53. The Power of Love
CHAPTER 53
The Power of Love
ALIA
I was free. From pain. From fear. But something gripped my wrist and wouldn’t let go. Light, almost in the shape of a hand, swirled around the mark on my wrist. It tugged me, but couldn’t pull me back to what I assumed was the land of living.
Fight, Alia. Please, my love. You are not alone. I will fight with you onto death, Little Red. For where you go, I go. Should you not return— The voice cut off with a howl of pain. Lycus’ pain was a brand into my chest, stealing my breath. If you do not come back, I will come there for you. Nothing will separate us, not even death.
Another bright light ran right to my heart, a string that wrapped around my chest, tethering me from drifting further into the peace I could feel awaiting me further in.
Don ’ t you dare, Two-Legs. Don ’ t. You. DARE , Ran roared into the black space around me.
A murky haze of blackness lurked in every corner. It was a blackness of alleviation from the pain.
And from the blackness, a figure emerged. He wasn’t a man so much as a figure kind of like a man. His eyes were deeper than the hollowest pit, but more comforting than my mother’s arms. His nose was nearly pert, and his cheekbones were sharp and commanding. His hair was a warm gold, which was so at odds with the darkness around us.
“Hello, Alia.”
Were I able to be afraid in this place, his voice alone would’ve startled me. It was deep as an ocean pass and strong as a tsunami. “Who are you?” I whispered.
He bent down before me. A tender yet sad smile on his lips. “You know who I am,” he said.
“The son,” I whispered. Source’s brother. We called him Torem Filius.
His eyes cradled me, made me feel safe despite the thoroughly sheathed power I felt in the majesty of his being.
How strange it felt for him to be so gentle when I knew he could snap my soul from existence with but a single thought.
Torem’s lips twitched as if he’d heard my thoughts. “You have a choice, little star?—”
I surged upright. “I know how these stories go. If you freakin’ think I’m gonna go to Seventh and let my people languish?—”
His chuckle cut me off. “You always knew your mind, little star. You just needed someone to remind you to trust it.”
I gaped. “You… you sent him to me?”
“I gave you the right time and place. You both did the choosing. I would not take such a precious choice from you. But I had hoped, yes, that in the end, you would make each other stronger. It takes more than a strand to weave a bowstring, but the strongest weaves together three chords—and those cannot be broken.”
Sadness threaded through my soul. “But I’m here.”
“You are,” he said.
My eyes burned, and I ducked my head.
He gently lifted my chin. “But you are also not.” I blinked up at him, and he smiled. “There is more yet for you to accomplish, Daughter.” His eyes took me in, starting at the blood still leaking from my back.
That was when I looked down. I jerked in surprise, turning my hands over. Bone-white scars crisscrossed my hands and arms and legs; it was almost as if I were held together by them. But that wasn’t the worst. The blood slithering down my spine wasn’t from the blade that had killed me. No, it was from the many needs that couldn’t be met on a field of war.
And I remembered Shen’s words. Your soul bleeds.
Torem’s eyes were cleaved with sadness when I glanced back up. “Your Blessing. And your Curse.” His words were both an apology and a boon.
“Why did you bring me here?”
The sadness faded from his eyes. “I heard the prayers of my people. A specific request from a nymph. She cried out to Source to provide for you, to protect you. I am here to provide in place of my sister as she does not have a physical form. Plus, you have one very adamant mate who has threatened multiple times to retrieve you from Seventh,” he said, looking into the distance as if seeing something I couldn’t.
I blinked. “He’s threatening to kill you, isn’t he?” I asked with a wince.
His chuckle was confirmation enough. I’m just glad the son of the Creator found my mate’s death threats amusing and didn’t seem to take them to heart.
“I know my people. And I know pain. There is much to be said of mercy where others would condemn.” He gently turned over my broken and bleeding hand and… my hand healed. Where he touched, it healed.
“Can you… heal the rest of me?”
A tear dropped from his eye, a sprinkle of starlight in this dark world. “Yes, Daughter,” he whispered, his voice broken with pain. “But first, you must give it to me.”
My soul froze. He watched me, not pushing. What he was asking… I didn’t know if I could give it.
“I’m scared,” I whispered, looking away.
“I know,” he replied simply.
He would let me choose. I had to release it. Release my walls that had protected me for so long. Release what made me, me .
“Your protection is keeping you from embracing the full extent of life.”
