Fragmented bond

Training was brutal this morning and not just because our trainers decided to be sadistic assholes. The scorching intensity of the two suns was enough to have me sweating before I even started moving around. We were unfortunately well into the Great Heat, a time when all the suns moved closer to our lands, and yes, it was as miserable as it sounded.

Lucky for us it wasn’t every year, there were several years between the events. For a couple of months, All sixteen of the suns in our realm would move closer, appearing twice as big as before. As a result, the temperature spiked substantially.

We put up barrier spells to protect ourselves from being cooked and getting burned from just stepping outside. It didn’t stop the unbearable heat, but it was better than nothing. We also made sure to wear a cream made by elementals to pevent getting burnt.

Luckily the trees and nature adapted to the suns and didn’t catch on fire or die.

The years between these events varied. Last time this happened was over nine years ago. The time before that was almost six. As far as we could tell, there was no rhyme or reason. All we could do was endure the weather when it made its appearance; our only warning came a couple of days in advance.

On occasion, the weather had been known to momentarily drive the most sane of us crazy. Liana’s already terrible temper was worse during these months, and she’d been known to start fights when she wouldn’t have before.

As if all of this wasn’t bad enough, we also had to deal with the creatures the blazing temperatures attracted. There were creatures from other realms that thrived on high temperatures, and somehow, they could sense when the Great Heat took place. They would sneak into our realm—despite all of our efforts to stop them—and caused mayhem.

This was why our trainers were extra hard on Liana and me today, they were making sure we could handle any of the creatures should they attack. It was also possible Finn and Theon were taking their frustration with this weather out on us.

As the Alpha’s daughters and heirs, Liana and I had extra private lessons. We had an older brother, Maximus, but he wasn’t an heir since he took after our mother who was a sorceress. Genetics of our kind followed a unique logic.

We had hybrids of all varieties and combinations. We also had children who were of a different race than either of their parents, but that didn’t mean the mother had cheated. A blood mage and an elemental could have a sorceress as a daughter if they had a magic user in their family tree, say like a grandmother or an uncle.

It was like how summoner’s spirit animals weren’t the same for families. My dad was a lion summoner, Liana was a leopard, and I was a dragon. The same could be said for hair and eye colors, which didn’t follow a pattern.

My silver hair didn’t match my dad’s light green hair, or my mother’s vivid red hair.

By the time our training session was over, I was wishing I could slip into one of the neighboring realms and enter one of the frozen territories. Unfortunately, we had temporarily cut off the rifts in the hopes it would stop the creatures from coming to our realm. It never did, but we had to do something to try and stop them.

Liana groaned from where she sat next to me, and not in the exhausted kind of way. This one usually only occurred when a certain someone was nearby. I mentally prodded my energy, seeking the cord, a burst of warmth, or anything to indicate the bond was still alive and well. Nothing. It was like Lukas wasn’t here.

Cracking my eyes open and sitting up, I found him carelessly strolling toward us. His sleeveless shirt clung to his muscular torso, with a sheen of sweat glistening on his light brown skin. Dark green eyes—which matched the script trailing down his left arm—skipped over me and landed on our trainers.

Lukas appeared to be in his late twenties, but that was misleading since our kind stopped physically aging at twenty-eight. The only way to tell someone’s age was either the strength and control of their powers, or how they held themselves and spoke.

He didn’t offer any greetings to Liana or me and instead joked with Finn and Theon, a smile lighting up his handsome face. A smile he hadn’t been gracing me with lately, the stress of our weakening bond was putting a damper on our relationship. This was the first time I’d seen him in several days since the sex rejection incident, and he was completely ignoring me. I might as well not have been here at all. He hadn’t seen me—his fated mate—in days and all he seemed to care about was making jokes about the fucking weather.

My dragon had been pressing close, as she always did when he was around, pushing me to get closer to him. She was livid he was ignoring us and acting like he hadn’t missed us. A slice of hurt rippled from her to me at how he was acting, and the pain nearly stole my breath.

Liana’s patience when it came to Lukas was all but gone. At this rate, she’d despise him by the time we had our mating ritual. If we ever had our mating ritual. Lukas had been dead set against it, even though my mom had said it would help develop our bond. At the time his reasoning made sense to me. He wanted our bond to be fully formed when we performed the ritual.

