“I love you!”
Tension like he hadn’t known since the war filled the space, Pierce’s stare a prickle of irritation on his skin. Mark continued to speak to him, something about his childhood, the effect of his voice drowning out his words.
The Underworld’s distant hum grew in intensity and volume, battling Mark’s whisper for his attention.
The darkness outside this cavern he’d found seeped through the cracks in the door in whisps of smoke, infecting the light with its persistence.
The constant battle he waged against the witch’s darkness and the persistent Underworld’s call zapped his strength, and he lowered his body to the floor, half-expecting it to swallow him.
The wisps of dark smoke gathered into a cascade that covered the floor as the distant hum of the Underworld’s call drowned out Mark’s voice for the first time. He closed his eyes against the assault, but not before he caught the slightest of movements from Pierce’s corner.
The darkness growing into a smog infiltrated his nostrils, the scent reminiscent of the witch.
It clawed at his lungs, the air he exhaled burning a path into his mouth.
He roared against the assault, the pain minuscule but terrifying, and called on everything in him to hold on to Mark’s voice, unsure if his efforts bore any fruit.
Pierce’s earlier assessment echoed in his mind.
What if the darkness or the Underworld won and he never saw Mark again, never got to hold him, never again witnessed his exquisite surrender?
The thought tore at his remaining strength, and he doubled over at the unexpected pain. Physical pain was strange. This pain was unfamiliar in its persistence.
“I love you!”
His eyes popped open, his heart stopped, his breath paused, and the Underworld’s call disappeared into the echoing sound of Mark’s voice.
“I love you. Please come back to me so I can tell you.”
He extended his hand, trying in futility to reach for Mark across the impossible distance separating them. Tears pricked at his eyes when his body failed him. He needed to get back to Mark, needed to see his perfect lips form words until now he hadn’t thought he’d ever need to hear.
He opened his mouth to reciprocate the truth of his feelings, a truth his mother had seen in him even as he’d denied it. But the darkness now filling the room with steady persistence held his vocal cords captive, and he choked on its toxicity.
He clamped his jaw shut, doing his best to keep the darkness at bay, closed his eyes against the renewed barrage of both kinds of pain, and reached for Riley in his mind. It was time to see if his friend was powerful enough to reach him in the depths of his despair.
§
Mark stood next to the bed, unable to keep his impatience from manifesting, unable to keep still.
Riley had arrived in minutes as he’d promised, a large book in his hand.
His mother, Edie, and the Queen were with him, as was Ben, who Mark could only describe as broken.
It was his expression, the tears he seemed to have stopped battling ages ago, and the fear radiating from him that had brought Mark’s selfishness to the fore.
Too lost in his own despair, he hadn’t thought of Caster’s family, of their grief.
He glanced at Ben, who remained at Riley’s side, and the young Made-Vampire caught his eye, the understanding between them too great for words.
Then he looked at the Queen, and her subdued smile gave him the strength to draw away from his grief only for a moment.
He needed his remaining strength to help Riley anyway he could.
He kept a close eye on Riley as he opened the monstrosity of a book he’d brought with him.
He hadn’t said anything since he walked in, but the extent of his power was unmistakable.
If Riley were not here to help him, Mark would shrink away from it.
His wolf didn’t seem bothered, which could only mean he’d come to trust Riley.
Mark, in human form, was a lot slower to grant others his trust.
Riley’s sigh and the sudden surge in his power were enough to concern his mother, who gasped and stepped closer to her son.
He held up his hand. “He’s calling to me.”
“He is?” The Queen asked. Her words were on the tip of his tongue, but her excitement wasn’t something he expected to ever feel again, not if Caster remained out of reach.
Riley nodded, and this time, his sigh ended on a moan, signaling pain he tried to hold back. “Goddess, he’s insistent.” Then he took a breath, the effect of his power now palpable enough that Mark could almost taste it. He looked at Mark. “I need you.”
“Whatever you need.”
Riley’s nod was curt. He reached for Ben’s hand, squeezed it once, and released it.
He placed the open book at the foot of the bed, his expression guarded as he stared at Caster’s immovable form.
That grief he tried to hide seeped through, breaking the whispered words that flowed from his mouth.
The whisper in a language Mark had never heard before flowed stronger with the second chant.
At the third chant, Riley extended his hands over Caster’s body, and a blue flame ignited on his skin. Mark could not contain his gasp, but when he looked at the women, the expressions of concern he’d expected looked more like pride.
