34. VANYA: SEPARATION

I splashed my face with cold water and slowly straightened to stare at myself in the mirror.
We were stranded on the mainland with no money, no identification, and only the dirty clothes we wore.
Swallowing, I grabbed some paper towels and dried my face. My hands were shaking and I felt sick to my stomach. Sucking in a few deep breaths, I rubbed my chest where the ache was. There was an emptiness inside me that was hard to ignore. I had felt it a few hours after Red urged us to leave the house but there had been no time to tell Ezra about it.
The toilet flushed, snapping me out of my thoughts. A second later Iris stepped up to my side to wash her hands.
“Are—”
“Don’t,” I hissed. “Why didn’t you tell me? You knew where we were going right from the start and you didn’t say anything!”
“Ezra told me not to.”
“Ezra. . .he could already be dead because you didn’t tell me that we were leaving the island! I would have made him come with us!” I blinked away the tears and turned to face her. “If he dies, I’m holding you responsible.”
Spinning around, I stormed out of the bathroom and through the aisles to the exit. My eyes darted around and locked on the man I was searching for.
Rage filled me the longer I watched him.
Red was chatting up a woman. He was acting like nothing happened like our home wasn’t burning to the ground while we were stranded here on the mainland. When he threw his head back and laughed at something she said, I snapped.
I stormed over to him, gripped his arm to spin him around so he faced me, and then slapped him.
“How can you stand there and act like our lives are not being destroyed?” I yelled. “You’re a selfish prick!”
His chest rumbled. It happened too fast for me to react. One moment I was glaring up at him and in the next he had a hand wrapped around my throat, the tip of his claws digging into my skin but not drawing blood.
Red stared down at me with slitted pupils and eyes changing colour from vivid green to golden. “Do you think that I won’t kill you because you’re mated to one of them?” he snarled.
“All of them. I’m bonded to one of them but all of them are my mates,” I told him. “You left them there! You—”
“You’re brave for a human,” Red interrupted, “but stupid. If you ever fucking do that again, I’ll kill you. Mate or not.”
His hold tightened when my lips parted. There was no way for me to force the words past my lips so I gave up trying. A choked sound fell from my lips as dark spots appeared in my line of vision.
Something flashed in his eyes and a moment later, he jerked his hand away, making me drop to my knees. I pressed a hand to my throat as I coughed.
“Pathetic,” Red spat down at me. “You humans think that you’re so brave but the moment you’re faced with danger, you piss your pants and run away.”
Struggling to my feet, I locked my knees and raised my head to look at him. My eyes darted over his face.
“Do you know what’s pathetic?” I breathed. “A man who’s willing to let thousands of people die, including his friend, because he’s selfish.”
His eyes narrowed but Red remained silent.
“Not all of the people on Ottawa were involved with the shit they did to you at the facility.”
“Hey, I called my parents and—” Iris gasped when her eyes dropped and locked on my neck. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” I whispered.
My eyes darted over to Red. I wasn’t surprised to find him walking away. His attitude might be the same as Obsidian’s but I knew that, unlike Red, he would never have left everyone to die despite his dislike towards humans.
“Should we stop him?” Iris questioned.
“No.” I faced her. “What did you say about your parents?”
“I called them because I didn’t want them to worry in case they hear about the island.” She hesitated. “They arrived here last night. Mom said that they’re staying at a hotel close to the harbour. I called them just as they were about to leave to take a boat to the island.”
Her words made my eyes snap open. A boat! That was my way back to them.
“We need to get to that boat before it leaves,” I told Iris.
“You want to go back?” she exclaimed.
“Are you planning on just forgetting about them?” I asked her. “Ezra risked his life to save you and you—”
“I’m well aware of the risk he took,” she interrupted me. “You need to think rationally. What good will you do if you go back? They’re evacuating the island, Vanya!”
“I know that they could be on their way here by boat, but what about Ezra?”
There had only been one plane and Red hadn’t flown back. Would Ezra risk running in his shifted form to Dev and Obsidian? What if he was stuck in that town and trapped by the fire?
The thought made me feel worse. I straightened and stumbled away from the wall I had been leaning against. There was no way I could just sit and do nothing.
My breathing sped up as the world around me started to tilt dangerously to one side, and the ringing in my ears and black dots in my line of vision intensified. Nausea hit, making me feel much worse.
Another step forward and my legs gave way beneath me.
“Red!”
Iris’s scream was the last thing I heard before I was swallowed by darkness.

***

Red was carrying me.
I blinked up at his blurry face in confusion. We were no longer outside but it was hard to tell exactly where we were.
Red’s eyes darted down and locked with mine for a few seconds before he looked away.
“Have you completed your bond with all of them?” he asked.
I licked my dry lips. “Only Obsidian,” I whispered.
“None of the others bit you?
As if to remind me, the spot where Ezra bit me started to throb.
“Ezra.”
His eyes snapped down to mine as his steps faltered. “Did he bite you hard enough to draw blood?”
My frown deepened. There had been pain but the pleasure drowned it out. When Red told us to get dressed, Ezra had made rushed me which gave me no time to inspect the spot he bit.
He muttered a curse when I remained silent.
I was fully bonded to Obsidian and there was a possibility that Ezra had started the bonding process before we were interrupted.
“What’s wrong with her?” Iris asked from somewhere close. “We should take her to a doctor or a hospital.”
“Your human doctors won’t be able to do anything for her,” Red growled.
“What do you mean?”
He ignored her question. “What number?”
My eyes fluttered closed as the darkness crept in. Slowly, everything around me was drowned out until the sharp ringing in my ears was the only thing I could hear.
It could have been only a few minutes or maybe hours later when I became conscious again.
Panic hit when my eyes fluttered open to find Red hovering over me, hands pushing my shirt up. I whimpered and tried to push his hands away but I didn’t have the strength to lift my arms or roll away.
“I’m not going to do anything, princess,” he growled. “I just need to see how deep Ezra’s bit is.”
His eyes lowered as he pushed my shirt higher up. True to his words, his hands didn’t linger after he pushed the bra aside and located Ezra’s bite.
Red leaned down to get a closer look, making my body tense. He reached out as if to touch it but I whimpered, making him jerk his hand away and stare down at me. For a moment it was all he did until the sound of someone entering the room snapped him out of his daze.
Stumbling forward, he fixed my bra and shirt.
“You went into heat when Obsidian bonded you. I smelt it the day we met.” Red ran a hand through his hair. Ezra bit you but he didn’t feed you his blood, did he?”
I managed to shake my head.
“That’s good,” he muttered. “Good.”
“I. . .” I trailed off when he pressed a finger to his lips.
“You’re heat isn’t over, Vanya. It has only just started. Until you’re bonded to all of them, you’ll only get worse.”
But it wasn’t how it worked. It wasn’t how Obsidian explained things to me. The heat ended a few hours before Ezra and Iris showed up. But all those things were the least of my worries.
“Please,” I breathed when he turned around to walk away. “D-don’t let them die.”