bare chest. A quick once-over showed there wasn’t a single mark or blemish on my skin despite the residual ache. I wasn’t shy about being naked since I was a summoner and ending up naked happened more often than not. But I wasn’t thrilled to be waking up naked. Not when I was in an unfamiliar room, unable to remember how I got here.

The way I saw it I had two options. I could leave this room and try to discover where I was while I escaped, or I could stay and wait for whoever brought me here to reveal themselves. While the first option sounded the most appealing since I wouldn’t be sitting around doing nothing, it was the most risky. I knew nothing about the situation I found myself in. My best bet was to try and remember what happened as I waited.

What if the reason I couldn’t remember anything was because I had been abducted? If that was the case, wandering around like a dumbass definitely wouldn’t help the situation. And with being indoors, I couldn’t shift into my dragon, so my best line of defense was a no-go.

Pulling up the sheet so it covered my chest, I adjusted myself on the bed so my back was against the wall. It was silly, but I felt better now that I knew no one could sneak up behind me as I closed my eyes.

What was the last thing I remembered? I ran through my day, starting with training in that awful weather. After that, I had a quick lunch before heading to the Magic user’s lands, where I met and spoke with Iris…

The rippling pain and gaping hole in my chest began making sense as Iris’ words filled my head. Once those memories resurfaced, it was like a chain event, triggering the rest: Lukas’ hateful words, wandering through the forest in a daze as my soul felt like it was dying, coming across several creatures that had snuck into our realm…

They had been hideous scaly, short things that I could’ve easily taken since there were only five, but I didn’t. I had lain on the ground and curled into a ball, giving in to the overwhelming despair. Even as they attacked me and shredded into me, I hadn’t budged, too busy with the soul-deep agony to feel the physical pain from their attacks.

How was I still alive?

I didn’t have the chance to ponder the question further, not when the black door swung open and a death mage woman entered. My entire body subtly tensed as I warily watched her take a seat in the chair. Her expression was guarded as she observed my every movement.

“I’m glad to see you’re finally awake, she said, her voice having a musical cadence.

“How did I get here?” My voice held a slight rasp to it. The woman stood from her chair, poured me a glass of water, and retook her seat.

I didn’t insult her by refusing or asking if it was poisoned. After smelling the water and not replaceing anything off in its scent, I took a much-needed drink.

Now I knew where I was; Death mage lands. It made sense with how the village I’d previously been in was fairly close to their lands. I still didn’t know how I ended up here or which part of their lands I was in. Hopefully, I wasn’t in one of the bad areas, but since I was still alive, I doubted it.

Death mage’s names were pretty self-explanatory. They gained their power from death. While their powers might seem like they’d cause them to be villains, death mages as a whole weren’t evil. Don’t get me wrong, there were some that were awful. They would slowly kill and torture others to gain power. But most of them weren’t like this. Several generations back in my family line was a death mage.

“How did I get here?”

Her lips were pressed together as she observed me for a moment. “Someone found you at our borders half alive and brought you here. You’re lucky, if the wrong mage found you, they would’ve powered up from your death instead of helping. Unless that’s what you wanted to happen.” The sympathetic look on her face told me she knew I had given up.

She stood once again and pulled out white clothing from a drawer in the table. “You’ve been unconscious for nearly an entire day,” she said as she handed me the stack of clothes. They were simple in style and thankfully, the material was light-weight

I didn’t ask her to look away as I stood on shaky legs and quickly dressed. I couldn’t believe I’d been out for that long. My family must be so worried about me. As soon as I considered contacting them, my stomach pitched at the thought of having to tell them everything. The last thing I wanted to do was rehash all those awful details.

The gaping chasm in my chest opened up at the reminder of what happened. A sob built in my throat as tears fell down my cheeks and just kept coming no matter how much I kept wiping them away. Stupid hormones.

My entire body stilled as my hands dropped to my stomach. Oh no… How could I have done that? How could I have lain down and not fought the creatures while I was growing a baby inside me? The baby hadn’t even registered in my mind through the haze.

Please let them be okay, please let them be okay. “I’m pregnant.” That was all I managed to choke out.

She froze and sympathy was clear on her face. Deep down, I knew what this meant, but I refused to believe it. If I thought the agony I experienced earlier was bad, it had nothing on this. It was like I was standing at the edge of a bottomless chasm with just the smallest of ledges to stand on. “No,” I whispered in denial as more tears streamed down my face.

I nearly jumped when she placed her hand on my knee in a comforting gesture, having not heard her stand or felt the bed shift as she sat beside me. “I’m so sorry, but we didn’t sense a pregnancy when we found you and checked your energy.”

I’d already known her answer before she spoke it, but the part of me that had been clinging to denial shattered at her words as sobs ripped out of my throat. My vision blurred through all of the tears. The gaping hole in my chest grew and took with it my ability to breathe evenly, my breaths coming out in short wheezes.

The woman tried to comfort me, but I was beyond reach as I shoved off the bed. My legs felt numb and like they didn’t belong to me. I vaguely heard her tell me I shouldn’t be going anywhere in my condition, but I kept going.

I didn’t take in any details of the halls I stumbled through, my entire focus on the agonizing pain and the hurricane of emotions threatening to pull me under and drown me. My dragon was silent, as she’d been the entire time, a deep-seated depression having settled over her.

Physical pain had nothing on the emotional, so when I stumbled into walls or stepped on rocks, I barely noticed. Just as I barely noticed how I was now outside or the scorching heat from the suns, sweat soaking my body, making my clothes cling to me.

Everything else came second to the internal turmoil trying to swallow me whole.

No wonder Lukas didn’t want me, I was a monster. A selfish monster who hadn’t considered my baby when I gave up. Iris had been right, there was a purpose for my mating with Lukas. It was the baby, and I fucked that all up. I ruined the fates’ plans due to my own weakness.

I nearly crumpled due to my grief and guilt, hunching over as I wrapped my arms around my middle. Unfortunately, it didn’t hold together all the fractured pieces of my soul, or stop the chasm from pulling me into its bottomless pit.

Somehow I managed to continue, barely registering my surroundings until I plunged into frigid water. The sudden plunge cleared my mind enough for me to realize where I was. I’d fallen into the river encircling the five lands, and it wasn’t something recommended for non-elementalssince the currents of the water were too strong.

At first, I struggled against both the powerful currents of the river and my own despair, gasping for air when I finally resurfaced. But as I kept fighting against the currents and losing, I wondered, why was I fighting so hard to stay alive now? All I had to look forward to was the gaping nothingness threatening to drag me into an abyss. I would have to live knowing I was such an insufferable monster that my fated mate couldn’t even love or respect me. I was so self-absorbed that I failed to keep my unborn child safe.

My feeble attempts ceased and I allowed the currents to pull me down under the icy depths of the river.