“Please, fix him,” I begged.
The druid placed a hand on Devyn’s forehead, pushing away his dark glistening curls. He started to speak, an incantation, but it was all wrong. No, no, this wasn’t right. He wasn’t healing, he was helping him pass. Helping him pass away from me, away from this world.
I snarled, pushing at the druid. I put myself between them. I held the blood-soaked cloth to the wound, shaking my head. No. No. This wasn’t happening. Not now. Not here. We had come so far. He couldn’t die. He couldn’t leave me. Not yet. Not…
“Protect.” The word was faint, pleading. Devyn’s dark eyes rolled from the men around him back to the druid. “Griffin.”
The druid leaned in to catch the words that were more breath than speech.
“Last.”
The druid looked at me for an explanation but I couldn’t connect anything. I looked back at Devyn; he was fading. He was leaving me. I didn’t understand.
“He’s the last Griffin,” Rion Deverell interpreted.
Devyn’s gaze locked on Gideon who blanched, shaking his head.
“Do it.” The King of Mercia’s tone was all command.
Nobody reacted. Rion groaned above me.
“It can’t be me. My house has a different destiny.” His voice broke. “Please, Gideon.”
I didn’t understand. Gideon’s face was without expression as he looked at me, then back to my brother, before giving the druid a sign of assent.
He dropped to his knees. The druid took a knife and pulled it across the inner side of Gideon’s wrist, then, taking Devyn’s hand, he did the same.
No, he couldn’t lose more blood… What were they doing? The druid joined their wrists together and bound them with a cloth.
“Stop.” I tried to grab their wrists and tear the cloth off, but again, strong arms held me.
“Catriona,” came my brother’s voice, soothing and sorrowful in my ear. “Peace.”
A pulse beat strongly through Devyn. Whatever they were doing, it was working. I smiled at Devyn and he smiled back at me, clear-eyed.
I let out a huff of air. He was going to be all right. The druid’s incantation continued over the bound wrists as the steady pulse built and grew stronger.
“Cass…” Devyn’s other hand tightened on mine. “I love you. It has been the greatest… You have been all in my life. To have found you, to have brought you home… that was all I ever wanted. And I got so much more.”
What was he saying? We had plenty of time for this, but I was so grateful for the steadiness of his words that I smiled back.
“I love you too.”
“You are everything, you and our child.” He looked at Gideon, then at my brother, whose face showed no surprise at news of a child. “Protect them.”
His gaze drifted slowly back to me as the druid’s incantation grew slower, the light fading in those dark eyes. The druid unwrapped the cloth and they all stepped away, leaving us alone. He had promised me the skies of Cymru. Here we were. We were here. Together.
I gripped the hand in mine.
Tightly. Not tightly enough.
Love and warmth passed along our connection, but it was duller, fainter as the light dimmed in his eyes. Blood welled out of his mouth as one last burst of joy and strength and honour pulsed through the bond.
And then was gone.
His eyes were empty.
He was gone.
I threw my body on his as if I could stop his soul from escaping. From leaving me. My hands reached up to cradle that face, those cheekbones that had broken my heart, my fingers caught in his curls as I sobbed and rained kisses on his face.
But he was gone. Where once had been life, the central sun of my universe was now only darkness. No, not darkness. Nothing.
I lay across his unmoving body. But he was not here. I sat up – at least I think I did. I wasn’t across him anymore. I looked down at my blood-covered hands and at the dark, wet patches on the velvet of my gown. The dark stain of his blood sank into the sand.
Through the dullness, a sharp pain hit my arm. I looked out across the water. The imperial ships were growing smaller on the horizon. Marcus was on those ships. Getting ever further away.
Good. It would all be over soon.
I held Devyn’s hand. It made no sense to me. We had been about to get married; this morning, we’d had a lifetime ahead of us. It was still morning, and only moments ago we had everything before us. We were going to be together. To stand together against whatever came at us. My brother. The Britons. We were going to fly in the face of the traditions and customs of this world, and even take on the Empire if they came for us again. Whatever happened, we would stand together.
But now we would fall together. The pain in my arm was spreading. I closed my eyes against it, the physical pain spreading and merging with the tear inside me that promised to take me first. It was the wound that would never heal, the one that Matthias had put in Devyn’s chest. He had put a matching one in my soul. And now, one set of sensations engulfed and melded with the other; I couldn’t say which was worse, and it didn’t matter anyway.
With a moan, I lay down beside Devyn. It would stop soon. I wasn’t wearing my pendant, so I was more vulnerable to the effects than Marcus was. Once Marcus was far enough away, it would overwhelm me, and I too would be gone. I didn’t have time to wait until they removed his cuff. Would the agony even stop then, if I still wore mine? The pain tore through me. And I didn’t even care.
“Catriona.” My brother’s concerned voice came from above. If he hadn’t rejected Devyn, we wouldn’t have been here today. We wouldn’t have been anywhere near the sentinels who had devastated
