Onyx Blood [True North series book 2/3]

With the faintest hint of movement from my hand, I wielded the beast downward to a crouching position. I barely had time to duck out of the way myself. There was a burning in my chest —not an uncomfortable one though— but a powerful burning.

It felt as if a burning source of strength was pressed against my chest, and its power was seeping through my skin and into my heart. I only remembered the block I had put on my mind when I felt Thoridor slam himself into it at full force. I let him in, and immediately his voice boomed through my skull.

“What are you doing here?” he yelled, “get down.” I lowered my chest towards his beast’s head, and scanned our surroundings. The Kinian soldiers had surrounded us again, coming at us from all directions. Thoridor wasn’t completely on his own though — there was a dozen Ardanian beasts ripping through the crowd, sending Kinian limbs flying through the air.

“Why are they doing this?” I asked Thor, “why are they fighting us?”

Thoridor’s beast lunged forward, ripping the head off a Kinian with a nauseating crunch.

“Because they know about us,” Thoridor replied, “Ardanis has a King and a Crown Prince with uncompleted bonds now. If they kill us both, the nation is theirs to claim.”

A shockwave washed over me. I hadn’t fully realized how bad our position was — not one, but two females had rejected the bond with their respective male royals. The royal bloodline was as unprotected as it could get. A feeling of dread took over, and I feverishly tried to come up with a solution as I shot arrows at our assailants.

Then, I remembered what Thor had told me about the mating ritual. “It’s a four part ritual,” he had said, “there’s the marking, the blood sharing, the declaration and the physical mating. All four parts are essential for the bond to be completed. There was no way to complete the ritual out here, of course, but I wondered if…

“I am yours, Thor,” I said, out loud, “I am yours. I am your mate. I belong to you.”

Thoridor’s beast froze, and its ears perked up. A strange new wave of sparks began flooding through my veins, encouraging me to continue. “And you are mine. My mate. You belong to me. You’re mine.”

It was as if an explosion went off in my head. My vision blanched to a white-washed version of reality, as if a blinding light had just been turned on, and there was a faint ringing in my ears. Thoridor’s beast let out a roar so loud it almost shook me off its back, and Thoridor’s voice boomed into my mind, “I am yours, Serin. Fully yours. And you are mine. My mate.”

I gasped for air as the fiery feeling of power spread through me. The declaration. We were closer to being fully mated than we ever had been before.

The Kinians must’ve noticed something had changed, because suddenly we found ourselves in a downpour of javelins, arrows and even axes. A sharp pain shot through my shoulder as an arrow bore its head into my joint, making me jolt back an nearly tumbling from the beast’s back.

Thoridor had taken some hits too — there were javelins and arrows sticking out of his beast’s shoulders and hips. I looked around as my vision began to sharpen again, and I could feel a rage unlike I had ever felt before.

I was furious —furious these fucking Kinians were attacking us like this— hurting my mate.

I instinctively dug the arrowhead from my shoulder and tossed it to the side, before willing the bleeding to stop. I did the same for as many as the weapons that were sticking out of the beast’s back as I could reach.

My eyebrows lowered and my gaze narrowed as I looked around. My blood seemed to boil in my veins, and my chest began heaving involuntarily. Something was happening.

It was as if my body was no longer my own as I lifted both hands, and pushed them to the side. A shockwave went through the crowd of Kinians that had surrounded us, and they all flew backward, crashing into the frozen ground behind them.

“That was you,” Thoridor concluded in my mind, “how did you do that?”

I didn’t know how to answer him — because I didn’t know what had happened. I just knew I felt strangely strong. I had just chugged an entire bottle of that red elixir Phaedra had made, but for some reason, I felt like something else was going on. Was this the mating bond growing? If it was, I could only imagine how powerful I would feel after completing the entire ritual. The burning inside my chest was growing stronger too — still not unpleasant, but definitely more noticeable than before.

I shifted around on the beast’s back, trying to relieve some of the burning. Most of the Kinians had scrambled back to their feet, unharmed, albeit a little confused. Soon, they resumed their attack on us. Thoridor’s beast nimbly ducked under and jumped over arrows and javelins, and I used my hands to wield away the rest of the attackers.

With every Kinian I blew out of the way, my limbs seemed to grow a little colder, and the burning in my chest seemed to get a little stronger — hotter. I glanced down into my tunic, and noticed something strange.

The feather Ilowyn had given me was still inside my tunic, and its edges were still smoldering, but they seemed to burn brighter than before. Was this the source of the burning inside my chest?! I put my hand over it, pressing it tighter to my chest, and indeed, the burning seemed to pick up in intensity. There were no markings on my skin, though, no signs of actual burns on me. I thought back to what Ilowyn had said —it was a token to symbolize our relationship— was that why it was burning brighter now that we had completed another step of the mating ritual?

Suddenly, a force slammed into my side so hard it made me tumble off the beast’s back and crash into the blood-soaked battleground. My head hit the frozen soil with a nauseating smack, and my vision went blurry. Thoridor’s beast let out a deafening growl and put its front legs on either side of me, hunching over me protectively as I tried to gather myself. I was dizzy — too dizzy to see straight. My ears were ringing, and I struggled to get back on my feet. I did manage to get myself upright, but immediately plummeted forwards again —just barely able to catch myself— by putting my palms straight into the smoldering embers of a pyre.