I turned my face to peer up at Elias. The sickly sallow of his face worried me. His hand trembled when he reached my face to cup my cheek, and I leaned into his touch.
“I love you.” His words were soft, his eyes searching. “I love you,” he repeated, the words slower and more tender.
His eyes rolled back, and I tried to catch him to keep him from further hurting himself, but he was too heavy and landed on my crumpling body instead.
“Shit!” Every part of me burned in agony, but I held him, his large frame against my chest, his lolled head braced on my shoulder.
This wasn’t how he died. It couldn’t be.
“Alastor!” I screamed, the veins on my neck stretching at the force.
A sob tore through me as I held Elias’s limp body closer to me. I reached for the bleeding wound on his stomach and pressed my palm hard against it. Elias didn’t stir or groan, and it filled me with a hopelessness that strangled me.
The familiar threads of Alastor’s magic brushed against my mind. I let out another sob, this one filled with hope.
“Scream again,”he said.
“Alastor!”While his name rang loud, it came out broken and desperate.
“We’re close, Teddy.”His words came out gentle and coaxing.“Keep shouting. We’re coming for you.”
I screamed again, my shouts scraping across my throat. I screamed and screamed, my voice growing hoarse. With my face buried in Elias’s hair, I cried, my body shaking with every forceful sob.
I thought of the tattoo on my back, thought of Eiran andthe astral realm. I pictured myself leaving my body to get to him and beg him for Elias’s life.
It stayed silent, and I wondered if this was it. Had I begged for too many lives?
“Take me with him,”I thought, projecting those words to Eiran.
“Someday,”Eiran said.“Not today.”
The air shifted. Not with wind or footsteps, but with power. It flooded over us like black fog slipping through cracks. I recognized Alastor’s magic and the rage he barely contained made my skin prickle.
Alastor’s magic arrived before he did but only just. He stepped from behind the trees, and he wasn’t the composed enigmatic mage I’d come to know. He was something feral, something barely restrained.
He didn’t speak but looked at me, blood-streaked and shaking while I cradled Elias’s limp body, and then he turned his gaze on Pietro, who was still contained behind a wall of his own fire.
Alastor’s shadows surged forward, slamming into the fire, not to weaken it, but maybe to show him what little power he had left.
Pietro screamed as the shadows writhed around him, tearing and burning but still holding back enough to let him feel the promise of what would come.
Alastor took a single step forward, his voice cold. “You touched what’s hers.”
Then he moved. He didn’t walk but his magic descended upon Pietro like a storm summoned from the deepest pits of hell. Shadows cracked against the fire, and the ground itself trembledwith Alastor’s fury.
But before the darkness could close in completely, I called to him quietly, barely more than a whisper.
“I want to be the one who kills him.” My voice was raw and shaky, but it stopped Alastor.
The shadows stilled and he turned his head, his eyes meeting mine. He didn’t question me but gave me the smallest nod. Then the shadows receded, returning back to its master.
Silence fell and my breath trembled but I didn’t loosen my grip on Elias.
Familiar, strong arms encircled me from behind.
“Brenton.” I knew it was him by scent alone, but I still fought him, twisting in his hold as Alastor moved to carry Elias.
“You did good, Teddy,” he said, kissing the top of my head.
