“I can only save one. I’m too weak,” Blake announced.
I was just going to tell them to save Artemis, when my father spoke. “Save her.”
“No,” I whimpered, grasping for him but unable to clutch his hand.
Without waiting another second, Blake laid hands on my chest, and it was as if I’d been stuck into an electrical socket. I gasped as Brayden, Castiel, Axel, and the others placed a hand on Blake’s back, one by one seemingly giving her power. I wanted to fight, to tell her to save her power for Artemis, but it was too late, I could feel my life force coming back. The coldness retreated and the muffled sounds around me became more sharp, and… my memories were coming back?
In bits and pieces, I gasped as my past-life memories flashed through my mind. Me as a child running through Moon Valley. Going off to Greywolf Academy with my sisters. Meeting the love of my life and marrying him. It was all so clear now. All of it. I knew who I was. I knew every life, every memory, all of it. I wasn’t confused. There were no muddled memories mixed with my sister.
I was Lena Greywolf.
Queen of Moon Valley, wife to Brayden and mother to none. All of our heartbreaks, our love making, every lifetime I had—my hair color changed, my parents changed, I changed, but he found me in every one. He married me in every one, lost me in every one. Tears slid down my cheeks until finally Blake pulled her hands off of me and I burst into sobs.
“Are you okay?” Brayden knelt before me and I looked up at him, allowing him to pull me up into his arms.
I gasped. “I remember. I remember everything.”
Brayden stared at me in shock. “What do you mean?”
“I know who I am, Brayden Greywolf. Now kiss your wife,” I demanded with the confidence that Lena always carried, and a smile brighter than the sun washed across his face.
“Lena?” That one word on his lips was full of so much desire and adoration it made my heart bleed in that moment.
“Damn straight,” I told him, and then we crashed together. My lips, my body, my soul was hungry for him on a level that was not appropriate with everyone standing around watching us. Our kiss was short, a taste of what was to come, and when we pulled back, the glow and high of knowing I was Lena melted away from me in an instant.
Artemis.
I turned to see him smiling up at me, taking deep shallow breaths as he clung to life. “I knew you were Lena,” he said.
Tears rolled down my cheeks as I crawled over to him, lying on the grass next to him. “You did not,” I cried.
“I did,” he whispered.
I held his hands, staring into his eyes as I waited for him to pass.
I looked at Blake, who was panting on the ground as Axel rubbed small circles on her back, and I knew it would be too much to ask for her to try to save him.
I didn’t know the first thing about healing, I knew that all Greywolves had a little bit of the ability within them, but Blake seemed to be the specialist at it. And all of the others had just charged her up, so no one seemed to have any left for the poor Elder Fae.
Brayden knelt beside my father and laid hands on his ribs. Hope stirred in my chest but Artemis fell into a coughing fit and Brayden appeared breathless, shaking his head to let me know he wasn’t able to save him. My hope was crushed in that instant.
“It’s okay,” Artemis said, and Brayden rocked back on his heels, looking down at us with anguish.
“No,” I whimpered, clutching his ice cold hands harder, as if causing him a little pain might keep him tied to this world.
There was a sudden blinding green light then, and movement to my left. My brows knotted together at the sight of the little person stepping through the portal egg.
“I heard that someone might need a healing potion?” Erwin said with a cocky grin.
Artemis gave him a weak smile. “Right… on… time,” he said breathlessly.
What the hell!?
He’d known he might die and had pre-purchased his own healing potion? Who freaking did that?
“You scared the crap out of me!” I smacked his chest before helping him sit up. I then yanked the small glass vial from Erwin’s grasp. Popping the cork cap off, I pressed it to Artemis’ lips and watched as he sucked down every golden yellow drop.
Color returned to his cheeks instantly, his skin no longer cold, and I sighed in relief.
