Stronger as One (#1, Completed)

69. Stronger as One

RILEY

Time slowed down while I watched in slow motion how a large chunk of the ceiling broke off and was about to crush Michelle, who was standing right beneath it. A flash of silver ran past me as Rafe rushed to get to his mother. Weight pressed on my chest, robbing me of my breath while I saw everything roll out in front of me.

The whole ceiling collapsed at the same moment that Rafe reached his mum. All I could see seconds later were the swirling dust and the rubble left behind. 

There was no sign of either one of them.

My heart skipped a beat- one of my mates was lying unconscious next to me, while the other was now buried under the remains of the caved-in ceiling. I trembled as I looked on, struggling to believe that I was about to lose either one of them or both of them.

Little by little, a dark shape emerged amongst the settling dust. As it stepped forward, it became clearer until I recognised Kai who was slowly pulling Michelle away from debris. She appeared to be unconscious and I couldn't figure out if she was injured.

Rafe, is she...?

She is alive but she hit her head when she fell, so it might take her some time to come around, he mind linked back as Kai pulled her to a nearby patch of soft grass and licked her hand.

"Michelle," Markolf called out, ready to rush towards Kai and Michelle's spot. But his movement only resulted in Kai's snarls as he stepped in front to protect her from the cambion.

The half-demon stopped in his tracks. His face did not give anything away and yet, I didn't fail to spot the subtle flinch when he was denied the possibility to rush to his assistant's side. Maybe he did care for her, after all.

I've had enough of this arsehole, Rafe exclaimed just before he lunged towards the cambion.

But as he was about to pounce on the cambion, Markolf took something out of his pocket and shot my mate with the oh-so-familiar energy blast which forced Rafe to shift mid-leap, causing him to tumble on the ground when he fell.

"Rafe!"  A desperate cry left my lips but it was only met with silence.

Outside of the mansion, the intense noise from the battle raging out there was getting louder and closer, as the shifters were seemingly gaining ground and forcing Markolf's forces back. But here, with both of my mates lying injured on the floor, things were looking pretty bleak.

"Enough playing around- this ends now," Markolf commanded before he took the same small orb that he used on Cyrus and pointed it forwards. Two streams of bright light shot out of it and hit Rafe and Aiden. In the blink of an eye, the blasts attached themselves to the guys, lifting them both off the ground.

Neither of them said a thing or reacted, but I doubled in agony from the excruciating pain that reached me from my mates. Barely able to move from the anguish, all I could do was watch in horror as I saw Kai and Blaze slowly separate from Rafe and Aiden.

Panic spread across my body-- I couldn't let this happen to them. If their animals' extraction did not kill them, Markolf was certainly going to end them himself once they were defenceless. And even if we somehow, miraculously, made it out without their animals, I knew that the pain of losing their wolf and dragon would have been too much for them to bear.

I had to stop Markolf!

For my mates.

For Michelle.

For my family.

... For me.

I struggled to fight the pain that was crippling my body but then I remembered the Sun Goddess' words when I visited them. "We needed a bond that could withhold anything Markolf could throw its way, a bond that was stronger than anything we had ever seen."