How did Dad keep up his spirits when he felt like this?
My knees nearly buckled. I stumbled a step forward, hand pressing to my stomach—where something tingled. My skin. My magic. Something inside me flickered like a dying lightbulb.
When I looked down, I saw why.
My stomach wasgone—or rather, translucent, fading piece by piece.
Bitterness coated the back of my throat. Acceptance followed.
“Come on,” Sebastian called, voice strained as he staggered ahead.
No.
He was in worse shape—completely transparent and naked. I looked away as Isabella cried beside me. “It’s okay,” he told her. “We need to hurry. Hold my weapon for me? In case I become solid again.”
Those words only made Isabella break into tears.
“This isn’t the end,” Barron said. Like me, he was transparent in places, but not everywhere.
“We just have to stop them from entering,” I said, but my voice was low and exhausted.
“Have Harvest or the Devil already gone through?” Joy whispered, voice cracking. “Our babies.”
Joy’s anguished cry made me swallow down my pain.
A loud crack rippled through the woods, and everyone quieted as the magic pulsed outward from the crossover in onegiant wave. It bent the limbs on the trees and knocked leaves on the ground. We staggered, but then we ran.
Ran for one last chance. Our last hope. Luke wanted me to watch until the bitter end. I didn’t want to disappoint my mate. Not the way he was disappointing me.
But even our last hope was cut short when another portal opened from the sky above us and dozens of Harvest’s dragons poured out again. We had made it to the crossover, but so many dragons…
They tore through the new portal, blackening the glow of the vortex with their massive wingspans. Fire rained down, scorching the red leaves into ash before they ever touched the ground.
We wereright there.
Joy and Payne leapt into the sky without hesitation, their roars splitting the air. It wasn’t enough. Not this time.
Nova grabbed my arm. “You go,” she choked out. “You and Barron make it. We’ll hold them.”
“No,” I said, but even as I did, I was moving. My blade was still in my hand, but my body was fading. My mate was still missing.
The ground beneath us rumbled again as the vortex grew.
This was it. This was the moment he’d told me to watch.
And I did.
I turned to the vortex. And Iwatched.
I gripped my blade, head rushing with possibilities and our odds. How could we stomach another fight? We could barely run, and some of us had no solid limbs to hold our weapons. And our odds were…
We were going to lose.
My tears came then, hot and heavy on my cheeks. I never considered myself a quitter. I thought I’d remain optimistic until the very moment I faded. But seeing my siblings look so much like our father did when he faded. Seeing the spark die in their eyes. Feeling a sense of doom in my heart as more enemies appeared. I felt my resolve crumble under the pressure and the unbearable pain of a mate who rejected me for reign.
The biggest kick of all was I still thought of my mate. I thought of all the things he must have planned after he ruled the human world. And he still made no sense to me. Nothing about him ever did. Why would he protect me so fiercely just to let me go?
If he had stayed cruel, maybe it would have been easier.
