She was dead.
“Lucille!” Ronen cried, Aspen echoing him.
Ronen caught my body, his shadows diving into my nose.
“Is she okay?” Aspen asked next to us, his face and clothing smeared with blood and ichor.
She was dead.
“As much as she can be,” Ronen replied, scooping me into his arms.
Another explosion rocked the ground, and Ronen stumbled. Aspen’s hand gripped his shoulder. A breathless silence stifled the air—possessive, territorial. It wrapped around me in a dominating cocoon.
Aspen stepped back, easing the tension. “The floor is about to cave in. We need to go.”
“Grab my Soulhound, Prince,” Ronen barked, then limped forward.
She was dead.
That was all I could think. All I could feel. The power energizing my core smothered me in grief. I wanted to claw my way to the center and rip it out. I didn’t want it. I didn’t want to feelher energy.
Ronen pulled me tighter against his chest, as if he could feel my agony.
My mom was?—
A scream caught in my throat.
Oliver.
The haze of the Cambion explosion lifted to reveal his body twisted in the rubble, unmoving.
“Oliver,” I cried out. I squirmed out of Ronen’s arms, stumbling over the shifting ground. MJ made it to him before I did, feeling for his pulse.
“Is he alive?” I choked out, collapsing next to them.
MJ didn’t answer me fast enough. I reached out, placing two fingers at his neck, and dropped my head to his chest, the tears I’d been holding back flowing free.
Shoes thudded nearby. “Is he dead?”
“No,” MJ answered Alexei. “He’s not dead.”
Ronen kneeled next to me. “We need to go now. I can carry him. Can you walk?”
I hesitated to move.
Ronen grabbed my chin, his fingers tingling against my skin, forcing me to gaze into his uncompromising eyes.
“I will get him out. But I need you to answer me, Hellion. I know you’re in a lot of pain, but I need to know you can get yourself out. Or I’ll have MJ carry you.”
All I could do was nod and stand on wobbly legs—or no. That was the ground shaking. Ronen picked him up, and we limped, shuffled, and somewhat jogged out of Lilith’s crumbling sacrificial room.
Chapter
Fifty-Three
LUCILLE
TWO DAYS LATER
