Burdened bonds the arrow.., p.1
Burdened Bonds (The Arrow Hart Academy Book 4), page 1
BURDENED BONDS
HANNAH HAZE
Copyright © 2024 by Hannah Haze
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Front cover designed by Covers by Christian
Edited by Buckley's Books
Created with Vellum
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Also by Hannah Haze
About the Author
Acknowledgments
1
Stone
I run in the direction of her dorm, even though I know she won’t be there, even though I can feel she’s gone; my bond strained and stretched as if she’s far far away.
But that can’t be right. That can’t be possible. Something has happened and I need to find her.
My feet hit the gravel path as students race around me, ducking for cover, seeking safe refuge, calling out to one another. Above me, the huge silhouettes of dragons swoop eastward and westward, north and south, great balls of fire roaring through the air, scorching everything in their paths. The sky blazes a multitude of colors too, magic colliding and exploding with such force I swear any minute the fabric of the heavens themselves will rip and tear away.
I keep running, ignoring magic that swoops past my head, magic that explodes on the path around me, magic that smashes into buildings and sends rubble flying.
I keep running, the dark dorm building that is hers soon emerging from the gloom.
And then I skid to a halt.
A man lies motionless and still on the path in front of me, his eyes open and lifeless, gazing up at the riot of colors in the sky, the lights reflected back in his blank pupils.
As I venture closer, I see the dark shadow wrapped around his neck, his hands still clasped there, see the purple hue of his face, the strained expression frozen in time across his features. Strangled, strangled with magic.
The man is Marcus Lowsky.
I know his face, even if it’s aged, even if there are more inks scrawled across his skin, more lines of time etched into the flesh. We walked the same streets as kids. We trod the same paths. He was a cruel bastard even back then, although a mere shadow of the man he became.
I stare down at his face. Who the hell killed him? Not anyone from the academy. The magic lingering around his neck is dark, nothing anyone in the academy would use. Unless …
Rhi?
The man wanted to kill her. Did the bastard come close?
I glare down at his lifeless form and then I spit on his face. I consider giving his corpse a kick for good measure, but then I hear voices in the distance and footfall on the path. I look up and find three of Lowsky’s men, their wolf tattoos clear on their skin, sprinting towards me. They halt just as I did when they spot the dead man on the path.
“He’s dead,” I yell at them. “Lowsky is dead.”
They hesitate in indecision. One hauls magic at me halfheartedly, and then they’re running away, yelling the news to their comrades.
I watch them go and then I turn my attention to Rhi’s room, entering the dorm and finding her door ajar.
I’ve stood outside her room before, but I’ve never entered. It feels strange to do so now without an invitation, like an invasion, but what choice do I have? I need to find her.
The sight of the shabby room has my stomach turning. I hate the stupid social politics of the academy. I always have. It seems brutally unfair that some students can live in such fucking splendor while others live in such squalor. Is it necessary? Really necessary to rub the noses of those who have nothing in a daily reminder of their relative obscurity?
Her room is seriously crappy. Sure, it’s no better than the room I had myself back when I was a student in the academy, but I feel more angry about it. Rhi deserves to live in a fucking palace like a princess, not a cellar like fucking Cinderella.
The room is empty. I search under the bed and inside the wardrobe anyway. My eyes lingering over her desk, her notebooks, her scribbled handwriting, her clothes hanging untidily in the cupboard.
She’s not here. She really is fucking gone.
I stumble out of the dorm and automatically I sense something has changed.
The sounds of battle no longer boom through the academy, the sky is no longer ablaze with fire and magic, and the smell of fear and death and dying no longer permeates the air.
I pull out my phone as I pick up my feet again, but there’s no coverage. The network is down. I curse under my breath, racing back along the pathways, back towards the mansion.
As I careen around the corner, I’m in time to see the great dragons launch up into the sky together. I lift my hands, bracing myself, ready. The soldiers and men who attacked us have scattered, but I assume this is simply a temporary reprieve, a chance to gather their forces before striking us again. Around me other academy magicals do the same – a handful of teachers, a few of the students, York herself in her ripped and charred ballgown.
But there’s no strike. No attack. The soldiers have gone and the dragons lift into the night in formation, high above us, soaring not in the direction of the city but out towards the west.
I tip back my head, mesmerized by the sight despite everything, the great creatures truly graceful in flight, as if they weigh nothing at all, as if they aren’t vicious killing machines. As I watch them go, one of the riders out front turns his head and peers down at the ground, his eyes a glowing golden even over the distance. For a brief moment of time, our eyes meet, our gazes lock and my magic crackles.
