Chapter 33
33
ESME
O nly pain existed. Each breath was like swallowing glass as I struggled to get enough oxygen into my lungs. Through my swollen eyes, I could barely make out the shapes of the vampires and Alice and…I closed one eye, trying to clear my vision…Alex. Alex was with her.
A tiny, tiny sliver of hope, nothing more than a small shard really, bloomed beneath my cracked ribs.
Fighting to keep my eyes open, I looked from one male to another, finding bright green eyes watching me intensely, like he could will this nightmare away. A myriad of emotions flowed through me—pain, disbelief, sorrow, uncertainty, and then pure, unadulterated rage.
I knew what he was going to do before he ever moved.
Brogan, don't.
I pushed the thought toward him as hard as I could through our bond, but his desperate anger crashed back at me like a tidal wave, drowning out my warning. Dios mío …I'd never felt anything like it—pure, animalistic fury that wasn't mine but somehow lived inside me now. It overtook all rational thought. All control. Brogan moved so fast he disappeared from view.
I heard the crack of marble. Phantom pain exploded across my back. I cried out, though my body was already so broken I could hardly distinguish new pains from old. And I thanked all the gods—both old and new—when Brogan's physical pain dissolve beneath his overwhelming need to protect me.
Marcus's fingers dug deeper into my arm, making me whimper. My legs had long since given out; only his grip kept me upright. But the djinn wasn't paying any attention to me. Or to any of us. His attention had shifted completely to Alice, who stood before him with more courage than I’d ever had.
"I'll fucking rip you apart!" Brogan's anguished scream cut through the cemetery.
I tried to speak, to tell him I would be okay, but my jaw wouldn't work right. I coughed, my lungs on fire, and blood filled my mouth instead of words. My love's desperation and helplessness became a canto fúnebre , a funeral song in my head as Killian, Dae, and Jamal physically restrained him. Everything he felt, every emotion, coursed through me like an overflowing river, and I tried again to talk to him through our bond, but he couldn't hear me.
And when he threw back his head and roared, his agony vibrated in my soul.
"She's dying. I can feel it. She's dying!”
His whispered words reached me as my heart stuttered in my chest. Was I dying? The idea didn’t seem so far-fetched as the world darkened around the edges. The thought of death was a welcome one though. I was so tired of fighting. Tired of hurting.
But dying was a solitary event, and I was also so very tired of being all alone. If I stayed, I’d have Brogan now. And he was strong and sweet and broken, just like me. So I fought to stay conscious, to stay alive for him, focusing on my love’s face through the blur of pain. Because maybe together we would be better than being apart. Maybe we could love each other enough to survive Marcus and anything else life would throw at us. Maybe we could stop running from our pasts and appreciate what he had now.
Don't worry, I'm still here, I pushed through our bond. I'm still fighting.
But even as I thought the words, I felt myself slipping away, pulled down into the darkness by the severity of my injuries.
Yet pain kept dragging me back to consciousness. My body felt like a broken doll, the pieces no longer fitting together quite right. Each unsteady heartbeat sent a wave of agony pulsing through me.
"Let her go, Marcus." Alice's voice cut through the fog in my mind. "She has nothing to do with this."
I forced my eyes open. Alice stood tall, her honey-blonde hair catching the moonlight, her white aura pulsing around her with an intensity I'd never seen before. Beside her, Alex mirrored her stance, his golden eyes burning with barely controlled fury, his aura blood red.
My eyes shifted to where his mate, Kenya, stood poised and calm to the left of him. But behind her glasses, her eyes were alert and focused on the djinn, the only thing who could be a threat to her mate.
"You want us." Alex's voice was steady. Controlled. "We're what you came for. Not her."
Marcus's attention fixed completely on the twins. "Are you offering yourselves to me?"
"We'll go with you willingly," Alice said, her voice strained but determined. "In exchange for Esme's life and freedom."
Darkness crept in again, pulling me under for what felt like seconds, or maybe hours. When I surfaced, Marcus was speaking.
"...don't want this. You're my family. You belong with me."
"You do if you want our cooperation." Alex's voice had hardened. "You can force us, but you'll never get what you truly want that way."
I tried to focus, to understand what was happening, but everything kept blurring. Brogan finally stood on his own, his fists clenched at his sides, but unlike the others, his eyes were on me, not Marcus.
"We'll help you find the book," Alice said. "We'll even help you use it. But only if you let her go right now."
Marcus laughed, the sound grating against my already shattered nerves. "How noble. Trading yourselves for this broken little witch."
I wanted to scream at them to stop, to run, but my body wouldn't respond. All I could do was hang there in Marcus's grip, my lifeblood slowly seeping away.
"Let. Her. Go." Alice's voice had gone deadly quiet. "Now."
The cemetery spun around me once more as consciousness slipped away again.