She couldn’t run away and let that happen. Not to anybody. Not to Iestyn.
Her knees shook.
Maybe, if he believed in her, it didn’t matter so much that she had so little faith in herself. Maybe together . . .
She thought she understood what had happened. By opening himself to Lara, by al owing her to tap his elemental energy, Iestyn had left himself vulnerable to the demon trapped inside him. When their conjoined magics shattered the heth, Cudd had rushed along the open channels of power to take swift possession of his host. With the demon already lodged inside him, Iestyn could not tear free of Cudd’s control. Not alone.
A frisson of uncertainty shook her spine. She was drained and sore, tired and afraid. She didn’t have the training or the power for what she was about to attempt. She didn’t have an anchor.
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She didn’t have a choice.
Framing Iestyn’s face in her bloody hands, she pressed her mouth to his mouth. A fetid whiff of demon made her pause.
But under it, she could taste Iestyn, his flavor, rich, salty, reassuring.
Closing her eyes, she poured out her soul, spirit casting into his body.
*
*
*
Hot. Bright. Like swal owing the sun. Light burst in Iestyn’s skul , burned behind his eyes. He could not see. An enormous bal of gaseous energy seethed inside him. It radiated from the center of his chest, shoving aside his internal organs, spleen, liver, lungs. He was stretched ful , what was left of his mind and wil stretched as thin as the latex of a bal oon.
If he so much as breathed in, Iestyn thought, he would pop.
His boundaries wavered. He could not feel the limits of his body, could not find his fingers and toes.
But he felt Lara, moving inside him, offering up her strength for his use, giving shape to his body, giving form to the brightness. Lara, breathing with his lungs. Lara, seeing out of his eyes.
He squinted. Focused.
And saw Lara’s body crumpled against the wal , her black hair spread on the white tile.
The sight snapped him back to himself.
What had she done? Was she dead?
But he could feel her with him. Inside him. With the demon.
He was in the bathroom.
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He looked at the shel of her body, motionless on the floor.
A dul throbbing fil ed his head, like feet rushing up the stairs, like fists pounding at the door, like the beating of his own heart.
Cudd raged inside him like a fever, evil, virulent, shooting out lines of sticky fire. But the demon was no match for them, for Iestyn’s strength and Lara’s words and their combined power.
“Unclean spirit!” Iestyn shouted as the door to the suite burst open. “I cast you out!”
And the fire ripped from his brain and heart and loins and erupted into the room.
He barely noticed.
He crawled across the floor to Lara. She looked like Hel .
Like death. Her face was the color of melted wax, her lashes dark against her pale cheeks.
A wind whipped through the open door. The fire shrieked and shot toward the ceiling. Heat singed his legs.
Iestyn threw himself over Lara’s limp body, wrapping protectively around her to shield her from the reaching, greedy flames.
Someone shouted, a deep command.
The fire flickered and died.
Shaking, Iestyn pul ed Lara’s body into his arms, cradling her against his naked chest. One blood-streaked hand slipped to the tile, fingers curled upward like the petals of a lily. He pressed his lips to her brow, her cheek, her unresponsive mouth.
“Lara.” A cry from his heart. A prayer, breathed against the smoke and silence.
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When her eyes opened, he buried his face in her hair.