I flex my fingers, ready again for the strike, but again it doesn’t come. The man simply shifts his gaze back to the west and sweeps his arm over his shoulder, signaling for the other riders to follow him.
“They’re leaving,” York says, clearly as puzzled as I am.
“For now,” I say. “For now.”
2
Renzo
I lift my little rabbit into my arms and carry her upstairs to her old bedroom. The room’s been trashed and, although someone else has tried to neaten it again, it’s not good enough. I tut like an old woman and lower her carefully onto the mattress, wrapping her up in the measly blankets and shushing her all over again.
Whatever it is that’s gripped my little rabbit won’t shift, not with coaxing and not with force. Half the problem is, I don’t know what the hell is wrong. Something to do with that Kennedy boy. The one who walks like he’s got a rod stuck up his ass, his nose in the air.
Did he curse her? Except I can’t feel any dark magic lingering on her skin, dancing through her veins. The only magic I can feel is weak. Not like my rabbit at all. I don’t like it.
I rub my knuckles over her cheek, telling her all over again that she’s safe. Then I busy myself, using my magic to tidy the room, cleaning away all the debris and broken junk, driving away the dust and the grime, working hard until it looks like a fucking palace, gleaming and all.
The entire time, her little pig lies by the side of the bed, facing his mistress, chin resting on his trotters, eyes locked on her pale face. Occasionally his eyes swivel to me, checking what I’m doing, but I think we’ve come to an understanding, me and him.
“We can’t stay here,” I tell him, but he doesn’t respond, eyes staring straight ahead.
It isn’t like I want to move her either. Not when she’s like this. Not when I don’t understand what is wrong. “It isn’t safe here.” I punch my fist into her cushion. I think that’s how the hell you’re meant to do it. Make it all soft and fluffy for her, then I slide it under her head. She’s sleeping but not peacefully. Her lips move in silent whispers, her eyes swing behind their sockets and her brow is damp with sweat, her precious body shaking. “It isn’t safe,” I say again, more to myself than him now.
I don’t know how hard she fought last night in the academy. I don’t know how much of her powers she revealed. I don’t even know if there are people out there who already know about her, know how special she is. But if they do – if they know who she is – they’ll be looking for her.
It’s too difficult to sit still. I need to be doing something. Something more than pacing her newly gleaming little room.
I remember the herbs sitting in rows in glass jars along the kitchen window sill. I remember them hanging from the ceiling. It’s what people do, right? When someone’s sick, they brew them a healing spell. Fuck me if I know what one of those is. But I guess I’ve never needed an instruction manual or recipe book before – couldn’t read them half the time anyway.
I place my cool palm on her warm brow, tell her I won’t be away long, then creep downstairs, cursing every damn loose floorboard and noisy door. The kitchen’s flooded with hazy light; the window yellow with the rising sun, golden dust hanging suspended in the air.
I open each jar, snap off twigs from the herbs, crush the leaves between my fingers and sniff. Memories sail through my head, sweeping me back to another time and another kitchen, potions simmering on the stove. I find a big bad pot like she had, haul it up on the cooker and add what smells nice, what feels nice, what hums through the air that it’s going to help my little rabbit. My eyes stray up to the ceiling. She’s lying right above me. I can sense her right there, the thing in my gut ever tugging me her way.
The potion simmers. Tiny bubbles form on the surface, popping and remolding. Steam and smoke and aromas cloud the kitchen. The windows mist, hiding the coming day.
I switch off the stove, dip my pinkie into the scalding liquid and lift it to my tongue. Doesn’t taste too much like shit and it sends a warmth sailing though my body.
It’s the best I can do. All I can do for her right now. Make her comfortable. Wait for it to pass. Hope it fucking does.
She’s still restless when I return, the blankets all a tangle round her body. She looks like a fly caught in a web. I free her, smooth the cover flat. Then I sit down on the bed, right above her head, and comb my fingers through her hair. It feels like silk. Like water.
It’s what I remember my mom doing once, when I was small and my head hurt so much I thought it was going to fucking burst. She wrapped me up in my bed, stroked my head, sang me lullabies. Yeah, it wasn’t all bad. There were bits like that too.
I hum one of those tunes now. Something old, something that’s lasted longer than people like us. A song they’ll keep singing when we’re gone. It seems to pacify her. She stills, her breathing deepens. My heart stills too. For a moment, I watch her. The way her shoulders lift and fall with each breath. The way her lip quivers when she sucks in the air. The way her blood leaps beneath her skin. She’s so delicate. It would be so easy to hurt her, to break her, to ruin her – just like that bastard Marcus did.
I have to be careful with her. Extra extra careful baby steps, Barone.
It’s so fucking different from everything I’ve done before. It’s alien. Like picking up her knife in my wrong hand. Like trying to speak backward. Like trying not to think of her.
