Nellie pulled in a breath, then closed her eyes. She sat in silence for a long while. Her hands trembled. And then her skin flared with heat. Gasping, she jerked forward. I could feel something building within her, something that felt achingly familiar. It was power born from dark and twisted things. The power of the gods.
I felt that darkness slither through her veins. I felt it light her up, like a star in the darkest part of the night.
“Life,” Nellie breathed.
That power surged out of her, rushing into Tessa. Nellie cried out from the force of it. And still I held on, steadying her, knowing how brutal this power must feel when she’d never so much as laid a finger on it before now.
When the moment passed, and her shakes subsided, I released her hands. Tessa still hadn’t moved.
Nellie shook her head, crying. “It didn’t work.”
Grinding my jaw, I started to turn away.
Tessa’s body suddenly arched. Her body bucked on the bed. She sucked in a deep, gasping breath of air, and everything within me cracked.
I fell to my knees, taking her hand in mine. My finger found her pulse. Her heart was beating. It was weak, but it was beating. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. The surge of emotion made me nearly blind to everything but my mate.
Her eyes were still closed, but her lips had parted. She was breathing.
My mate, my wife.
She’s breathing.
Tessa was alive.
She’s alive.
If anyone else reacted, I didn’t notice. I clung to her hand and watched her face, waiting for the moment she’d open her eyes.
Nellie leaned forward and whispered, “Tessa, can you hear me?”
No answer, no reaction. There wasn’t even a flicker of acknowledgement.
There was movement beside me. I looked up at Toryn. His expression was full of concern. “Perhaps she needs time to heal.”
But I heard the doubt in his voice, and his earlier words echoed in my mind. Nellie had gifted Tessa with life, but it had been hours since she’d taken her final breath. I’d known Toryn had been speaking the truth before, but I’d wanted to ignore it. The reason Oberon had used Andromeda’s power the way he had was because he’d waited too long to bring Bellicent back. Her body and her soul had no longer been intertwined. She had needed a living vessel to survive.
Tessa’s body was alive, but…what if she wasn’t in there?
“No,” I moaned, dropping my head onto my fisted hands. “No, please. She has to be here. She has to be.”
Nellie looked at me through blurry, red-streaked eyes. She looked like she was about to pass out. “I don’t understand. The body shouldn’t come alive by itself. I don’t think it can.”
“We don’t know everything about your power,” Gaven said softly. “But…I will hold out hope Tessa is in there and she just needs time to heal.”
Roughly, I stood. “I need a bed. If she’s in there, I’ll be able to find her in her dreams.”
“Use mine,” Nellie said, staggering to her feet. That flicker of hope had returned, but the power she’d conjured had taken a lot out of her.
She led me to the room next door, where an identical cot sat beneath a tangle of birds in flight. Nellie had attached ribbons to the ceiling. Each string held a raven.
I lowered myself to the bed, lying in the shadow of the wings, and closed my eyes. And then I went to that familiar place again, where mist and shadow danced with the stars, where I knew I’d always find my love.
It was her favorite place to dream.
Thirty-Nine
Tessa
