That's enough.
CHAPTER 20
ELIZA
Iwake to the sound of rain against windows and Declan's heartbeat beneath my ear.
For a moment, I don't know where I am. Then awareness floods back in pieces: the Fomori, the seals, walking into chaos itself. Declan's power flowing through me. Finn's dragon magic. The corruption trying to unmake me from the inside out.
My body aches. Everything aches. But I'm alive.
The mate bond pulses between us, and I feel Declan's consciousness snap to full alertness the instant mine does. His arm tightens around me, careful of my injuries but unmistakably possessive.
"Eliza." My name is a prayer on his lips. His voice is rough.
I try to sit up. My body protests violently, and Declan's there immediately, supporting me, arranging pillows behind my back with shaking hands. I'm in his bed at Wolfstone. The massive windows show grey sky and storm-tossed ocean. How long have I been unconscious?
"Four days." Declan answers my unspoken question. He's kneeling beside the bed now, eye level with me, and I can see the toll those four days took. Dark circles under his eyes. His jawshadowed with several days' worth of stubble. His shirt rumpled like he's been sleeping in it.
If he's been sleeping at all.
"You haven't left." It's not a question. I can feel it through the bond, the echo of his vigil. Four days of refusing to leave my side, of watching me breathe, of waiting for me to wake.
"Couldn't." His hand finds mine, laces our fingers together. "The pack tried to make me eat. Had to practically force food down my throat. Jax threatened to knock me unconscious and drag me to my own bed." A ghost of a smile. "Told him I was already in my own bed."
The bond between us feels different. Stronger. Like it was tempered in the fire of what we survived, forged into something unbreakable. I can feel more through it now—not just his emotions, but deeper things. The steady rhythm of his power, fully restored. The absolute certainty of his love.
"I'm okay," I whisper.
"You died." Emotion roughens his voice. "Twice. Your heart stopped twice while we were getting you back here. Grayson had to use some kind of ocean magic to restart it the second time. I felt it through the bond, felt you slipping away, and I couldn't..." He stops, swallows hard. "I couldn't lose you. Not after everything. Not ever."
I pull his hand to my chest, right over my heart. Let him feel the steady beat, the proof that I'm here and alive and his. "You won't. We're bound to this now, remember? Guardians of the seals. That means we're in this for the long haul."
We sit in silence for a while, just breathing, feeling the bond settle into this new configuration. Stronger. Deeper. Permanent in ways that go beyond the mate bond itself. We're woven into the fabric of the seals now, our lives tied to keeping the Fomori caged. It should feel like a burden.
It doesn't. It feels right.
"I need a bath," I finally say. Everything hurts, and I can smell blood and corruption and fear on my skin. "I need to wash this off me."
Declan's on his feet immediately. "I'll draw you a bath."
"Declan, I can...”
"Please." His eyes meet mine, and the raw need in them stops my protest. "Let me take care of you. I need to. I need to do something besides watch you breathe and pray you wake up."
I nod.
He lifts me as carefully as if I'm made of glass. I'm not that fragile, not anymore. My body is already healing, wolf metabolism and storm blood working overtime to repair the damage the Fomori did. But I don't protest. I let him carry me to the bathroom, let him settle me on the counter while he runs the water in the massive clawfoot tub.
The bathroom is all stone and glass, with windows overlooking the ocean. Steam rises as the tub fills. Declan tests the temperature obsessively, adding cold when it's too hot, adjusting until it's perfect.
When he helps me out of the nightgown someone dressed me in, his breath catches. I'm a mess underneath. Bruises in various stages of healing, some yellow-green, others still purple-black. Thin scars where my skin split under the Fomori's corruption. Burns from the tendrils that tried to unmake me, angry and red against my pale skin.
"Jesus Christ." Declan's voice is barely audible. His fingers ghost over a particularly nasty burn on my ribs, not quite touching. "What it did to you..."
"Is already healing." I catch his hand, press it flat against the burn. "Feel that? It's warm. That's my body repairing itself. The fact that I'm healing at all is a miracle. Another week or two and most of these will have faded."
"I'll remember every one." His thumb traces the edge of the burn with devastating gentleness. "I'll remember what you looked like when I caught you. What you felt like through the bond when that thing was tearing you apart."
