Chapter 50 Hector
HECTOR
It was not every day you came around from death on a coroners table. As if my life could get anymore unhinged.
I bolted upright, desperately tearing off a plastic sheet from my naked body. If my throat wasn’t clogged and dry, my call out would’ve been successful instead of sounding like a gargled cough.
The room around me was small, and smelled intensely of disinfectants. Windowless, the air was persistent like an unnaturally clean dungeon that wanted to singe the hairs from inside of my nose.
I threw my trembling legs over the side of the metal table, planting my feet on freezing cold concrete floor.
In the back of my mind, my mum, Eleanor and Hekate clung to my consciousness, urging me to move with haste.
Not wanting to disappoint, in my urgency I didn’t bother finding clothes before I was running out of the single door, and beyond.
“Arwyn!” I attempted to shout, breathless as I ran down empty corridors with overhead lights and white walls. “Arwyn!”
It didn’t take long for the corridors to fill. The shocked faces of men and women wearing scrubs greeted me. Someone fainted, and another man started chasing after me calling out my name. But the compass inside of me told me to keep going, leading me to the destination my soul felt at home in.
“Arwyn. Arwyn!” Tears rolled down my cheeks, slipping over my eternally smiling mouth.
He was close. I could sense him. A stream of air held the promise of his scent, as if he had been here not too long ago.
At intervals, double doors waited. I conjured wind without much of a thought, bursting them open so I didn’t need to slow down, or ruin my pace. More of what I determined were nurses started chasing after me. I even think I saw the telltale sign of security in smart suits joining the fray.
“Arwyn!” I amplified my voice, using my magic to fill every fucking corner of this place until my love could not help but hear me.
Eventually, it worked.
Far down, at the end of yet another corridor, Arwyn stood with his back to me. I didn’t need to shout for him, because he turned around and laid his red-tinged eyes on me.
His full mouth parted, loosing a gasp of air. Then he was running too, straight at me, a charging bull of need.
Our bodies crashed together, dragging one another to the tiled floor. Arwyn was careful with me, most likely because he’d thought I was dead not but a few seconds ago. Whereas I wasn’t careful, not at all. I dug my fingers into his jacket, anchoring myself to him and refusing to ever let go.
“I can’t believe it,” Arwyn gasped, tracing his intense gaze across every inch of my exposed flesh. He was searching for proof that this wasn’t real, but the wound on my stomach was nothing but pink flesh.
I was whole, more so because I was back where I belonged.
I clasped my hands to the sides of his face, and forced him to look me in the eyes. “I’m real. I’m okay. I’m here. I heard you calling, and I came back.”
“How?” It was all he could manage as tears began to fall from his devilishly handsome eyes. “Tell me how this is possible, my love.”
“Well,” I whispered, brushing my fingers across his smooth skin. “Like always. I couldn’t leave you behind forever, could I?”
Arwyn’s lips curved upwards, matching my own honest smile. “I feel as though there’s a story you’re not sharing with me.”
“Oh.” I leaned in, resting my forehead against his. “You have no idea. Hold me first, and then you’ll know everything.”
Arwyn didn’t refuse me. He held me close, threading his fingers together behind my back so no force could pull us apart.
I’d missed the part when he commanded those who chased me to leave us alone.
I was sure he hadn’t said anything, but when I finally looked around the hallway was empty.
Knowing Arwyn, he had shot the onlookers a single look that told enough of a message for them to listen to.
“Here,” Arwyn said, shrugging off his jacket with some difficulty since I refused to take my hands off him. “I can’t have you running around naked, can I?”
Shit-balls, I really was naked. Like completely. Not a scrap of material to cover my modesty.
“Does the view not please you, Arwyn?” I asked, giggling through my tears of relief. “Seeing me like this?”
“Oh, believe me. It does. And I will really take the time to enjoy it a little later on.” Arwyn draped it over my shoulders, offering me some form of modesty. “I just can’t believe this is real.”
“I am very real,” I answered, knowing exactly what he meant. “Feel me. Touch me.”
Arwyn did just that. His long, slender fingers laid atop my chest, feeling for my heartbeat. It was strong, more so because it reacted to his proximity. “Are you going to tell me how now?”
“You can thank a few people. Namely Hekate for giving me a reward for successfully getting rid of the thorn that has been in every witch’s foot.”
“Hekate?” Arwyn gasped. “You saw her?”
“Saw her. That doesn’t even touch the sides of the experience.”
Arwyn laid a long, drawn out kiss upon my forehead. Then he placed one on the tip of my nose, each cheek and finally came to rest on the single place I needed him on.
Our lips met. Both wet with our tears of joy, fixing together like pieces of a puzzle that Hekate herself had handcrafted for one another. I melted into his embrace, caring little for the increasing chill against my half-naked flesh, or the numb arse I had from sitting on the cold floor.
There were still conversations to be had, urgent details we both had to voice, but we did so in breaks between the kisses. As we caught our breath, Arwyn would ask me a question and I would quickly answer it before lowering my mouth back to his.
“Bahmet’s gone then?” he asked. “Like really gone?”
I nodded, delighting in the taste of him across my tongue. “Yup. Destroyed puts it lightly. He would be better roasted over a fire and served in a Sunday dinner now.”
There was more kissing, deeper urgency and tongues that danced with one another. I groaned into his mouth, wanting more—needing more, but knowing the time wasn’t yet upon us for such things.
“And Tomin?” Arwyn finally asked, which low key ruined the mood a little. It was a bucket of ice-cold water over my head, which was a good thing I guessed, considering I needed something to help me focus.