But practice makes perfect, right? That’s what they say. And they can’t say I don’t practice.
Holding my breath in my chest, I rest my hands on her shoulder and roll her ever so gently, a little at a time, so she won’t feel it at all. The pig eyes me with suspicion and I can’t help winking at him, something which makes him snort. Finally, she’s propped up against me and I reach for the cup with my potion, press it against her lips, wet them.
“Drink, little rabbit,” I say. “Drink for me. Just a sip.”
Her pink tongue slides from her mouth and dips into the liquid and I could fucking scream with joy. It would be fucking stupid though. So I keep quiet, let her drink a little. When she’s had enough, I lay her back down, shuffling her along until there’s enough space for me too. Then I slide alongside her, letting her little body roll into mine and wrapping her up in my arms.
I mustn’t squeeze too tight, mustn’t pull too hard.
Gentle, gentle.
Her head fits beneath my chin, her soft hair tickling against my throat and her breath flows across my skin like wind on the plain. As if she’s trying to breathe life into me. Is that what this is? Have I always been dead? Dead inside, right? Am I finally coming to life?
The song withers on my lips as I listen to the song of her instead. The rhythm of her breath, the beat of her heart. Swinging back and forth between the two.
I’m tired. It’s been a fucking long day. I can feel sleep sucking me under.
“I did some digging, little rabbit,” I whisper to her. “About your mom.” The pig lifts his head and glances at me. “Yeah,” I say, my eyes drifting shut. “Seems the professor isn’t the only one who’s good at learning stuff.”
3
Spencer
We travel in silence with all the lights of the truck we’ve commandeered cut out. The battle may be over, but we don’t know what lies out there in wait for us or whether another strike may be weaving its way towards us at this very minute.
Tristan lies cocooned in my arms. He’s waning, with every minute that passes slipping away and I curse under my breath and tell the professor to put his goddamn foot on the gas. Rhi’s friend glances at Tristan’s ashen face and then my own, then rests her hand upon my arm. So recently transformed from wolf form, her touch makes me flinch, my body sensitive, tender. But I know she means well, and though I want to scream at her too, I bite my tongue. It won’t do any good. We need to deliver Tristan to his family, and then we need to find Rhi.
The concerned expressions etched on the enforcer and the professor’s faces tell me they have about as much idea about where she is as I do. But at least she must be alive. The enforcer is her bonded mate. If anything had happened to her, if she were … I screw up my eyes. He’d know. He’d feel it. Fuck, would he feel it!
There must be a way to find her. There must be.
The beast inside me is silent and I’m surprised by it. I expected him to be raving and riling, straining to be released. Desperate to find her, tearing down walls, thundering across the countryside. Shit, hitching a lift on the back of a dragon just to get to her. However, although he’s as aggravated as I am to find the girl, he isn’t fighting this course of action. For once, we’re in agreement. We need to save Tristan Kennedy, although I suspect our motives for doing so are different.
We hit a series of bumps in the road, our bodies buffeting about, Rhi’s friend falling against the boy next to her – her date – as he grabs for the handle hanging from the vehicle’s roof, then we veer around a corner and the big houses of the capital’s expensive suburb comes into view. They’re mostly untouched – only the buildings in the city’s center are captured in flames – and I wonder how many of the great families are holed up inside, sheltering, and how many were out fighting for our freedom. I think of my own mom, my own dad, far from here. Are they safe? Shame swims through me, making me wince when I realize it’s the first time tonight I’ve thought of them. All my focus has been on Tristan and Rhianna.
There are no other vehicles on the road, the tree-lined streets deserted, and we soar along out to the mound, out to the Kennedy place, its large iron gates standing guard against the world.
For a moment, I expect them to remain like that – closed – barring our entrance, but the magical charm kicks in and they part for the heir of the family and his kin.
Stone skids the truck to a halt in front of the mansion’s steps and I stare up at the house. All the lights are out. But that’s not unusual. It was never somewhere that screamed life and party and all that crap. It always gave me the fucking creeps.
The man in black opens the door for me, offers to take Tristan, but I refuse. He’s my friend. I found him. I’m not letting him go just yet. Not until I know he’s safe.
I ignore the niggle at the back of my mind, the one whispering to me, telling me how ill he looks, how close to death he must be. I ignore the whiff of death I keep catching in his scent as well. Refuse to goddamn acknowledge it. I won’t let him die. Not him too.
Not him too! As much a brother to me as my own was.
The others trail behind me as I race him up the steps, the great doors drawing open as I near, and the figure of his mom stepping out into the night, her face as pale as her son’s, her hands shaking.
