CHAPTER 108: BROKEN BONDS

Chapter 108: Broken Bonds

The Harvester’s shadow fell across them like night coming too early. Above, Council ships filled the sky, carrying trapped supernatural beings toward their doom.

But inside the barrier shell, something else was breaking apart. Liana doubled over, holding her chest as pain shot through the mate bond.

"What’s happening?" Darius asked, catching her as she tripped. "The bond," she gasped. "It’s... fracturing." Through the connection that had always tied her to the triplets, she could feel them changing.

The stress of betrayal, the weight of impossible decisions, the horror of watching their people being harvested - it was tearing apart everything that made them who they were. Kael’s words cut through the bond, cold as winter steel. "Emotional ties are a liability. We need to think tactically."

"Kael, no," Liana whispered, but she could already feel him pulling away from the link, wrapping his heart in ice. Miles away, Kael stood in the pack’s war room, studying maps covered in red marks.

Each mark marked a failed safe house, a captured family, a community wiped out by Marcus’s betrayal.

"Sir," a pack warrior reported, "we’ve lost touch with the Portland Wolves. And the Chicago Coven isn’t answering either." "Expected," Kael said without feeling.

"Mark them as compromised." "But sir, there might be survivors. Shouldn’t we try to—" "No." Kael’s grey eyes were cold.

"Rescue missions lose resources we can’t spare. Our goal is identifying which assets are still viable." The warrior looked shocked. "Assets? Sir, these are people. Families."

"These are variables in a tactical equation," Kael corrected. "Variables that have been removed from play."

Through the bond, Liana felt his choice like a knife to the heart. "He’s shutting down," she told the others. "Kael is cutting off all emotional responses." "Maybe that’s smart," Death offered. "Emotions can be—" "It’s not smart!" Liana snapped.

"Without feelings, without connections, he’s becoming something else. Something that doesn’t care about saving people." Back in the war room, Kael was already proving her right.

"New orders," he announced to his remaining pack. "We stop all rescue operations. We stop trying to save everyone. From now on, we focus only on goals that give us strategic advantage."

"What about the children at the processing centers?" a pack leader asked. "What about them?" "Sir, they’re kids. Our kids." Kael’s face didn’t change.

"They’re already lost. Attempting rescue would only end in losing more of our people. Tactically wrong." The elder stared at him in fear. "Kael, what happened to you?" "I became practical."

Meanwhile, at the opposite end of the emotional spectrum, Jace was losing himself in a totally different way. "I’m going in," he declared, staring at satellite images of a Council processing center.

"That’s suicide," his team argued. "There are fifty armed guards, purification barriers, and automated defense systems." "So?" "So you’ll die!" Jace grinned, but there was no joy in it. Just frantic, reckless energy.

"Maybe. But I’ll take a bunch of Council bastards with me." Through the bond, Liana felt his wild, frantic feelings. Where Kael had shut down, Jace was burning himself out with increasingly dangerous tasks.

"He’s been like this since Marcus’s betrayal was revealed," came a report through the hybrid network. "Three impossible tasks in two days. His team can barely keep up."

"Someone’s going to die," Liana whispered. As if called by her words, Jace was already moving. He’d stolen a Council transport and was flying straight toward their biggest processing center. "Jace, don’t!" Liana called through the link.

"Can’t stop now," he answered, his mental voice manic with desperate energy. "Too many people counting on me. Too many kids in those schools."

"You can’t save them by getting yourself killed!" "Watch me." He crashed the transport through the facility’s main wall, shifting into wolf form before the blast even finished.

Council troops opened fire, but Jace moved like lightning, his reckless energy making him faster than their targeting systems. But speed wasn’t enough.

There were too many guards, too many guns. A purification blast hit him in the shoulder, burning away part of his supernatural strength.

He kept fighting anyway, blood streaming down his fur, despair driving him past the point of exhaustion. "Jace!" his team called through their radios. "Fall back! You’re badly hurt!"

"Not without the kids!" He found them in the facility’s lower floors. Dozens of magical children, some as young as three, all hooked up to machines that slowly drained their power.

The sight broke something inside him. Not the strategic break that had frozen Kael’s heart, but something deeper.

Something that turned sadness into pure, burning rage. He destroyed the machines with his bare hands, pulling children free from tubes and lines.

But the alarms were screaming now. More Council troops were coming. "Run," he told the kids. "Run and don’t look back."

Through the bond, Liana felt his choice. "Jace, no!" "Tell Liana I’m sorry," he whispered to his team boss. "Tell her some fights are worth losing yourself for." The facility exploded as Council troops arrived.

When the smoke cleared, Jace was unconscious, caught, and the rescued children were gone - whether escaped or recaptured, no one knew. But the worst fracture in the link was yet to come.

Rowan had always been the empath, the one who felt everyone’s feelings as strongly as his own.

Now, with supernatural beings hurting around the world, their pain was crushing him. He sat alone in his room, hands pressed against his head, trying to block out the psychic screams of the trapped and tortured.

"Make it stop," he whispered to no one. Through the bond, he could feel every magical being in the Council’s processing centers.

Their fear, their pain, their hopelessness - it all flooded through him like a river of agony. "Rowan?" Liana called through the line.

"Talk to me." "Can’t," he gasped. "Too much. I can feel all of them. Every single one." "Fight it. You’re stronger than—"

"No!" The word burst from him with psychic force that cracked the windows in his room.

"I’m not strong! I’m drowning in everyone else’s pain and I can’t save any of them!" He began to build walls in his mind, blocking out first the faraway supernatural beings, then his pack, then his brothers, then finally... "Rowan, don’t shut me out," Liana begged.

"I have to. Your pain is the worst of all. Knowing I can’t protect you, can’t save you, can’t even reach you..." The link went silent on his end. Liana collapsed as the connection to all three triplets fractured totally.

The mate tie that had been her anchor, her strength, her guiding force - it was breaking apart. "The bonds are failing," she told the others, tears streaming down her face.

"Kael doesn’t feel anymore. Jace is caught or dead. And Rowan won’t let me in."

The twelve floating babies turned their bright eyes toward her. THE BONDS WERE NEVER THE SOURCE OF YOUR POWER. "What do you mean?" THEY WERE TRAINING WHEELS. PREPARATION FOR WHAT YOU MUST BECOME. " I don’t understand."

THE MATE BONDS CONNECTED YOU TO THREE INDIVIDUALS. BUT YOUR TRUE POWER CONNECTS YOU TO EVERYONE. Above them, the Harvester’s shadow grew bigger.

The first Council transport ships were arriving inside the barrier dome, unloading captured supernatural beings. And Liana realized the kids were right.

The mate ties breaking wasn’t making her weaker. It was setting her free to become something much more powerful.

Something the Harvester wasn’t expecting. But before she could explore this new understanding, Marcus’s communication device crackled to life. "Final phase initiated," came a Council voice.

"All supernatural assets have been brought to the collection point. Harvester feeding will start in sixty seconds."

The captured supernatural beings were being herded toward them like animals to slaughter. And standing among them, barely conscious but still living, was Jace. His eyes met Liana’s across the barrier dome.

Even beaten and broken, he mouthed two words: "Trust yourself." Then the Harvester began to descend, its mountain-sized shade blotting out the sky. The final meal was about to begin.