Chapter 21
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
ZAN
I thought I knew pain. I thought I was well acquainted with it, a part of me, something that I lived with every day in my immortal body.
But now, with the anguish of knowing that Lily threw herself on me, that she absorbed my Draegon fire—my one-shot solution to keeping her safe—and that I’ve killed her as surely as I’ve killed myself, there is no name for the anguish I feel.
I will never forgive myself for this. I close my eyes, I will not survive this, and the sooner the darkness takes me, the better. It’s what I deserve, a painful, agonizing death.
“Holy shit, it worked!” a voice says, bubbly and cheerful in a way that I know it cannot be my Lily. She’s never sounded like that one moment of her entire life. Of that, I am sure. I open my eyes, confused, only to see a human face swimming in front of me, where I expected one of my ancestors.
“I pulled them out. I did it!” the woman shouts, a green face swimming into my vision.
“Oh, he looks like shit,” the female says, her nose wrinkling. “We need like, serious painkillers over here,” she yells. “STAT!”
“They don’t know what stat means,” the first woman mutters.
I try to snarl, try to protect her from these newcomers. My Lily is still leaning against me, so still that I know that only one thing can be true.
I have lived.
But the damage I did to her was irreparable.
I scream a wordless sound, trying to flex my talons and attack anyone who gets close to her, because they’re trying to take her away from me.
Murmurs, words meant to be reassurance follow, as more creatures stream into the room, holding me down.
They will take my female, and— “I WILL NOT ALLOW IT,” I bellow at them.
Then something sharp bites into my neck, and everything goes black.