I blinked away tears, clearing my throat as the others entered the courtyard. Someone closed the heavy wooden door behind us. I looked over my shoulder to watch Damon, tall and imposing, lock it with his shadows, finding his burning red eyes when he looked up. Other than the fact that he looked tired, probably from all the shadow jumping, and the distressed way his black hair hung in his face, he appeared the same. Still powerful. Still soulless.
Adrian had a rock clutched in one hand, eyes wide with hope. The sight of him, with his golden hair mused, dark bruises beneath his eyes and a slight tremble running throughhis body, took my breath away. He was still the same beautiful mage I’d fallen in love with, but he looked…broken. Frayed around the edges.
And beside him…
My breath escaped me in a rush as I stared at what looked like Orion’s dead body lying on a floating bed.
59
Ivy
Bile rose in my throat the longer I stared at Orion’s grey skin and unmoving form. “What the?—”
“It’s not what it looks like,” Rowan said quietly, pressing into my side, curling his other arm around me.
“Ivy—” Adrian stepped forward, almost in front of Orion’s lifeless body, but I couldn’t tear my eyes off my Fae mate.
I couldn’t muster a response to either of them.Not as my breathing came harder, faster, and not as my stomach turned threateningly with bile.
“He is not dead, wife,” Damon said, his voice booming. “He isalive.”
I blinked hard, finally pulling in a deep enough breath to ask, “What?”
Damon moved to the head of Orion’s floating bed, the King of the Elysian Fields gentle as he pushed it towards me. I stilled with terror as I took in the lifelessness of my mate’s body, the way his chestdidn’tmove, or how his eyesdidn’tflutter with sleep.
“His soul still clings to him, my Queen,” Damon said, stopping a foot away from me. “He is alive. Hanging on to his mortal body. Your bond saved him, and I believe that is what he will need to come back to you.”
I tore my eyes from Orion’s sunken cheeks and hollow eyes to meet Damon’s stare. “I don’t—Ican’t.” If my hands weren’t trapped, my fingers would be curling around the cold metal of my collar or going to the deep scars along my back. I’d been so lost to my grief those first few days that I hadn’t feltanything.
Not the pain of his searing knife as it moved through my flesh.
Not the agony of each bond being cut apart one by one.
Not the snapping of my lifelines as they went out.
I was grateful I didn’t remember any of it now, but they didn’t know the extent of it. None of them did. I wasn’t even sure Hawk or Xerxes were completely aware of what Dante had done to me in the isolation cell.
“Enough,” Elias snapped. “Take him to one of the rooms. She wasn’t ready to see him. Not like this.”
Maybe I was, or maybe I wasn’t. I’d been so, so fucking certain of his death in the cottage that I hadn’t…I hadn’t even tried to find out otherwise.
Damon just clenched his jaw and moved the bed towards the great double doors, which opened with the help of his shadows.
I didn’t want to let Orion out of my sight, but the others circled me, completely blocking him from my view.
“He is healed,” Maeve said, her voice thick with emotion. “We made sure all his physical wounds were taken care of. And any connection Dante would have had to him was lost, too.”
“How?” I choked out, finally looking away from the empty doorway Damon and Orion disappeared through. “How could he survive that when…? How didn’t I know?”
“We don’t know for certain,” Rowan said. “We thought…we thought he was gone. But he…healed. And Rhadamanthus said he was still alive. We just didn’t know if he would ever wake up or not.”
Then maybe…if Orion was alive this entire time, had he really been there in my dreams?
Had that really been him after I was rescued?
“And you’re sure Dante can’t hurt him?” I asked, glancing at Rowan.
“If Blythe is to be believed, then yeah,” he replied. “She can’t sense Dante at all.”
