Chapter 34
THIRTY-FOUR
Carver
Like Christian, I frantically look around the clearing for Crymson, but I don’t find her.
I can feel her like never before, her heartbeat in my throat, nearly choking me with it, but she’s not here where the fight is happening.
Not that I can see. My clever Crymson. Where is she? Where is she? Where is she?
As I stand there, searching for her, desperately trying to get my eyes on her form and reassure myself she’s okay, the feeling in my chest shifts, and I whip my head to the right.
A few seconds later, Christian follows my gaze.
The feeling in my chest grows so strong, I drop to my knees again, clutching at my heart where she lives, where she threatens to explode.
“My goddess,” I rasp, and stare at the trees.
“You see her?” Christian asks, his voice lacking the normal ego he usually carries. “Where?”
I smile despite the pain in my chest. If I died right this second, I’d smile for her in all her power and her beauty. The pain eases as light begins to glow from the direction I look. “There. There she is,” I growl. “Beautiful, powerful goddess.”
In front of me, Crymson steps from the trees, ethereal despite the blood coating nearly every inch of her skin.
There are no wounds on her, but the blood smells like her.
Somehow, she’s healed from fresh wounds, and she healed different.
Her thin slip is torn and ragged around her, fluttering in an invisible wind.
Her bright red hair flows around her shoulders, pristine and moving in the same phantom wind.
Those eyes glow with power as she steps forward and looks over all of us.
Though she stands there, and though Delilah appears just behind her, wide-eyed and clearly confused, that’s not what I focus on.
No. It’s the other woman at her side. A familiar face I know from years long past.
Christian’s features go slack. Thorn’s hand falls loosely at his side, and he nearly drops his sword. Together, they speak at the same time.
“Mother?”
The lady from my window when I was little smiles at them and then at me. The Queen of the Dead. My chest throbs as she looks at me.
I smile.
“Mother,” I breathe.