All Chapters of The Harbinger’s Forbidden Mates: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

His touch burned like a lie I wanted to believe. Even now, waking in the dimness, I could still feel the warmth of Kael’s hand against my skin, the promise in it, the ache.  But the warmth was gone.  All that left was fire.  I looked down at my wrist.  The mark shimmered slightly, a soft red glow beneath my skinbeautiful, dangerous, and wrong.  Selene’s mark.  My breath caught.  My heart stuttered.  For a moment, I thought it was blood.  But no.  It glowed like something living, something that didn’t belong to me. 

Lucien stepped closer. “You can’t save her if Selene consumes her completely. You have to choose, Kael. Her or the world she’ll destroy.” “I won’t choose,” I growled. “Not this time.” Lucien’s eyes narrowed. “Then she dies either way.” I grabbed him by the collar. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” He didn’t move. “I do. I saw it in the files. The moment Selene’s blood hits a living heart, she starts to root herself inside it. If she takes full control of Rory, she won’t just kill herselfshe’ll bring back Selene in her purest form.” 

I returned to save her.  She looked at me like I was the one killing her.  The moment our eyes met, I knew something had changed.  Not just in her, something inside me shifted too.  The link between us pulsed like a wound unwilling to close.  “Rory,” I breathed.  Her gaze snapped up.  Cold.  Unfamiliar.  “You shouldn’t have come back.”  My chest tightened.  “You say that like you mean it.”  She tilted her head slightly, her tone smooth, thoughtful.  “Do you know what it feels like to wake up and not recognize your own voice?  To feel someone breathing inside your skin?”&nbs

 “You think you can fight me, boy?”  Selene spoke now, her voice spilling from my mouth.  Her tone was poison wrapped in honey.  “You think you can save her?”  Elias flinched, but stood his ground.  “You’ve lived off stolen souls for centuries.  This ends with you.”  “It began with me,” she said, smiling through me.  “And it will end with her.”  Lucien stepped forward, holding an obsidian knife carved with runes.  “We can bind her.  But Rory, you have to help us.  You have to want this.”  “I do!”  I shouted, but the words came out twisted, echoin

  The air shifted, heavy with something old.  A chill crawled down my spine.  And then, from nowhere, a voice echoed inside the bond.  Deep. Slow.  Beautiful in its cruelty.  “So the children of my curse still breathe.”  Rory’s breath caught.  “Whowho is that?”  Kael’s eyes darted around the room, looking for a body that wasn’t there.  “Show yourself.”  “You cannot see what does not live,” the voice said.  “But you will know me soon enough.  The balance has broken.  The Vessel has woken.  The Guardia