I blinked, confused, my body still pulsing from the remnants of the connection I built up with Xavier in my mind. “What do you mean?”
“Through you. Through our bond… I collected all my strength for my time down here. I didn’t obey. I didn’t let the darkness consume me. Because I knew you would find me,” he stated, his fingers intertwining with mine. I blinked at him, dazed by his words, my mind still tangled with many thoughts. My body yearned for his skin, making me lean even closer to Malakai’s touch.
But before I could let myself melt fully into the moment, a pulse rippled through the air, and within a blink of a second, Damien’s dragon form flew through the portal entrance again.
“Damien?”
My lips parted, stunned, as he shifted back into his human form. His naked body bent forward, his chest rising and falling with ragged breaths. His beautiful eyes locked on mine.
“Damien?” I whispered, still not sure if this was real.
“I told you I’d come back,” he said, wrapping me in his arms, stroking over my head.
I didn’t move. I couldn’t. My body was frozen between Malakai’s closeness and Damien’s return.
“I thought I had lost you,” I murmured against his skin, my voice barely audible over the roar of my heartbeat. “How did you…?”
“Through you.” His voice trembled with something raw.“Through our bond. I felt you, even in the dark. Even when I couldn’t see a way out. But I also felt you communicating with Xavier through our bond… he and Sparrow are nearby.”
“Sparrow?”
He nodded.
“Yes, his siren powers… I felt their pull. They are trying to find us. I tried to create a rope with my powers in order to make them find us… because I do believe that there is only one way for us to leave this place…”
“And what is the way?”
“When I flew in my dragon form through the portal, I was stuck in a very weird place, it was dark. There was a glass wall, it looked like an ice surface, the only barrier between the Ancient Springs and Carnivalland.” He paused, his eyes searching for mine as if he needed me to ground himself. “But I didn’t want to go through it alone. Not unless I was sure I could bring you both back.”
He reached for me, his hand cradling the back of my head as he pressed a tender kiss to my hair.
“You always find me…” I whispered, the memory of him pulling me from the Siren Lake came to the surface.
“I followed the connection to you,” he said softly. “Your fear. Your hope. It led me back to you,” he explained.
“That is how I feel with you, Gwendolyn,” Malakai said, his fingers brushing over my hands, causing a smile to curve my lips.
Before I could respond to both of them, the surface of the portal began shimmering, and then with a burst of wind, someone stepped through.
Xavier.
His blouse was soaked, his dark strands of hair plastered to his forehead, his eyes burning with that sharp, determined red glow only seen when his animalistic instincts of his vampire naturewere dominant.
The moment his gaze found mine, something in his shoulders eased and he drew me into his arms. His body trembled, and the desperate way Xavier clung to me made me realize he had thought I was gone.
“You’re here,” I breathed, my voice nearly lost to the rush of energy around us. “How… How did you find me?”
“Sparrow felt the pull of Damien’s magic and located the other portal,” Xavier said.
“Where is Sparrow?” Damien asked.
“I told him to go back to the surface… to Nathaniel. I couldn’t risk my little brother being separated from him. It would feel the same as us being separated from each other,” he said, burying his face into my neck, stroking through the strands of my hair.
“Sparrow… he helped open it. But it only let me through when I thought I had lost you both. When I believed…” His voice broke slightly. “When I thought I wouldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t try.”
Damien stepped forward, tense. “You crossed realms. As a vampire.”
Xavier’s lip twitched in a dry smirk. “Don’t sound so surprised. You think dragons are the only ones willing to shatter rules for her?” His gaze drifted back and then he noticed Malakai’s state. His eyes turned red again… it was like he wanted to say something, but he kept silent.
