Forever Bound Series 1-4(105)



I can’t stay with you because we have to be together. Her voice haunted his nights. And his days. It should be…we should be together because that’s what we want. Because anything else is unthinkable to us.

Anything else was unthinkable to him, and without her, he was going insane. Slowly, moment-by-brittle-moment insane.

He needed her. He wanted her. And, hell, yeah, he’d get his heart cut out for her. Not because you have to be with me. Once the spell was broken, she could stay because that was what she wanted to do.

“You have to sever the bond to free your vampire.” Ray looked a little too comfortable holding that knife three inches above Jamie’s chest.

Sean stood in the background muttering once more about bad ideas and wrong choices. The same song he’d been singing when they first went to wake up Iona.

“Am I gonna live through this?” Jamie asked the witch.

Ray frowned at that. “You expect to live?” He seemed surprised. “I thought it was just about her living.” He began to lower the knife. “I can’t make any guarantees for you.”

Sean lunged forward and grabbed Ray’s wrist. “Guarantee it.” Lethally soft.

Ray swallowed.

Jamie stared at the tip of the knife.

“I-I…he should survive. It will hurt, probably worse than anything he’s ever felt, but he’ll live…and his vampire will be free.”

That was what he needed to know. “Cut me,” Jamie ordered and his hands fisted, pulling against the heavy chains that held him place. Silver chains that Ray insisted were necessary.

Not a good sign. But at least he’d stopped feeling the burn from those chains now.

Jamie closed his eyes. Pictured Iona. His beautiful queen.

Then the knife stabbed into his chest, bringing the fires of hell, and he roared her name.

***

Pain exploded in her chest. Burning, white-hot, twisting and cutting and tearing into her flesh.

Iona opened her mouth to scream but found she didn’t have any breath. The smell of burning flesh filled her nose even as bile rose in her throat.

What is happening to me?

She’d been on her way to find Jamie. She’d discovered a witch who knew a way to break their bond. Only…

Another burst of pain had her nearly on her knees.

Iona screamed and realized that another cry had echoed her own.

Her head lifted as sweat soaked her clothes. She stared at the house before her, the one nestled off the main road and hiding in the shadow of thick trees.

Jamie’s house. The roar she’d heard, it had been her name. His voice.

Iona forced her body to straighten. Jamie. Fear and adrenaline rushed through her.

Another pain-filled roar shook the night, and she ran forward. Iona kicked in the house’s front door.

Two men—probably werewolves—turned and lunged at her. She knocked them back and followed the echo of that roar down a hallway. Then to the right. Another kick and the door before her flew off its hinges.

A man whirled toward her. Some guy with too-long red hair. He had a long, wickedly sharp knife in his hand. The blade was glowing red.

Jamie was on a table, chained. Smoke rose slowly from his flesh.

“What are you doing to him?” Iona leapt for him.

Someone grabbed her from behind. “Wait!” A familiar voice shouted in her ear. “He’s a witch, he’s breaking the bond and—”

And she tossed Sean into the nearest wall. Iona advanced on the witch. “You’re hurting him.” Us. She rubbed her own aching chest. “You’re dead.” She raised her hands. Let the fire burn.

“Oh, shit,” the man muttered as his eyes doubled in size.

“No!” Jamie’s snarl.

Her head snapped toward him. Surely he wasn’t protecting his attacker?

“It’s…almost…finished…” Sweat soaked his body. The brightness of his eyes had dimmed. “One more slice, and you’re free.”

She pushed the man—now she knew he was a witch—away and rushed to Jamie’s side. When she saw his chest, she had to bite her lip to hold back her own scream of fury. It looked like the skin had been branded, a dark, fierce red. But she knew the knife was enchanted and the branding wasn’t just on the surface.

The brand would go all the way around his heart.

No, not all the way, not yet. Jamie had said that he needed one more slice.

The floor creaked behind her.

Iona spun around and grabbed the knife from the witch’s hands.

“Do it,” Jamie urged her. “Finish it. Be free…then you can come back to me.”

“The witch was cutting out your heart!” She’d found her own witch, a woman who told her this could be done, that this was the way to sever the tie between them.

Take out the heart and the bond is broken.

“No.” Jamie shook his head and jerked on the chains. Silver chains. The fool werewolf had let himself be locked down with silver chains. “I’ll still live,” Jamie told her. “Ray’s not actually taking my heart—”

Yes, yes, she knew how the magic worked. The enchanted blade both cut and healed at the same time. The witch would cut a circle around the heart, severing its connection to the body. Then, in the next instant, the blade would burn and heal—reconnecting the heart with magic. The severing and healing would continue until a full circle had been cast around the heart.

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