Chapter 27 - Elias
I caught Emma just before she collapsed into the pool. Instead of flopping into the water, she fell into my arms, her eyes shut.
Panic raced through me as I stared down at her. I brushed her hair from her face, searching her features, praying for her eyes to flutter open again. They stayed closed.
I placed my ear to her chest and felt her chest rise and fall. I sagged, finally allowing myself to breathe. She was all right. Just exhausted.
“Emma?” I asked. But there was no response.
Desperately, I tried to listen to the mating bond. I could feel her there, though exhaustion washed over all her other emotions, as if she was so tired that nothing else would go through.
I dipped my finger in the water and wiped off the smear of blood that had started trickling from her nose.
“Just hang in there,” I thought.
Panic and unease rippled through me. What if she never woke up? What if the magic had drained her too much, or using so much had changed something inside her?
I pushed her hair from her face, staring down at her as I continued panting, forcing myself to get a grip. When I had been injured, Emma had placed me in the oasis. But that had been a very obvious, physical injury. Besides exhaustion, I couldn’t sense anything wrong with her. Still, I carried her over and laid her to rest on the edge.
Bare feet slapped against stone and moss behind me.
“Mom?” Grace asked, her voice strained. “Mom, what’s wrong?” She reached me and looked up with wide, frightened eyes.
“She’s okay,” I promised her, forcing my own panic down so that it wouldn’t transfer to her daughter. Emma would kill me if she ever found out I had frightened Grace over something like this. “She’s just tired.”
“She’s going to be okay?” Her eyes were round with worry. Her teeth still had the slightest points to them, and her nails were a tiny bit too long—common traits for new shifters. She would get better at controlling them over the next few months.
I nodded, then grinned as I reached over to Grace and pulled her into a half-hug. “You did great, kiddo. I’m so proud of you.”
“Really?” Grace asked, her eyes shining. She hesitated. “Because I was a bit scared.”
“All the more reason to be proud of you,” I said. “It isn’t easy to do something when you’re scared.”
“It isn’t?” she asked.
I shook my head, grinning. It had taken a lot of argument over whether or not to use Grace in our plan. Having the sand wraith follow her would be the easiest way to get it pinned down in the underground spring, but neither of us had wanted to put her in danger. By the time we decided we would have to come up with some other way of luring the wraith into the tunnels, Grace had walked in, told us she’d overheard, and insisted on helping. When we told her it was too dangerous, she said she would do it, anyway, whether we said no or not. So we bent to the will of a five-year-old in order to keep her safe.
“I’ll let you in on a little secret,” I said, then leaned forward. “I was scared, too.”
Grace’s eyes went wide as she gaped at me.
“But don’t tell anyone,” I said.
Grace clamped her mouth shut, straightening as she nodded vigorously, a child giving a solemn vow.
I glanced down at Emma again. Her breath came shallow and slow, but it sounded like it was deepening. At least I told myself it was deepening.
You’re not allowed to leave me here yet,I thought through the bond, hoping she could hear it as my fingers gripped tighter around her.I care about you too much.
I glanced up at Grace, who stared down at her mom, her features still contorted in worry. I plastered a smile on my face again, hoping to reassure her.
“She’ll be okay.”
“You promise?” she asked.
I nodded, praying that I wasn’t lying. “Let’s get your mom out of here,” I said, bundling her from the oasis. “We need to get her some rest.”
I had been putting on a brave face for Grace, but I wasn’t sure how Emma was faring. Her face was pale, her skin clammy. Water droplets clung to her eyelashes and speckled her face. Still, she was breathing when I carried her in my arms, and she wasn’t showing any signs of weakening further. I carried her out of the tunnels and down the oasis, hoping against hope that she would wake up in my arms at any moment.
