The mourning wolves and the decimation of an entire coven.
He used it.
He used the blood-soaked ground as fuel.
He pictured his father’s face.
And the light exploded out of him.
Niamh’s came next, joining his.
Then Rose’s collided with both.
Thea let out a shriek of frustration.
“You can do it, Thea!” Niamh shouted. “You have it in you!”
“I don’t!”
“You do! Do it for Mhairi! Do it for Brodie! Do it for the three other members of your pack who lost their lives today!”
With a scream of pure grief, Thea unleashed herself. Her eyes bled gold and the light poured out of her, streaming toward the others. As it impacted the ball of energy they created, streaks of that light split from the ball and blasted into the fractured seams of their world.
It crackled like the fiercest electricity, and just like that, it sewed the world back together, the forest beyond disappearing until there was nothing but blue sky and the city of Edinburgh in the distance.
And silence.
Niamh’s hair settled into place around her shoulders.
Elijah blinked, slowly letting go of his companions’ hands.
“Well done, family,” Niamh whispered wearily. “We just saved the bloody world.”
38
As much asrelief and overwhelming pride shuddered through Echo as she watched Elijah, Niamh, Rose, and Thea close the gate to Faerie, grief lingered like a suffocating shadow in the background, waiting for its chance to smother her.
After Elijah pulled the three women to him, hugging and kissing their cheeks as they wiped away tears of exhaustion, he turned to Echo. She stumbled toward him as the others reached for their respective mates. He immediately hauled her into his arms, pressing a hard kiss to her mouth before peppering frantic, weary little kisses across her jaw and then burying her against him. Echo nuzzled his throat, not out of hunger or passion.
She offered only comfort and drew the same from him.
“I love you,” he whispered, his voice trembling.
“I love you too.”
“My dad …”
Her grip on him tightened. “I know.”
Together they turned. Echo slipped her hand into his, bolstering him as Elijah hesitantly moved toward his father still sprawled on the ground. Nancy had calmed somewhat, but whenshe looked up at her son with ragged grief, Echo heard Elijah’s low animalistic sound of agony she would never forget.
She released him as he moved to his mother, falling to his knees to draw her against him. Nancy let out a keening cry as Elijah rocked her into his side, his hollow gaze on his father’s face.
Echo knelt beside Odette, pulling the young girl into her arms. She would forever hate William for forcing her to bring Odette into all this. Now her sister would always hold these horrific images of war and death and loss within her. Echo brushed a kiss over Odette’s forehead as she clung to her, her little arms trembling with shock.
How could Echo ever make up for what she’d put her through?
The thought of Odette’s birth parents flickered like a weak flame in the back of her mind. Yet it was there. And she knew she would have to do the selfless thing.
