THE OTHER HALF
1475 Words
“Lucien isn’t your second mate.”
Amara swallowed.
“He’s the second half of your seal.”
Elara stared at her mother.
For several seconds, the words simply refused to make sense.
“No.”
Beside her, Lucien stood unnaturally still.
His eyes remained silver.
Not crimson.
Silver.
Like Adrian’s.
Like the eyes Elara had seen in her visions.
Kael growled quietly.
“What does that mean?”
Amara’s attention snapped toward him.
Her expression changed.
“You’re the wolf.”
Kael stiffened.
“What?”
“Elara’s first mate.”
“How do you know?”
“I can see the broken bond.”
Amara looked back at Elara.
“And it’s still open.”
Elara’s chest tightened.
“Mom, please.”
The word almost broke her.
Mom.
She had dreamed of saying it again for twenty years.
Now her mother stood only feet away, and Elara couldn’t even touch her.
“Tell me what is happening.”
Amara’s face softened.
“Oh, my baby.”
Tears spilled down her cheeks.
“I’m so sorry.”
The darkness behind her slammed against the barrier.
Amara screamed.
Golden chains burned into her wrists.
Elara moved instinctively.
“Don’t!”
Amara’s command stopped her.
“Every step you take toward me weakens it.”
Elara looked at the enormous silver eyes behind the darkness.
“What is that?”
Amara hesitated.
Alaric entered the chamber behind them.
“The reason the Covenant exists.”
Lucien turned.
His voice was dangerously calm.
“You used me.”
Alaric stopped.
“Lucien—”
“What did you do to me?”
Seraphina entered behind her father.
Her face was pale.
“Dad?”
Alaric looked at his children.
For the first time, he didn’t look like a king.
He looked like a father who knew his children were about to hate him.
“Twenty years ago, Lucien was dying.”
Lucien’s jaw tightened.
“You told me I was poisoned.”
“You were.”
“By who?”
Alaric looked toward the darkness.
“Me.”
Seraphina gasped.
Lucien moved.
Elara caught his arm.
The second she touched him, electricity shot through her body.
Images exploded into her mind.
Lucien on the altar.
Alaric holding a black dagger.
Amara screaming.
Blood pouring from Lucien’s chest.
A four-year-old Elara crying nearby.
And her own tiny hand pressed against Lucien’s.
Golden light joining them.
Elara ripped her hand away.
“Oh my God.”
Lucien stared at her.
“You saw it again.”
“I was there.”
Amara closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
Elara looked at her.
“You let them do that?”
“No!”
The chamber shook with Amara’s scream.
“I was trying to stop him.”
Alaric lowered his head.
“I thought it was the only way.”
“To do what?” Elara demanded.
“Keep you alive.”
Elara laughed bitterly.
“Everybody keeps destroying my life to keep me alive.”
Nobody answered.
Alaric continued quietly.
“Your seal was failing when you were four.”
Maeve frowned.
“That shouldn’t have happened.”
“It wasn’t natural.”
Amara looked toward Adrian.
“Someone had found her.”
Adrian’s face hardened.
“Malachi?”
“No.”
Everyone froze.
Adrian stared at his mother.
“What?”
Amara looked at him for the first time.
Pain crossed her face.
“Adrian.”
His silver eyes filled.
“Hello, Mother.”
Amara broke.
A sob escaped her.
“My boy.”
Adrian took one step forward.
The darkness immediately moved.
Amara screamed, “Stay back!”
He froze.
Tears ran silently down his face.
“You knew I was alive?”
“Yes.”
“And you never came for me?”
“I couldn’t.”
Adrian laughed bitterly.
“Of course.”
Elara recognized that laugh.
She had used it herself.
Too many times.
Amara shook her head desperately.
“You don’t understand.”
“Then explain.”
“I will.”
The barrier cracked.
A thin black line appeared through the gold.
Everyone went silent.
Amara looked terrified.
“We don’t have much time.”
Elara pointed toward Lucien.
“Start with him.”
Amara nodded.
“Your original seal required three bloodlines. Witch. Eclipse. Vampire.”
“My mother, father, and Alaric.”
“Yes.”
