“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 with eyes that had 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.
Brutal. Hellish. Iona knew that the agony she’d felt was just a psychic echo of the pain that he’d experienced. Her witch had warned her of that, too.
When one is sacrificed, the other will feel the whisper of the pain. Just a whisper. The real agony is a hundred times stronger than that whisper.
“A spell.” She glared at the knife.
“The knife cuts through the magic that binds you, but he still lives.” Did the witch think those words would make her feel better?
She knew their hearts were linked. The blood pumping from her heart linked to the blood pumping from his. To cut their ties, a heart had to be severed.
And Jamie, he was willing to face the agony, for her?
She licked her lips. Felt tears on her cheeks. Not about breaking. About living. “You’re not like Latham.”
He stared up at her. His face was too pale. Her wolf looked too weak. “Told…you…”
She snapped the knife and let the pieces fall from her fingers. The witch gasped and got the hell back.
Sean had picked himself off the floor. He stood back, too. Smart guy.
She grabbed the chain around Jamie’s right wrist. Shattered the heavy silver. Did the same with the links that bound his left hand.
“I can feel you…” Iona told him, and brought his hand to rest over her heart, “in here.” Even when they were apart, she felt him. Like a caress in her soul, she could feel him touching her.
His gaze searched hers.
“You let him come at you with that knife…” Well, the witch wouldn’t be comingagain since she’d destroyed his knife. “He would have cut me out of your heart.” And taken you from mine.
Jamie rose. The back of his hand slid down her cheek, and she turned her face to better feel his touch.
“Nothing will ever take you from my heart,” he told her. The words sounded like a promise.
He’d been willing to suffer so much…for her.
Jamie sucked in a deep breath. “I can…I can still send you the blood. I can do whatever you want…”
“Kiss me.”
He frowned, then shook his head.
She put her hands on his shoulders. Those shoulders of his seemed even bigger than before.
I missed him. “I want you to kiss me, Jamie.”
His mouth took hers. Ravenous and wild with its hunger. The same hunger that she felt.