Riley continued his chant, his hyper-focus on Caster’s form, and the blue flame grew to cover his entire body like a halo.
This time, Mark glanced at Ben, hoping to find the shock he felt, only to find the same pride, tinged with a smidge of what he could only describe as subdued fear.
The Made-Vampire stepped closer to Riley’s form, engulfed in the eerie blue flame, as Mark struggled to understand what was happening.
Riley turned to him, opened his eyes on the final chant, and he was unprepared for the sensation of staring into eyes that were ablaze. He extended his hand, and Mark hesitated.
“Take his hand, honey.” The Queen’s encouraging tone did nothing to ease his fear. His wolf didn’t seem afraid, as relaxed as he’d been before Riley had displayed the extent of his power.
“I can go alone, but we don’t know the state he’s in, and he might only respond to you.” Riley’s voice, unaffected by his power and the significance of his words, gave him the courage he needed.
Every muscle in him tensed in anticipation of pain as he placed his hand within the flame covering Riley’s. The pain he’d expected didn’t come. In its place, a peace that seemed misplaced amidst the extent of Riley’s power.
A sharp nod from Riley, and the power seemed to engulf his whole body. The sensation of a transformation pricked at his mind, the exquisite energy that is the strength of his wolf drawing past the barrier keeping the animal at bay. But he remained in human form.
He started to question the strange experience of both sides of him occupying the same space in his mind, but gasped instead when a sudden, unseen force pushed him through space. The grip of Riley’s hand tightened as they departed the bedroom’s confines, their destination unknown.
Soon, darkness, thick and menacing, engulfed them, and the pieces of his broken heart thudded in the confines of his chest.
Riley tightened his grip. “Don’t let go.”
The warning in his voice, a voice that seemed to go past his human ears to the wolf under the surface, calmed his heart long enough for Mark to assess the darkness.
He’d seen this before. Its familiarity could only have come from the worst night of his life, but the memory seemed suppressed, unwilling to be expressed.
The darkness had a personality, a sinister purpose that was as familiar as it was.
Riley’s grip tightened again, and he was flying through the darkness, through the nothingness, his feet no longer on the ground. He lost his capacity for fear as Riley’s power engulfed him.
“Call to him.”
Riley’s instruction seemed misplaced, especially when he tried to open his mouth only to choke on the darkness’s toxic energy.
“In your mind. Call to him.”
He nodded, turning in the direction of Riley’s voice, but unable to see him in the permeating darkness. He remembered Caster’s instructions and reached for the clearest image of him in his mind.
“There!”
Riley’s excited pronouncement had him opening his eyes, expecting to find nothing but darkness. The sliver of light in front of him was a hope he grabbed hold of with everything in him.
Riley’s power pushed them through the darkness toward the small source of light that seemed to grow larger the closer they drifted to it.
“Caster?” Mark found his voice as they approached what seemed to be a doorway. It yielded to them, or rather yielded to Riley’s immense power, granting them access to the light.
They fell in, as if the darkness had spat them out. It took a second to adjust to the light, a dim light that he had trouble focusing on. The room, or space, was small, but it still took a second for Mark to zero in on Caster.
He sat on the floor, his shoulders hunched in defeat, a tiny whisper drowning in the sigh that escaped his lips in a subdued rhythm. He was by his side before he could form any conscious thought. His hands reached for Caster’s, his cool skin shaking him to the core.
“Caster?” No response, the whispered chant leaving his body the only indication he was even here.
He cupped his face, the same cool effect worrying him beyond words, and met eyes that seemed lost in a dream. “Caster, please—”
“Your timing is impeccable.”
Mark gasped at the blend of many voices coming from the darkened corner behind him. He turned too fast, shielding Caster’s body from the new threat with his own, careful to keep his senses trained on Caster’s broken whisper.
“A minute later, and he’d be lost to you for eternity.” The many voices lost their chorus, blending into a deep baritone as the speaker drew away from the darkness to step closer to them.
Mark glanced at Riley, and they nodded at each other, ready to protect Caster from whatever he was. He looked human, but there was no way he was.
“You’re right. I am not human.” He waved a hand at his human male form. “This is an illusion that your world finds less… threatening.”
Riley stepped closer to their new threat, his power filling the space. “You’re a demon.”
Mark’s breath caught. He reached for Caster’s hand, allowing his fear to seep through the connection. Caster’s fingers fluttered, his claws extending to pierce his skin. The pain didn’t register, his wolf’s threatening growl filling the space with its intent to protect the man he loved.