I sagged, suddenly weak and dizzy.
“Get out of here,” Jasper cried. “I’ll hold it off.”
Sloane shook Poppy. “Get up. Dammit, Pops, we need you.”
Poppy groaned and sat up. Her eyes snapped wide as she recalled where we were. “Fuck.”
They rushed to the steps and began working on the warding.
Get them out of here, Rune said to Jasper. Jump with them.
“I can’t,” Jasper said. “I used a ton of energy getting through that damn ward. I don’t have enough to get anyone out.” He gritted his teeth, pushing power into the slau. “Hurry with that damn ward.”
We’d been here before. Weeks ago. He’d fought the slau, and I’d been too stubborn to give him the power he needed. Too stubborn to take off the amulet.
How things had changed.
He needed power. The amulet obviously wasn’t glitching, so he couldn’t draw it from me.
It was time to take the amulet off.
“Jasper, take it all.” I reached for the pendant.
His head whipped my way, eyes widening. “Don’t!”
I froze. “Why.”
“That fucking thing is the only thing keeping you safe right now.” He let out a growl, jaw clenching, and focused on the slau again. “It’s not only muting my ability to draw from you, but it’s acting as a barrier against this fucker.”
“What? I don’t understand. I felt it trying to draw my soul out.”
“It can do it a lot faster if you take that thing off. I didn’t know it before, but I’ve done my research since then. It’s not that hard for a slau to take a soul.” He stepped toward the slau, forcing it back a step. “You can only fight it because of the amulet, and The Elites have wards on their bodies that act as resistors.”
Shit.
“Almost got it,” Sloane cried out.
Jasper bellowed, channeling more power into keeping the slau at bay.
My hands fizzed with redundant energy as I struggled to connect with my power. The slau had drained me while trying to hook out my soul.
“Got it!” Poppy cried.
The slau lashed out and then Jasper was wrapped in inky tendrils and suspended in the air.
My scream echoed throughout the basement.
“Get out.” Jasper shot a savage look my way. “I got this. Just go.”
A pang shot through me. The sharp edge of a lie.
He was lying.
His emerald eyes darkened. “Cora, please go.”
No. “Wink out. Just fade away.”
“I can’t. It has me.”
He strained, power pulsing off him, and for a moment the tentacles loosened, but then they tightened suddenly and Jasper was pulled toward the slau’s inky mass. Moans and groans of anticipation filled the air.
“No!”
“Rune, get her out,” Jasper ordered.
My mate shoved me toward the stairs with his nose. Move.
“Hurry.” Sloane held out her hand. “We’ve made a breach but it’s closing.”
I was the anchor. I needed to live. I needed to get out. The fate of humanity and all that.
I knew what needed to be done.
I just couldn’t do it.
I locked gazes with Jasper. All this time he’d come for me. He’d never left me behind. I wasn’t about to abandon him now.
I tugged the amulet from my neck. “Fight!”
“No!” His cry of rage was muted by the buzz of power that filled my head.
Light saturated my vision.
Cora. Rune’s body slammed into me, propelling me toward the stairs. Sloane’s fingers curled around mine, but I was ripped away from her.
Wait…What was this?
There I was, still gripping Sloane’s hand. Rune was behind me. Poppy was on the steps. I watched them as I floated away from them.
And then my body dropped.
Sloane screamed.
Oh shit. I was a soul, and I was being sucked toward the slau. I spun in the air, holding out my ethereal arms to ward off the mass. This was it. It had me. I was done.
Arms wrapped around me from behind. “I’ve got you, you crazy woman.” Jasper’s voice was an angry bite.
He yanked. Something snapped, then I was flying away from the mass. Pain filled my head, sharp, lancing, and searing. Heat bloomed in my chest, and my head was filled with blinding light and a death rattle of a scream.
“Cora, fuck.” Sloane’s arms were around me now.
What…Where was I?
Were my eyes open? I blinked and my vision returned, light dimming so I could make out Sloane’s concerned face.
“You with us?” she asked.
“Jasper?” I sat up, eyes scanning the room. The slau was gone. “Where’s Jasper?” My chest was tight, sobs gathering in my throat and pushing at the backs of my eyes. “Jasper!”
“I’m here.”
He appeared in the center of the room, glowing softly, solid, whole, and brimming with power.
My power.
A sob broke from my throat. “You’re okay.”
He bristled, brows snapping in an angry frown. Heck, he was furious. “You could have died. One more second and it would’ve had you. What the fuck were you thinking. You should have left.”
I wanted to speak but my throat was too tight with emotion.
She couldn’t leave you, Rune said.
Jasper glared at me. “Why? Why couldn’t you leave me, Cora?”
I stood slowly and walked toward him. His chin came up guardedly and he looked down his nose at me.
I placed my palms on his chest and swallowed the lump in my throat. “I care about you, Jasper.”
“I care about a lot of things, Cora, but I wouldn’t put my life in jeopardy for them.”
And yet he’d done that for me time and time again. Maybe at first it had been for selfish reasons, but it wasn’t any longer. There was no lying any longer.
I reached up and grazed his jaw with my fingertips. “I couldn’t leave you because I love you.”
His breath hitched. “What…What did you say?”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I love you.”
A cacophony of emotions flitted across his face, and for a brief moment there was love in his gaze—pure, unadulterated love.
His hand hugged my throat, thumb sweeping across my pulse. “I don’t know what love is. All I know is that you took the amulet off.
