"What do you mean one of us has to die?" Kane asked. He felt the anger growing in his voice. "That is not the only way. You can use magic! Isn't magic how you messed with our bond to begin with?"

Rita shook her head quickly. "Once the bond is formed, I cannot take it back. If you came to me as a child then maybe, just maybe I could have fixed it. As adults, with the bond already formed between you two, there is nothing I can do."

"What do you expect us to do then?" Kane asked. He felt his hands balling into fists at his side as he tried to keep his anger down. He didn't believe the witch, he couldn't understand how she was this incredibly magical and powerful being and yet she couldn't undo her own spell. She had ruined his life, she had taken away his chance at real love and she wasn't even going to try to make it right.

"I expect you to have a mate ceremony and fulfil the rest of the spell." Rita looked at Mason. "Once their mate ceremony is complete, then what's left of the bond between the two of you will be broken. There's no way that a sliver of a bond like that can withstand a mate ceremony."

"Your solution is to break our real bond and keep the fake one?" Kane asked. He looked at Nora, expecting her to be just as upset as he was, but instead she was staring past them, her eyes fixed on the plants. "Nora?" he called her name, but her gaze didn't falter.

"Rita," Owen interjected, "there must be some other way."

"There is not," Rita told him. "For their sakes, I do wish that there was."

"Are you saying that what's left of our bond will be gone if they have a mate ceremony?" Mason asked. His voice was small, as if he was afraid of his own words. "Are you sure?"

Rita nodded. "Yes, then you will be free to find your mate, the one that Nora was supposed to have. Perhaps, with the bond between the two of you broken, then you won't even have a problem with your new mate."

Kane couldn't control his anger. A loud, primal growl left his lips. The second that the sound escaped his mouth he was lifted in the air, his feet dangling off the ground. His eyes widened as he saw Rita with her hands towards him and suddenly the doors to the greenhouse were open and he was flying through the air. He landed amongst the flowers, dirt pressed into his side. He heard Mason scream out his name.

"You can return when you've calmed down," Rita told him, her voice sounding like it was coming from her mouth but also from within his own head, rattling and echoing around his brain.

Kane got up quickly, just as the greenhouse doors slammed shut on their own. He huffed, anger overcoming his entire body. It took everything that he had not to transform right then and there. He pulled his phone from his pocket and pressed it to his ear as he ran out of the garden and down the driveway.

"Thank god you called-," Adam answered the phone.

Kane interrupted him. "Adam, she can't fix it."

Adam's voice changed. He didn't sound relieved anymore. "What?"

"We found the witch that cast the spell and she can't fix it." Kane reached out and punched the tree that he was running past. He felt the wood splinter into his hand as bark flew from the trunk.

"Kane, listen to me you need to stop and breathe okay?"

Kane stopped in his tracks. He fell to the floor, his legs unable to hold him up. He took deep breaths. "She said that for the bond to be fixed, that one of us has to die."

"Oh Kane," Adam whispered.

"I don't know what to do," Kane admitted. He wasn't sure when his anger had turned to sadness, but suddenly there was hot tears building in his eyes and he was blinking them away. "I told Mason that I wouldn't let anything come between us. I told him that he wasn't going to lose me."

"We will figure something out, Kane, I promise. I don't know how, but we won't stop until we figure it out, okay?"

"I don't know if there's anything left to do," Kane told him.

"Come home, okay?" Adam asked. "When you get here we can talk to my dad, we can call other witch doctors. We will find a way. Even if it takes time, I'm not letting you give up."

"What changed? You didn't want me to be with Mason and now you're going to help me?"

Guilt clouded Adam's words. "Kane, I am so sorry. I don't know how to explain what I did, I-I uh, guess I honestly thought that I was helping by pushing you and Nora together. I didn't know you had a real mate. If I had known Mason was your true mate I would have never pushed him away like I had. I don't expect you to forgive me, just please let me help you."

Kane sighed. "It's okay. I know. Thank you for helping me."

"Of course."

"Can I call you back?" Kane asked. "I just think I need a moment."

"Of course. Look after yourself, Kane."

