Air rushed from my lungs. I couldn’t lose her, couldn’t let her turn. She’d be lost to me forever. I didn’t hesitate, leaning forward to press my lips to the bite wound. I’d draw out the venom, the darkness.
“Damien!” Zephyr yelled, his hand plastering to my shoulder as he shifted.
I jerked from his grip. “I have to stop this!”
“You’ll get infected too!”
I turned on him. “If I do, end me. I’ll die, and she’ll live. If she turns, we’ll lose her forever!”
He tensed, his skin blanching, and his lips parted, but he didn’t speak. I knew what he failed to say, what he couldn’t bring himself to say.
“Don’t ask me to kill her, Zephyr. Don’t fucking ask that of me!”
I’d rather die with her than see her turned or end her life. I hesitated at her neck, my eyes trailing down to the wound in her stomach. She’d lost so much blood. She couldn’t afford to lose anymore. I looked to Cole, to the terror etched in his face as he pressed the wound on her stomach.
“Cole,” I started, his eyes flashed to me. “I need you to listen to me carefully.”
He nodded. I’d never seen him so shaken, his eyes flickering to Cassie momentarily before I grabbed his arm, forcing his gaze back to me.
“You have to use your ability on her. Can you search out the darkness in her blood?”
His eyes fell to her. “I… I think so.”
“Cole, I need you to be sure of what you’re doing. If I draw out too much blood, we’ll lose her. I just need to draw out the darkness. Can you isolate it for me? Push it back to her shoulder wound?”
Cole’s chest heaved, but he nodded. “I… yeah, maybe?”
“No maybes, Cole. You can do this. Focus,” I said, lowering my face to her neck.
Cole’s eyes closed, his power rippling across her body, and he winced, gasping as he encountered something. “Gods, it’s… so cold.”
I pressed my mouth over the wound, her skin ice against mine. Gods, shewascold, her skin already turning gray, the black veins branching out beneath her shallow skin.
Just hold on, Cas.
64
CASSIE
It was so cold, my bones clattering in the chill that consumed me as I plunged further and further into its depths.
“Don’t do this, please!”
I couldn’t see anything, darkness winding around me, enveloping me. My eyes darted around, looking for the voice echoing through the nothingness. Who’d spoken? The voice sounded so familiar…
Like home.
The darkness shifted and spun around me like a dust storm, and I turned, trying to see something. A sliver of pale light broke through, and I flinched away from it. A blurred image formed on the other side as my eyes adjusted to the brightness. His dark hair hung in loose waves around his face, his hands clutching his chest as he curled forward on his knees. He lifted his face to me, our gazes meeting.
It was Damien, and my heart lurched at the sight of the dark veins stretching and creeping out under his skin, shadows writhing and coiling on the ground beneath him, the tiny tendrils of dark magic climbing over him, as if welcoming him. Those pale amber and ashen eyes had turned pitch black, darkness trying to take root in the whites, wide with terror. He tried to stand, tried to get to me, but it was as if he were tethered in place, his body giving out.
“Please!” he begged, reaching out for me.
I don’t know why, but I drew back from his reach, my heart twisting as I fought the urge to go to him, to hold him. “I’m so sorry…”
Something pulled me back, darkness crashing over the vision, and I cried out for him. No! What was wrong with him? What was happening? I reached out, fighting whatever it was. I needed to get to him, to pull him out before he slipped under.
Come back to me, Cassie.Please!
