My Mate, My Executioner

4. Life support

Draven hit the ground hard at the base of the mountain.

The heavy impact rattled violently through Arya's spine, jarring her awake. Her breath hitched, and her eyes snapped open.

She was lying face down on a bed of wet grass.

The air here felt wrong. In her warded room at the temple, every breath was filtered and warm. Here, the air was thick, wet, and freezing. It smelled of rotting leaves, damp earth, and blood.

'Blood'.

The memory hit her like a fist. Caspian. The horrifying sound of his neck snapping. The thud of his head hitting the grass. The dark monster moving faster than her eyes could track.

Arya’s stomach turned inside out. She rolled onto her side and violently threw up into the dirt, heaving until there was nothing left. Her pristine white dress dragged in the mud.

"Finally awake."

Arya flinched so hard she cracked her head against a tree root. Gasping for air, she scrambled backward through the dirt, her chest heaving. Sweat slicked her palms, freezing in the night air.

"Get away from me! Stay away!"

Draven did not move. He was sitting on a fallen log a few feet away. His dark jacket was gone. His white dress shirt was ruined, splattered with Caspian’s dark, dried blood. In his hand, he held his steel combat knife, slowly slicing a stick with the lethal blade.

"I am not going anywhere," he said. His voice was low and perfectly flat. "Trust

me. If I could be a thousand miles away from you right now, I would."

"You murdered him." Arya’s voice cracked, her terrified eyes locking onto the bloodstains on his cuffs. "He was a good man. He was just guarding my door. Why did you kill him?"

Draven looked up. His eyes were completely empty of any emotions.

"He was a guard dog for a slaughterhouse," Draven said, rising slowly to his feet. "And he was standing in the way of a debt that is twenty-three years overdue. The Shamans are butchers, Arya. And you are just the sacrifice on their altar."

"No!" Arya shouted. Tears blurred her vision. "They keep me safe! I’m sick! I need my medicine. I need to go back!"

Even as the words left her mouth, a terrifying tightness gripped her chest.

Withdrawal.

Her body, completely dependent on hourly doses of the shamans’ suppressants, was already beginning to revolt. Her hands started to tremble. Her vision blurred at the edges.

Panicking, she tried to crawl away from him. She needed to find a path back up the mountain, toward the lights of the temple.

She scrambled backward. The distance between them grew.

Suddenly, the glowing chain binding their wrists snapped.

A sharp, violent spark of celestial energy split the air.

Draven let out a guttural grunt of pure agony. He collapsed heavily to one knee,clutching his shackled wrist. The geometric links blazed to life, spinning aggressively. Inside his mouth, the shattered roots of his fangs throbbed with a fresh, sickening wave of pain that made his vision go gray.

Arya froze in the dirt.

"What is happening to you?" she whispered.

"Get closer," he wheezed through clenched teeth. sweat popped on his

strained face. "The chain. Get closer!"

Arya didn’t want to move. A bitter part of her wanted to watch him suffer for what he did to Caspian.

But as Draven went down, the sudden, blinding heat began to build inside her own veins.

It started as a minor warmth, then exploded into a roaring wildfire spreading through her blood. Her skin began to glow with a sharp, piercing silver light.

Without his proximity to ground her, the cosmic energy inside her chest was expanding rapidly, pressing against her ribs, threatening to tear her lungs apart.

Arya’s body moved before her mind could even process the choice.

She lunged forward, her bare feet slipping in the mud as she closed the distance. She reached out, her trembling fingers slapping directly against the glowing links of the chain on his wrist.

The forest instantly went silent. The links stopped their violent spinning and connected.

Draven slumped forward, his forehead dropping heavily against her shoulder. His breathing was ragged. His massive, heavy frame leaned entirely against her small body.

Arya sat stiffly in the dirt. Her hands were shaking where they were locked against his thick wrist. She hated touching him. But she hated even more that the exact moment she made contact, her own agonizing pain completely vanished.

The fire in her chest died out. The withdrawal stopped clawing at her insides.

She needed him to survive. And she hated him for it.

"Do not get used to it," his gravelly voice rasped right against her neck.

He pulled back slowly, deliberately keeping their shackled wrists close together. "I am not your hero, Arya. I am the man who came to put a blade through your heart. The only reason you are still breathing is because this curse turned me into your anchor."

"I hate you," Arya breathed, her voice trembling.

"Good. At least we agree on something."

Suddenly, the ground beneath them shivered.

It wasn't an earthquake. It was a rhythmic, heavy pulse vibrating up through the dirt. A deep, grinding hum echoed through the dark forest.

Draven went entirely still. "The Blood Siren Ritual."

"What does that mean?"

"It means your masters are burning the blood they took from you," he muttered, his dark eyes snapping toward the tree canopy. "They are using your own blood to force a Recall."

Before Arya could speak, a violent wind swept through the clearing.

It wasn't a natural wind. It was a suffocating, magical force. As it passed over them, a terrifying tug ripped at Arya's feet. It felt like invisible hooks had snagged her soul and started pulling her backward.

Arya screamed.

She looked down in horror. Her body was beginning to blur at the edges. She could see right through her own hands as her skin began to dissolve into a faint, glowing mist. The particles were floating up into the air, being dragged

back toward the Cult’s temple.

"Hold on to me!" Draven roared.

He lunged forward. His massive arms locked tightly around her waist, pulling her flat against his chest. He crushed his large hand over hers, pinning their shackled wrists together against his torso.

The dark magic of the wind clashed violently with the bright light of the Moon-Chain.

The two forces shrieked against each other—a brutal war between the Cult's blood magic and the cosmic bond. The sheer pressure rattled their bones.

Then, there was a sharp sound, like a massive string snapping.

The magical wind shattered into regular mist and stopped.

The dark forest returned. The silence afterward was absolute.

Draven stood there for a long moment, still holding her tightly against his

chest. His heart hammered heavily against her ear. He looked down at their wrists. The chain was quiet.

"The Recall failed," he said. His voice was grim, exhausted. "The bond is stronger than their magic. They cannot drag you back."

He let go of her immediately, stepping back as if her skin burned him.

Arya collapsed into the dirt. Without his arms around her, her body immediately began to tremble. The physical withdrawal began to gnaw at her bones once more.

She wrapped her arms around her knees, trying to hold her failing body together.

"They will never stop," she whispered, looking up at the distant, glowing spires of the Cult's temple. "They will hunt us down. They will never let me go."

"Let them try." Draven turned his back to her, staring into the dark woods. "But you are dying, Arya. The suppressants they fed you for decades have turned your blood into poison. Without a fresh dose, your body is eating itself."

He looked over his shoulder. His dark, empty eyes fixed on her with absolute finality.

"If your heart stops, mine does too. I am not letting that happen."

He didn’t ask for her permission. He walked over, hauled her weak body off the ground, and threw her over his shoulder like she weighed nothing.

Arya was too weak to fight, too exhausted to even speak. Her body went completely limp, her silver hair spilling over his broad back.

Gripping his combat knife tightly in his free hand, Draven stepped into the thick brush. His boots crunched over the dead leaves as he carried her deeper into the dark.