Kane hung up the phone. He glanced down at his hand, blood flowing from his knuckles and dirt pressed into his skin. He hardly felt the pain, the pain in his chest overpowering everything else. He closed his eyes, wishing he could go back to that morning, when he truly believed that they could be saved. He wasn't sure how long he sat there for, his knees pressed into the ground and blood dripping down his fingers. He was only alerted to the passing of time when he heard his name being called. He looked behind him and saw that it was Mason who was walking towards him.

Kane tried to not look upset, but he was almost sure that it didn't work. He stood and faced Mason, only to see that Masons eyes were wet with tears. He crossed the distance between them as quick as he could and wrapped his arms around Mason. He felt his wet tears as they pressed into his shirt. He buried his face in Masons hair, filling his nose with his scent. He couldn't speak, he just held on.

A few minutes had passed before Mason started to pull away. Kane didn't want to get him go. He kept one arm around his middle and looked down at him. Mason tried to smile up at him. "That didn't go as planned," Mason joked.

Kane couldn't help but allow a small smile to pass his lips. "That was... not ideal."

Mason reached up and pressed his hand to Kane's cheek. "I'm sorry."

"We will find another way, don't be sorry," Kane assured him. "I spoke to Adam, he's got a plan, we are going to do it without Rita's help."

"You heard what Rita said," Mason spoke, allowing his hand to fall from Kane's face, "she said that death was the only way to break it."

"I don't believe it," Kane told him with conviction.

"You mean that you don't want to believe it?" Mason proposed.

Kane wasn't sure what he was trying to say. "I'm not giving up on us."

Mason's eyes became glassy and he blinked back tears. "Maybe there comes a point where it's not giving up, its accepting the inevitable."

Kane shook his head strongly. "No. No I don't believe that's true." He reached for Mason's hands. "This is just a setback. This is not the end."

Kane watched as a few tears fell from Mason's eyes.

"I don't know if we can fix this one, Kane."

"We can talk about it when we get home, okay? We can figure it all out."

Mason nodded slowly. "Okay."

Kane let go of his hands to wipe the tears from his cheeks. "I love you, nothing changes that."

"I love you too," Mason told him. His eyes widened. "Why are you bleeding?"

Kane followed his eyeline to his hand. "Oh, I kind of punched a tree."

"Kind of?" Mason lifted his hand to get a better look at the damage.

"Well, I did."

Mason shook his head. "Silly, bad decision boy."

"Got any wisdom to impart, philosophical boy?"

"Yeah," Mason joked, "punching trees is a bad idea."

"Woah, so profound."

Mason laughed and nudged his side. "Shut up. It's good advice."

"How's Nora doing?" Kane asked, his thoughts turning to her.

Mason shrugged. "She hadn't said a word before I left. I think she's in shock."

"We need to stick together the three of us. Let's go find her."

Kane led him back up the hill towards the house. They walked slowly, hand in hand. Kane tried to keep strong, breathing slowly. He wanted to scream at Rita the second he saw her, but he thought better of it. He saw the damage to the garden where he had landed. He felt Nora through the bond before his eyes caught a glimpse of her. The doors to the greenhouse were wide open and he could see that Nora was sitting on the bench, her head resting on Owen's shoulder.

They walked up to them, Rita nowhere to be seen.

"Hey," Kane said as they approached.

Nora sat up immediately. The second she saw him she stood and walked towards him. "We are going to find another way, right?" she asked as she hugged him.

Kane enveloped her in his arms. "Yes. Yes. We will."

Nora nodded into his chest. "I knew you wouldn't give up so easy."

He had decided, when sitting alone having a pity party for himself, that he couldn't do that. He couldn't let this setback ruin everything. He was going to keep his promise to Mason. This didn't change anything. "You know me well."

Kane looked at Owen. "Where did Rita go?"

Owen pointed towards the house. "She said that she had things to do. She wanted me to remind you about telling your mother how sorry she is."

Kane sighed. Rita really wasn't the person he had hoped she would be. "Okay."

"Are you guys alright if we head back?" Owen asked.

Nora stepped back. "Yeah," she told him.

Kane followed them to the car. He caught up with Mason just as he was about to open the car door. "You believe me, don't you?" he asked, low enough so that the others wouldn't hear.

"What do you mean?"

"That I'm going to figure out another way to fix us."

Mason smiled at him with dreamy eyes. "You never give up, that's one of the things that I love about you."

Kane smiled back. It was only after he got into the car that he realised that Mason hadn't actually answered his question.