Chapter 21 #2
The words destroyed him. Nick pressed his forehead against hers immediately, breathing her in, anchoring himself to the warmth of her skin and the stubborn life in every shaky breath. “You won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No,” he admitted roughly, voice catching against the back of his throat. “But I know you.”
Another contraction slammed through her.
Kara cried out this time, unable to stop it, the sound raw and bright and far too loud in his ears as her knees buckled beneath her.
Nick caught her easily, sliding one arm beneath her and lowering them both with a control he did not feel. His wolf roared inside him. Mate hurting. Pup hurting. Kill something.
Verna knelt beside Kara with startling steadiness despite the chaos tearing through the chamber around them, her old knees finding stone as smoothly as if she had done it a thousand times. “Listen to me carefully, Kara.”
Kara nodded shakily, jaw clenched, tears tracking down her temples into her hair.
“The child is responding instinctively to the foundations. She is anchoring living magic every time the corruption surges.” Verna placed one weathered hand gently against Kara’s stomach, her palm flat and steady. “But she cannot do it alone anymore.”
Nick’s stomach dropped.
“No.”
Verna ignored him completely, her attention fixed on Kara like a healer who had decided exactly what battle she was fighting and refused to be turned from it.
“Kara,” the elder female said softly, “when the time comes, do not fight the connection.”
Kara blinked rapidly, her lashes wet and clumped. “That sounds horrifying.”
“It probably will be.”
A laugh burst out of Kara, broken and breathless. “Fantastic.”
A massive tremor ripped through the chamber hard enough to send everyone stumbling. Aphid caught Torvik by the collar without looking. Rachel staggered into Gavril, who steadied her with one hand without ever taking his eyes off the creatures circling.
One of the towering stone columns cracked clean through the center with a sound like a tree splitting in a storm.
The foundations below dimmed violently.
And for the first time since entering the chamber, the silver-gold light began losing.
The corruption spread faster. The black fractures widened. New tendrils punched up through stone that had been solid moments before.
Nick heard the Troll King roar orders across the chamber, the sound cutting through the chaos like a horn over a battlefield, as more creatures climbed from the abyss.
They were being overrun.
Verna looked up sharply toward the failing foundation lines, her eyes narrowing, lips parting on a slow, careful breath. Then she turned back to Kara. Her fingers tightened gently against Kara’s stomach.
“Now.”
Nick’s pulse stopped.
“No,” he said again, more broken this time, the word barely a word at all. “She’s not ready.”
Kara gave a strained laugh that dissolved into pain halfway through, her free hand fisting against the stone. “I would also like to formally object to this experience.”
Verna slid one arm around Kara’s shoulders, steady as bedrock. The elder female’s ancient eyes lifted to Nick then, holding him in place as surely as a hand on his throat.
“You do not need to be ready.”
A pause. A breath. A whole world tilting.
“You only need to love her enough to stay.”
The words hit harder than any blow. Harder than any wound he had ever taken in battle, in any pit, in any dark place a younger Nick had once thought would end him.
Nick swallowed against the brutal pressure in his throat. He nodded once, sharp, because he did not trust his voice.
As another quake ripped through the foundations, Nick cupped his hand under Kara’s head to protect her skull from the trembling rock.
The foundation light immediately surged brighter beneath her body.
Light raced outward from the place where she lay, racing along the cracks like rivers finding old channels, washing silver-gold up the stone and across the platform in a wave.
Every troll in the chamber noticed. Heads turned. Weapons stilled mid-swing. Even the Troll King paused for one heartbeat, his gaze cutting toward her.
The corruption recoiled violently from the edge of the platform, hissing as it shrank back.
The creatures shrieked, the sound clawing through the air.
And Kara screamed.
Nick nearly came apart at the sound.
“I’m here,” he said immediately, gripping her hand hard enough that any other female probably would have crushed his fingers by now. He brought her knuckles to his mouth, pressed his lips to them, breathed her in. “I’m right here, baby.”
Tears slipped down Kara’s face as she looked at him, her eyes searching his like she expected him to vanish.
“I’m scared.” Always so honest and raw.
Kara Luisa, who had stared down monsters and kings and trauma that should have broken her, finally admitted fear.
Nick kissed her forehead fiercely, then her cheek, then the corner of her mouth, as though he could press the fear out of her with his lips. “I know.”
Another contraction hit harder than before. Kara’s back arched off the stone, her teeth clenched so tight that he heard them grind.
The foundations answered instantly.
Silver-gold light exploded outward beneath the platform in massive waves that slammed into the spreading corruption hard enough to force it backward across the chamber. The wave rolled through the broken stone like a tide, dragging the dark with it, smashing tendrils against the abyss walls.
Every creature from the corruption screamed. Some fell. Some burned. Some simply came apart at the seams.
The mountain itself groaned, deep and long, as though something enormous had shifted in its sleep.
Verna’s eyes widened slightly, her composure cracking for the first time. “She’s synchronizing.”
Kara gritted her teeth, sweat plastering hair to her temple. “That sounds fake.”
“It is not.
“Well, I hate it.”
Nick almost laughed. Almost. Instead he tightened his grip on her hand and pressed the side of his face against hers, anchoring himself to her breathing.
The Troll King fought like an avalanche given flesh, his massive sword cleaving through darkness while troll warriors defended the outer ledges in tight, disciplined ranks.
Rachel’s healing light flickered through the chamber beside bursts of fae magic and wolf snarls, weaving across the wounded like a thread of stubborn gold.
But everything kept circling back here. To Kara. To the child. To the foundations pulsing beneath them in desperate rhythm, matching her breath beat for beat.
Verna pressed both hands against Kara’s stomach suddenly, her face tightening in concentration, her lips moving in something that was not quite words.
Then the elder female looked directly at Nick.
“When the child comes,” she said quietly, the words pitched low enough that only he and Kara could hear, “do not let fear sever the bond between them.”
Nick stared at her, his mouth dry. “What does that mean?”
“Honestly, you old bat,” Kara seethed through gritted teeth. “Why do you constantly talk in freaking riddles?”
Verna’s expression turned grim, her gaze sliding past him toward the writhing dark. “The foundations are no longer only listening.”
The chamber shook violently.
The corruption surged one final time, rising like a wave above the ledges, every shadow leaning toward the platform where Kara lay glowing.
And somewhere deep beneath the roots of the realms, far below stone and silver and song, something ancient woke fully at last.
Nick felt it before anyone said a word. The hair lifted along his arms. His wolf went silent inside him, not from peace, but from the kind of stillness that prey felt in the half second before the hunter moved.
He bent low over Kara, lips against her temple, and held on.