But so did everyone else. Cornelius, Matthias, the entire damn group of gifted fae on the far side of the garden.
Not a single soul moved.
Dead. They were all fucking dead.
“No,” I breathed. “No, no, no.” I climbed over to Jessiah’s body and rolled him over. His left angel wing bent awkwardly underneath the weight of him. “Wake up, Jessiah. Wake up! You can’t leave me here like this!” I pressed my hands over the wound in his chest. “You can’t do this to me!”
Tears poured down my face.
Numbness and pain and panic engulfed me.
This couldn’t be fucking happening to me, but then again, couldn’t it? I was not someone who deserved love. I didn’t deserve someone like Jessiah looking after me, providing for me, helping me.
I didn’t deserve to live a good life.
This was what I was here for. Death. Destruction. Treachery.
“Come back to me,” I cried. I caressed Jessiah’s perfect, sculpted face. “Come back to me.” I cried and cried, unable to stop the sobs that wrecked me. This would be my end. Without him, I did not have a future.
My mother was wrong. I could never forgive myself.
Not for this.
I laid my head down on his chest.
“Rummy? Is that you?”
Wait…
I whipped around so quickly, my vision spun.
Only to find Xavier standing at the entrance of the gardens.
Chapter 44
Rummy
“Xavier?” I barely had a voice left after screaming so much. Tears ran freely down my face. I was exhausted, delusional, terrified. But I was certain that it was Xavier sprinting toward me.
It wasn’tjustXavier, either. Behind him, running over the hill and storming into the gardens of Pericius, was the entire army of Scarlata.
Xavier crashed to his knees beside me, taking in Cornelius as he passed, then Jessiah.
“Is he…”
“I tried to stop it,” I muttered. “It all happened so fucking fast, Xavier. He wasn’t supposed to be here. He wasn’t supposed to be here at all. It’s all my fault.”
“No,” he breathed. “This can’t be real. This is some sort of a mistake.” He reached forward and shook Jessiah’s shoulders. “Wake up, Jessiah. Come on, wake up.”
“Why are you here?” I breathed, taking in the mass of the army behind him. “Why are you all here?”
Without taking his eyes off Jessiah, he answered, “We came to fight. We have the army from The Golden City, too. We came to fight for you, Rummy.”
This only made me cry harder.They were too fucking late.I cried and I cried and I cried, dropping my head to Jessiah’s body once more.They came to fight for you, Jes. Your army has your back. They always did.
Maybe the army could have saved him. Maybe, if they had been just a few minutes earlier, things would have been different.
“Is that Cornelius?” Xavier asked, taking in his still body a few feet away. “What happened here?”