Now, I no longer harbored those romantic notions, I was desperate enough to let a blood mage near my blood. She could’ve easily used my blood and cast a spell against me. If that didn’t show how dire this situation was, I didn’t know what would.

Mating rituals didn’t have to be performed for fated mate couples since our souls were already tied together, but it was something every mated couple—fated and chosen—participated in. It tied the essence of the couple together and created a mental link, along with some other benefits.

“Hi Lukas,” Liana said in a sugary voice, cutting off his conversation, but not giving a single fuck. Lukas shot her a glare, the dislike between the two had become mutual. “It's been a while since you’ve visited your mate.”

The annoyance on his face vanished as soon as Liana called him out for being a shitty mate in front of others. I mean, what kind of man didn’t visit or contact their mate? As if he could hear my thoughts, Lukas finally turned his attention to me and gave a charming smile, but it lacked any form of warmth. He came to stand beside me, wrapping an arm around my shoulder once I stood up.

While my dragon was practically purring in my chest at the physical contact, I couldn’t help but notice how cold it was. Not physically, obviously. There was nothing cold about this damn weather. I was referring to his closed-off demeanor. Even though he was touching me, he seemed to be out of my reach.

I mentally shook my head to clear it of all these types of thoughts. This heat was driving me crazy or maybe Liana’s opinions were rubbing off on me. All I was doing was making something out of nothing. Lukas cared for me; he’d put up with all of my crazy attempts at fixing our bond over the past couple of months. Like the day I insisted on a marathon sex session, trying different techniques. I even placed spell-infused crystals around the bed, but they had been useless.

Any distance I sensed between us was due to the stress the weak bond was putting on us. That was all.

Lukas dropped a kiss on top of my head, his scent enveloping me and soothing my dragon even further. While I wished he would kiss me as he used to, I’d take whatever he was willing to give me.

“How long are you staying?” I asked, looking up at him, taking in the way his short dark red hair—the color of dried blood—gleamed in the sunlight, bringing out the undertones in his hair.

Lukas was from a pack down south, but once we were fully mated, he’d join ours since I was the heir to this pack. His parents were more than okay with this and had been so welcoming when Lukas finally introduced me last month. I couldn’t wait to see more of them and his younger sister.

I’d never met his older half-brother who had a different mother. From what I gathered from talking to Lukas’ ten-year-old sister Mira, he was the result of a hookup before their parents ever met. According to Mira, their parents got along pretty well with her.

Something else Mira shared was that the brothers couldn’t stand each other. So chances were I’d never meet him.

“I’ll have to leave soon, I only had time to talk with your father,” Lukas said with a sad smile on his face. He dropped another kiss on top of my head, that was way too brief. “We’ll spend more time together next time, I promise.”

“Oh…okay,” I muttered, deciding now wasn’t the time to broach the subject.

Liana didn’t have the same reaction as me. She crossed her arms, giving him a once over and barely sparing Finn and Theon a wave goodbye as they left. “So, I guess this means you’re letting your mate head into Magic user lands alone for her meeting with the sorceress today.”

Lukas rolled his eyes and sighed before the exasperation disappeared from his features as quickly as it appeared. “Another sorceress Thea? What could this one possibly tell you that you haven’t heard from all the others?”

I shrank back from the annoyance vibrating through his body and the tension stiffening his muscles. “This one’s powers of divination might be able to give us better insight,” I muttered, feeling embarrassed now. Somehow Lukas was able to make me feel like a dumbass for trying so hard.

But if I didn’t try and put in all this effort, where would we be?

Lukas sighed again, shaking his head. “Fine, you can go all the way to their lands and waste your time. They won’t be able to tell you anything new or helpful. I’m not trying to be an asshol, I just don’t want you to get your hopes up again.” Lukas stared down at me, giving my shoulder a quick squeeze before letting go.

“This time will be different, I’ve heard good things about her,” I said, once again feeling the need to defend myself.

Lukas gave me a tight-lipped smile. “Sure it will.”

That was all he said before leaving. No goodbye or a backward glance.