He lets me stand up, patting my back as I cough like an idiot who’s forgotten a basic life function.
“Is she choking on air?” Roarke asks from my right.
I manage to get myself under control and figure out what I’m looking at. Seth, straightening and supporting me despite being dotted with papercut trails of blood. Roarke is on my right with blood in his hair, standing but looking like he’s in pain.
Killian wedges his foot against the tree and starts to push himself forwards. Forcing himself along the spike-covered bolt, he’s already made some progress. How long has he been doing that?!
I gasp, which makes him pause, grunt, then keep going. Without thinking, I move toward him, but Seth grabs my shoulders, stopping me.
“Wait, the glass,” he says, waving at the ground.
It almost looks like snow, only more iridescent and deadly.
Staggering and bleeding, Pax moves towards me without even looking, stepping onto the shards and instantly drawing blood but not slowing down.
“Stop,” I gasp, holding my hands up at all my guys.
Come to me? I ask the glass. The shards littering the ground hum to life. You too, I ask the spike in Killian’s shoulder, adding, gently.
The weapon turns to liquid and flows into the air. Killian falls back against the tree, moaning in the most delicious thank-the-gods-for-that kind of way. The shards on the ground pool, flow, and join together, all moving to me. Not quite liquid, because it has sharp spikes rolling and moving, but similar.
“What’s going on?” Seth asks, trying to pull me closer to him.
His arm wraps around my shoulders as he steps back
“I think I’m doing it,” I say.
“I figured that, but what are you doing?”
“Just.” I hold my arm out as I talk, and the glass rises, rolling over itself until it reaches me. The collection of armor and weapons condense down to nothing more than a single armband, then firm back to glass.
After about thirty seconds of awe, Seth kisses my temple.
“Are you hurt?” he asks.
I shake my head, and he believes me, running to Killian’s aid.
“The bleeding’s stopped,” Killian growls. “Help Pax.”
“It’s not stopped,” Seth argues, putting pressure on the wound.
“I’m with Pax,” Roarke says, moving towards the saddle bags first.
Pax doesn’t seem to have gotten that letter since he’s still staggering toward me. He unfurls his fingers, letting the handful of bloody leaves fall to the ground.
Roarke pulls out clothing from the first available bag and tosses what looks like one of Killian’s shirts to Seth. It’s quickly turned into a bandage as Roarke does the same for Pax, tearing a second shirt as he moves.
I don’t know who to help.
They’re all bleeding, even Seth from the slices left by the glass.
Pax isn’t even slowing down, his gaze golden and the sharp lines of his face set intently on me. Like I’m more important than saving his own damn life.
So much blood. So much pain. My insides want to rip right out to help the people I love.
I have to help them all.
Two things happen at once – first, it feels like my insides really do rip right out as power from within me slams into each of my guys. In an agonizing instant, I feel their muscles knit, their flesh repair, and the pain recede. Not that I do any of that, their bodies take full control. I’d simply pressed the power into them. Power I never knew I had and have no idea how to control.
And thing number two – in the exact same moment, someone cuts me down from behind.
The blade moves through me like a knife through butter. Sharp and sudden and earth shatteringly painful. Blood bubbles up and dribbles from my lips, strangling anything that might have sounded like a scream into nothing but a gurgle.
Thinking becomes impossible as my knees buckle, and the attacker behind me laughs hysterically.
Killian dives over me, pressing me to the ground with his body as a human shield. I can hear the frenzy, screaming and pain, but everything is black shadows and ice cold, and I can’t see a single thing.
I ache being underneath him. Not seeing what’s happening. Not knowing if he’s being ripped to shreds right now. Why won’t he defend himself?!
The Shadows coil and crawl back into Killian, and I can see my attacker was alone, his now headless body on the ground. Killian picks me up, and I sling one arm around his neck, the other failing to move at all. Pax takes what’s left of my shirt in his hands and rips the fabric open. Laying me bare. What’s left of me.
“It’s mortal,” Killian growls.
It’s the worst pain I’ve ever felt, that’s what it is. Worse than the almost peaceful death that the Spring offered.
Searing. Burning. Shredding.
Pax runs a finger down my spine. His touch is perfectly soft amidst the agony.
My vision fades. Each breath comes shallower than the last, and the effort to take the next feels too great.
“ – won’t save her,” Killian is saying.
“We can heal her.” That’s Roarke.
“Not this damage. No one can heal this kind of damage. Her shoulder’s almost detached, and her spine…”
I try to dig my nails into his back. My death isn’t something they should be discussing without my input – but parts of me have stopped working, and muscle movement is high up on that list.
Pax growls, and the land seems to vibrate, echoing him and bowing in submission. His hand presses against my skin, and power charges through me.
Power and pain. My back arches like I’m being shredded from the inside out, which matches the feeling radiating from the outside in. I lie – it doesn’t match it at all. This is so much stronger. Like a current of magic is being pushed from his hand into my soul and firing out in all directions. Bones that I didn’t even realize were broken snap back into place. Heat runs along the long edges of the