“But what if I get hurt?” Again, I thought but didn’t add. It broke me when I felt needs. It seemed like it also wounded my very soul. But it also made it to where I wanted to keep people out. Some were slowly working their ways past my walls, but this… What he was asking…
“It is time to emerge from your growth, Daughter. The wall was there for a time to serve a purpose. For you to grow in strength and understanding while you were still growing your wings. But leave it for too long and it becomes a crux which stunts the continued growth you’ll need to thrive.”
I glanced up. His eyes were filled with tears. “It’s time for you to live , Daughter.”
I nodded, and in that moment, I let him in. Let him see all. From the broken creature who tried to please her grandmother and killed innocents, to the floundering healer who tried to heal her sister, and finally to the uncertain leader who tried to change everything in my tribe.
I let him in for it all. I surrendered my soul, my very being, to him.
He kissed my forehead, and a gentle sprinkle of starlight spread from his being, encasing me, holding me, soothing me. And when I looked down, the blood was gone, my skin was clean. But it was far from pretty. There were so many scars, so many burns, so many broken pieces. When I looked up at him, I was stunned by what I saw. There, on Torem’s skin were wounds matching those that had caused my scars. Tears filled my eyes. He caught the first tear as it fell.
“You have everything you need, Daughter. Now go make them pay,” he whispered, his eyes burning with vengeance.
I gaped at him. “I thought you’d be more…”
“More gentle and understanding? A pacifist, dearest one? I am all those things. But I am also so much more. Go now and know we will be with you, even unto the ends of the earth,” he said, giving me a gentle shove.
I fell into light and swirling colors and broken dreams and joy and pain and everything in between. I fell into the mate bond, where Shen had a death grip on my soul. I was screaming, but I had no voice as I landed with a jolt back into my body. I opened my eyes to Shen’s pale face and his broken eyes staring at me as if I were a fever dream.
He cradled me to his body. “You are fine. You live,” he exclaimed again and again. I threaded a hand through his hair as his nose was stuck in the crevice of my neck where he could feel and hear my pulse. His mind was wrought with fear and pain.
“I’m alive, Wolfie. I’m alive,” I murmured, clutching him tight, my eyes still adjusting from that darkness to this world. To sunshine. To the pounding of my heart in my ears. To the harsh breaths of Shen as he alternated between growling and purring.
Shen didn’t release me. He searched my body, but his hands only found smooth skin where a gaping knife wound used to be.
When the black spots cleared from my vision, I gaped. Surrounding us in battle were my enforcers, Shen’s werewolves… and my family . Dad was fighting a mage with enhanced speed. Mom was battling a rogue, her mighty ax making quick work of dealing death. Anna was behind them, whispering the curses of the mages. She’d… she’d found her niche and purpose, but what the heck was she doing here?
“Anna, get your butt back to the safe house. NOW!” I ordered while getting up and stumbling on legs that didn’t wish to function properly. The world tilted precariously.
Shen caught my arm, drawing me back into his chest and nuzzling his nose into my neck. I froze. “Easy, Little Red. Your… your heart stopped beating. The bond… it severed. I clung to it. To you,” he huffed. “You… died.”
“But I didn’t. Now I gotta go win a war.” That was crass and insensitive, but if I allowed myself to process everything, I would break. I had to be numb right now, even to his pain. “I’m sorry, Shen, but if I let you–”
He nodded his understanding, gently nuzzling my neck with his nose. “You will win, Carissimus, but let me hold you a moment. Please ,” he whimpered, his voice breaking on the last word. I felt his bone-deep need to hold me. To ensure for himself that I was actually alive. That the blood on his hands had not been my end.
Well, when he put it like that, I stopped fighting. I let him take my weight for just a moment as my body used the mage stone to finish healing what was broken.
I realized my body was trembling. My entire being was shaken by what had happened. I’d come so close to crossing that veil into Seventh. If not for Shen tethering me here, forcing me to use that stone, and the son having pity on me, I wouldn’t be here.
For the first time in a very long time, I felt whole. As if, when the son healed my soul, he’d patched the many holes causing my soul to leak and dwindle.
I felt stronger and weaker all at once as I watched my people fight.
Dad grabbed Mom’s arm and slung her like some sort of human slingshot. She released a battle yell and landed on a rogue’s back, slitting its throat. She rode it down and rolled.
“I can see where you received your skills from,” Shen said, his voice tinged with forced amusement.
