The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate novel Chapter 358

Chapter 358: Love Him Enough To Lose Him

TEMPLE OF THE MOON GODDESS

River ran through white stone columns that caught the late afternoon light.

The priestess looked up.

She was standing at the altar, her silver eyes open, her white robes still, her posture carrying the particular quality of a woman who had been waiting rather than praying.

"I know why you are here, child."

River crossed the temple floor, her breathing ragged. Her eyes were red.

"The chosen bond between Tristan and I," River said. "Can you sever it without him being present?"

The priestess studied her. The study lasted three seconds.

"Yes."

"If I am the only one present, what happens?"

The priestess walked towards her.

"A chosen bond is built by two. It can be dissolved by one, but the cost is asymmetric. The one who chooses to break the tie takes the responsibility." She paused. "The damage falls upon you, child. All of it lands on the one who lets go. The other feels the absence, but the wound belongs to the hand that released."

"And Tristan?" River’s voice was barely a whisper. "He will not be harmed?"

"No, he won’t. The wound is entirely yours, child."

River took a steadying breath.

"Please perform the severing."

The priestess looked at her for a long time. The look carried the weight of a woman who served the Goddess and understood that divine mercy was sometimes indistinguishable from divine cruelty, and the girl standing in front of her was about to learn the difference.

✦✦✦

The stone slab was cold.

River lay on her back in the center of the temple, her white hair spread across the stone, her hands at her sides, her pink eyes open and fixed on the ceiling where the moonlight filtered through an opening that framed the sky in a perfect circle.

The altar surrounded her. The silver glow of the moonstone pulsed in rhythm with her breathing, as if the temple itself was syncing to her heartbeat before it was asked to stop something connected to it.

The priestess stood at her head. The words that came from her were older than the temple, carrying a cadence that belonged to the first age of Fae civilization, when bonds were woven by gods and severed by the same hands.

River’s hair began to glow.

The white turned luminous, the gold at the tips brightening. Her body followed.

Then the priestess stopped chanting suddenly. The cost of continuing was going to be paid by the least deserving person in this temple.

River glanced over at her.

"Please. It’s okay."

She gave a nod and continued.

The words reached the passage that commanded the tie to release. The magic in the temple responded.

The pain began at the star on her neck and radiated outward, through her chest, through her arms, through every nerve and vessel and pathway that their love had built over years of choosing.

River screamed.

TRISTAN’S QUARTERS

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify