“Now fucking release her!” The words hit harder than anything else had. I now knew that this was all he cared about.
“My pleasure,” Dantalion replied, clicking his fingers just as the ash and dirt had covered my nostrils, making Bo shout my name frantically. My first gasp of breath couldn’t have come any sooner, because it had felt like I was on the verge of drowning. The ground finally released me, slowly receding down from my neck as I dragged in air.
Now that the pact was complete, whatever that blood-bound vow had been, I felt it the moment it took hold.
Dantalion inhaled sharply, as though drawing something in, and at the same time, Wye reacted. His body tensed as the shift hit him, bracing through it as though something was being forcibly stripped from him piece by piece.
The air around him changed, the weight of his power pulling inward rather than expanding. As though something vast and untouchable was being dragged back beneath his skin. His demonic form shifted instantly, reverting back to the one I was more familiar with. The change was so sudden, so complete, that it left a single, terrifying thought echoing through my mind…
Had he just become mortal?
Then the portal opened, dark and unstable, its presence almost hungry as it tore through the space before us. As if it didn’t quite belong.
Of course, Dantalion didn’t hesitate, stepping into it without a second glance. His form disappeared into the void as the connection snapped shut behind him, leaving nothing but silence in its wake.
And then… everything shattered.
The cage exploded violently, the jagged pillars collapsing into ash and stone as the force holding them together vanished. And at the same time, the ground beneath me released its hold completely. What had been a slow retreat now fell away in seconds. My body slipping free just as strong arms caught me, dragging me upward before I could fall completely.
I gasped, clinging to him instinctively, my fingers gripping him as though he might disappear if I let go. My entire body trembled as I struggled to catch my breath.
“Why…” My voice shook as I pulled back just enough to look at him, my chest tightening as I searched his face.
“Why would you do that?”
His hand lifted slowly, brushing away the ash from my cheeks, as he placed his forehead to mine and whispered passionately,
“I would never let you die.”
And in that moment, I realized the truth.
As he hadn’t just saved my life.
No…
He had traded everything for it.
28
TETHERED SOULS
The weight of everything that just happened settled deep inside me, as the reality of what Wye had just given up began to take hold. I barely had time to process it before Wye was wrapping his arms around me. In fact, he only pulled back from me so that he could check me for injuries. His hands closed gently around mine as he lifted them, his gaze dropping to the cuts left behind from where I had clung to the stone.
His touch was careful, as his thumbs brushed lightly over my skin, checking each mark with quiet focus, as though the smallest injury to me mattered more than everything he had just lost.
And that only made it worse.
Because no matter how I tried to look at it, no matter how I tried to steady myself, the truth sat there, unrelenting and impossible to ignore…
He had given up everything for me.
I turned slowly, my gaze dragging across the dead, ashen wasteland around us. The broken remains of something that had once held power now lay scattered, reduced to nothing more than a hollow grave of stone and dust.
Only then did my attention lift back to him.
“What are we going to do now?” I asked quietly, the question slipping from me before I could stop it.
“There must be shelter around here somewhere, where did Dantalion reside whilst here?” he asked Bo, who told him about a cave system not far from here.