It was easy to get drunk off of Arwyn, especially when we had both thought this would never be possible again.
“I… dealt with him too.” Admitting it was harder than I expected. Above everything that had happened, Tomin was still Arwyn’s father.
Arwyn’s eyes dropped from mine so suddenly, it tore the breath from my lungs. “Please tell me that ‘dealt with’ is a kinder way of telling me that he is gone. Like, forever.”
I took a deep breath in, preparing myself.
“I gave your father a choice. Offered an olive branch so to say. He decided, after I showed how honest I was being by removing his curse, that the rot in him was never because of Bahmet’s influence.
It had been there, before Bahmet and your father ever got tangled together.
So, with his newfound freedom and the suggestion of peace between him and us, he didn’t want that.
He… tried to kill me. But it backfired, as I knew it would deep down.
Thanks to you, Arwyn Hopkin, and your brilliant mind, I was able to use the same rune markings you’d used on me, to cast back any pain or physical repercussion on your dad.
I didn’t kill him, per se. His actions and hate just caught up to him in the end. ”
Arwyn nodded, taking in my words, chewing on them so to say. When he lifted his gaze back to me, it was firm and relieved. I expected sadness, maybe just a slither of the emotion, but there was none.
“Thank you,” Arwyn said, taking my hands in his and squeezing. “You didn’t need to give my father a chance, but you did. As you said, his own decisions got him in the end, just as I knew they would.”
“Do you want the details?” I asked, preparing to answer any question he had.
Arwyn shook his head. “Not yet. It doesn’t matter right now, not when you have found your way back to me.”
“With a little help, remember.”
“Ah yes. Of course.” His brow furrowed. “Who else was it then?”
My confused expression urged Arwyn to expand on his question.
“You said a few people could be thanked for bringing you back from the dead,” Arwyn said. “Who else?”
“Well, Eleanor Letcombe was there. She apologised by the way… for everything. I told her not to bother.” I took a hulking breath in, still feeling my mother’s presence on me like a physical thing. “And, my mum. She was the first one to greet me, and the last one to say goodbye.”
“Oh, Hector.” Arwyn drew me onto his lap, both of us tangled together in the middle of a stark corridor. “It’s not a goodbye. It’s only a see you later, you know that.”
“I do,” I said, tasting the salt of my tears as they melded with the taste of Arwyn on my mouth. “There was something she wanted me to say to you.”
A flash of what could only be fear passed behind Arwyn’s eyes. “There was?”
I leaned in, bringing my lips to his ear. Before I got there, I planted a kiss on his cheek. Then I whispered my mother’s message to him, wanting Arwyn to hear it alone, not the cameras watching in the corners where wall met ceiling, or the few people I sensed lingering behind closed doors.
It was important enough for my mum to use her limited time with me to share it. And I felt it was equally as important that Arwyn had the time to really take it in… down to the marrow of his bones where it could live for the rest of his life.
Arwyn barely moved a muscle. I pulled back, feeling weightless as I gave him the one thing I knew he’d craved since we both met.
“She actually said that?” he asked, face straight although his lower lip trembled slightly.
“Yes,” I replied, closing my eyes as I melted back into his arms. “She did. Not that it matters, but I think she’d want you to acknowledge it. Not because she needs to hear it from you, but because you, Arwyn, need to believe that you are worthy of what she has said.”
He was silent for a moment, festering in his own mind.
I had no way of knowing how he took it, and began to worry that it wasn’t the helpful offering my mum had intended.
Arwyn continued to cry, holding on to me for comfort, whilst lost to himself.
It could’ve been seconds, minutes or longer, but when he finally spoke I felt all the pent-up tension leave my body in an instant.
“I believe her,” Arwyn said, focusing his eyes back on me. “I do.”
If I could’ve stayed in this position for the rest of my life, I would have. But, as the adrenaline left me, I found myself thinking of another detail I’d missed. My heart skipped a beat, my senses growing alert.
“Where are we, Arwyn?” I asked.
He cleared his cheeks with the back of his hand. “In the underground base run by the dismantled Coven. Somewhere beneath London.”
Relief was short-lived. “Romy?”
“Close. She hasn’t left Kai’s side since we—”
“Take me to them,” I commanded, already standing up on numb legs.
Arwyn didn’t need to tell me that Kai was dying.
Of course, I already knew that. Instead, he called out for someone to bring me clothes, and a door to our right opened.
I was right; people had been listening. The nurses I’d seen had been witches all along, and one of them came out and handed me a plain set of trousers and top, with white trainers.
“Thank you,” I said, rushing to get changed in front of so many watching eyes. Slowly, the corridor began to fill. I was too busy fumbling with the laces of the trainers to notice when the clapping began.
I stopped what I was doing, looking up to find so many watching eyes on me, faces beaming with smiles.
Every single witch cheered. I looked to Arwyn for answers, to find that he was joining them.
Clapping, cheering. A chorus of noise that overwhelmed me.
Part of me wanted to demand that they all bloody stopped, but there was another part of me that knew this moment was needed.
“Hector Briar, witch-kind is forever in your debt,” Arwyn said, his muscles straining as he continued to clap. “You’ve saved us in ways that we won’t even know yet.”
“Not just me.” I stood slowly, feeling misplaced. “Kai too. And you, Romy. Verena. We all did it. Us, together, the true meaning of a coven.”
Which was exactly why I needed to get to Kai. Hekate had promised me something, and I needed to see if she was truly as trustworthy as I wanted to believe.
“Kai,” I repeated to Arwyn, drowning out the applause, finding myself not worthy of accepting it alone. “Take me to him. Now.”