Blood Bind (Feitan x Reader)

Chapter 37

CW: suicidal ideation, knife on wrists, explicit sexual content

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Chest heaving and struggling to move air through your lungs, you shook against Feitan. Tears of terror cut rivers across the ash building on your face, then dried in the heated wave of flames. You'd seen enough death and fire for a lifetime. It set off a reaction in your body and mind, stunning you into inaction.

Pale blue cloaks, contrasted with the orange, pearlescent flames, clashed with Spiders. So many, and so quickly, you couldn't count.

They dodged and struck, tricked and out maneuvered a pack of people you'd never thought could be challenged. They weren't the run of the mill cultists you'd encountered before – it was a cadre of Hunter-level exterminators who were putting up a real fight.

A fight you needed to join.

But there was no fight left in you. Shallow breath gurgled in your throat as everything went blurry from lack of oxygen.

So this was that day all over again.

"Not there, okay?" Feitan yelled against your ear over the roar of the flames. And even so, you could barely hear the words. "With me this time. Both fine."

You were already bereft without the sound of his voice in your head. How could someone be present and so far away?

Lone trees around the house crackled and burned black as the wind carried flames.

The fire continued on, catching Shalnark's garden. And something about Shalnark's name snapped you back to the present. You no longer ran through flame-marred streets hunting for Fei.

That day had been a stain but nothing more than a memory dead to time.

This moment was all that was real.

And it was like they knew what would hurt you the most. Except they didn't know you were with the Spiders. A vile coincidence or creation in the storybooks of fate.

As your vision unblurred, your senses focused on every face.

Mai was your first concern. You caught sight of them with Phinks, who was tall enough to pinpoint in the cacophony. Both furious, they matched snarling scowls. Phinks played some sort of game where he pummeled the invaders and tossed them to Mai to finish them off.

You thought yourself brutal, but it was nothing compared to the striking efficiency with which Mai could kill – a side of them you'd never seen before. They moved like a work of art, and you knew you'd made the right choice enlisting them to join you on your upcoming journey.

Then you needed the third of your trio.

Anaia stood on what was left of the patio. Blonde hair sizzled bright against the ash, caught in a gust of wind that sent the fire behind her flowing with the current. Did she know the progress TPI had made or that her own soulmate could have entirely different aims than her own?

Anaia was too backlit to see her expression, but she was deathly still – a stillness you'd only ever seen in one other. You laughed at how blind you were, not realizing the strange similarities Feitan and Anaia shared, which didn't bode well for your struggle to believe you and Marco were different.

She glided down the steps like death itself, her stare locked on a blue cloak at the base of the stairs. She grabbed them and they both disappeared.

Body vibrating at the realization of what you had to do - you sank inside yourself, into your head where you were now alone with it.