“But it failed.”
“Someone attacked it from the outside.”
“Who?”
“I still don’t know.”
Elara didn’t believe that was the whole truth.
But she let Amara continue.
“When the seal began collapsing, your power started waking.”
Amara looked at Lucien.
“Alaric believed a living anchor would be stronger than an object.”
Lucien’s expression became cold.
“So he chose me.”
“You were his strongest child.”
Seraphina whispered, “He could have died.”
Amara looked at her.
“He almost did.”
Lucien turned toward his father.
“You poisoned me so my body would accept her magic.”
Alaric didn’t deny it.
Lucien’s fangs descended.
Elara tightened her grip on his sleeve.
“Not now.”
His silver eyes met hers.
The strange connection pulsed.
But now Elara questioned everything she had felt.
The attraction.
The pull.
The warmth.
Was any of it real?
Or was it magic forced into them when she was four years old?
Lucien seemed to have the same thought.
His face became unreadable.
“So there is no bond,” he said.
Amara hesitated.
“That isn’t what I said.”
Elara’s heart skipped.
“You said he wasn’t my second mate.”
“I said he isn’t your second mate.”
Amara looked between them.
“What exists between you is older than a mate bond.”
Maeve whispered, “The Eclipse Bond.”
Amara nodded.
“Yes.”
Lucien frowned.
“But it was created?”
“No.”
Amara’s answer came immediately.
“The seal did not create your connection.”
Elara stared.
“Then what did it do?”
Amara’s expression softened.
“It found one already there.”
Silence.
“That’s impossible,” Lucien said.
“You were nearly three hundred years old and she was four.”
Amara shook her head.
“Eclipse Bonds do not begin with romance.”
Elara nearly choked.
“Thank Goddess.”
Seraphina snorted despite herself.
Amara continued.
“They are soul recognition. Two lives whose magic naturally balances each other.”
Elara’s chest tightened.
“So what happens now?”
“The broken seal is trying to reconnect.”
“With Lucien?”
“Yes.”
“And Kael?”
Amara looked toward him.
“Kael complicates everything.”
Kael’s expression hardened.
“How?”
“The Moon Goddess chose you for her.”
“And?”
“Your rejection tore open what the seal had spent twenty years containing.”
Kael looked sick.
Elara almost felt sorry for him.
Almost.
“But he was influenced,” Maeve said.
Amara’s head snapped toward her.
“Influenced?”
Maeve explained quickly.
The cold wind.
Kael’s emotional shift.
The unknown server.
The magic.
Amara’s face slowly drained of color.
“No.”
“What?” Elara asked.
Amara stared at Kael.
“They didn’t want him to accept you.”
Kael frowned.
“Why?”
“Because a completed wolf bond would have strengthened Elara enough to control the seal herself.”
Elara’s stomach dropped.
“So someone needed him to reject me.”
“Yes.”
Kael whispered, “Who?”
A voice answered from behind the barrier.
Not Amara.
Not Alaric.
Deep.
Ancient.
Female.
“Me.”
Everyone froze.
The silver eyes disappeared.
Then the darkness began taking human shape.
A woman pressed one hand against the other side of the barrier.
Beautiful.
Terrifying.
Her smile was almost gentle.
Elara couldn’t breathe.
The woman looked directly at her.
“At last.”
Amara struggled against the chains.
“Don’t listen to her.”
The woman ignored her.
“You have been told so many lies, little Eclipse.”
Elara stepped backward.
“Who are you?”
The woman smiled.
“Ask them.”
Nobody answered.
Elara looked around.
Maeve was pale.
Alaric looked terrified.
Amara was shaking.
Even Adrian had gone silent.
“Who is she?”
Amara whispered,
“The woman who created the first Eclipse-Born.”
Elara’s heart stopped.
Behind the barrier, the woman smiled wider.
“No, Amara.”
Her silver eyes remained fixed on Elara.
“Tell my granddaughter the truth.”
The chamber went completely silent.
The woman placed both hands against the cracking barrier.
“I created the Vale bloodline.”
A crack split the golden wall.
“And Malachi didn’t start the Crimson War.”
Another crack.
“He started it trying to stop me.”
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