“If I stay much longer, I’ll break before this is done,” I told him.
Shen heard, though. He always hears. Even those things I didn’t say.
He nodded, kissing the side of my head. “Thank you,” he said. "I'll be there when you break, Little Red. Now go win this."
As I emerged from the haven of Shen’s arms, Jacob cropped up beside me, his hood falling in front of his eyes. He pushed it up with his forearm—the arm holding a sword—and adjusted his glasses with the other hand. He nearly sliced his own hood.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
He gave me a look. It was so much like Mom’s no-nonsense glare that I nearly smiled.
“You truly think I’d letcha have all the fun?”
“Just don’t die, or I’ll bring you back to kill you again,” I said.
“Ma’am, yes, ma’am,” he said with a salute—nearly slicing his own arm—while I winced.
“ Never call me ma’am again.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said with a cheeky grin. He’d been hanging around Brandt too much.
I nearly groaned as I put my blow gun to my lips and took out a mage trying to creep up on Ran.
Jacob ran with a shrill battle yell. He tripped over his own feet, avoiding a slash of claws from the rogue he was fighting and nearly impaled himself.
I sighed, going to save him when Shen caught my arm. “Let him,” he said.
I clenched my teeth and put a blade beneath Shen’s chin. He smiled down at me, as if he saw me as a cute kitten instead of a tigress with claws. “I can’t just stand back and watch my brother die—” I stopped as Jacob rose, taking off the rogue’s hand before spinning and tripping again, barely righting himself before he kicked out. The rogue was pushed back a step. Jacob turned and ran. The beast roared and pursued my brother.
Jacob tripped… again. This time, he also dropped his sword. I nearly screamed at him as he knew not to drop his blade, but my words died in my throat as the sword hilt became caught between two rocks and stuck up behind my brother.
The rogue impaled itself. It snapped its foaming jaws even as the sword speared it through the heart. Then, the light went out of its eyes.
Jacob had his arms crossed, his hands extended before him as the dead rogue fell on him. He flicked it off, scrambling back and getting to his feet.
“Your brother also has a Gift. The Gift of Luck.”
I stared at Jacob for a moment. Could that be true? Could all his clumsiness over the years… yep. It all made so much more sense.
When I turned, Anna was calling out to enforcers about a mage with plant powers who would pass out after using too much of their power. They pressed against the mage, arrows flying. The mage threw up vines to protect herself instead of sending them to snake out and trip our warriors. She fell to the ground, out cold.
Markus turned and nodded at Anna. She grinned, her eyes sparkling.
I didn’t have time for tears. But they came anyway.
I stepped out of the circle of my enforcers. A collective cry rose above the din of battle and clash of swords as my people saw me, bloody and weary but alive.
Shen’s presence beside me was a rock. I felt him take stock of our odds—they were not looking good.
The rogues kept coming, wave after wave, and my people were exhausted. Kingpin passed like a wraith between the Reds, her fingers causing chaos and her hands bringing death. She targeted my best warriors, taking them out one by one.
The tide was turning. My people were growing fatigued while the black mages and rogues were gaining strength from the scent of blood and death.
“Help them,” I told Shen. He growled but left after one last lingering glance that said, “Do not get stabbed again or I will be angry and possibly destroy the world to save you.” Or maybe he actually said that in my brain. Who’s to know?
Shen was a thing of beauty. Every move was precise and purposeful. He was guarding a Red who was on the ground with a stab wound. Shen caught the forearm of a lightning-knife-wielding mage before the mage could finish the Red. He stepped back, manipulating the mage’s arm to stab a rogue coming up behind the wounded Red while the Red, still holding their wound, fought a second mage. The rogue werewolf seized as the lightning-knife hit it.
Shen threw another blade, spun the dark mage so he was hit with rocks from a telekinetic mage, and clocked the lightning mage on the head with the hilt of a blade.
He went from place to place, taking on two or three mages and rogues almost at once and leaving them moaning or dead behind him.
As I glanced around and shot darts to protect my people, despair tried to eat at my newfound confidence.
The thorny briar of a vine wrapped around a group of my mages and Shen’s werewolves who were fighting a group of rogues. With a massive snap, it slowly compacted, squeezing inward to kill my Reds and werewolves.
I watched as my people fell under the rising tide of teeth and claws and fire and acid and magic.
A vine trapped Ran’s leg and rogues crawled up her, their teeth and claws finding purchase and tearing scales from her as she roared in pain.