Chapter 31
Thirty-One
Sebastian
The vortex pounded my flesh like bullets the moment I entered, tearing an agonizing scream from my throat as the power and strength of magically imbued winds assaulted me.
I couldn’t move, let alone breathe for a second as I tried to think through the agony.
I couldn’t even feel my curse; the pain was so intense.
I scrambled inside my brain for a reason to move or think.
Isabella.
I took a step, then another. My body burned and tore apart.
I glanced down at myself and saw my skin breaking away patches at a time.
My clothes couldn’t withstand the intensity of the storm, let alone my body.
Soon, I was left in my skeletal form as I fought the urge to fall to my knees every step of the way.
I had no destination. No clue where she’d be, but I kept moving straight in hopes that I’d find her in the middle. It felt like a lifetime dealing with the pain slamming through me inside this place, but I knew each step I took was agonizingly slow and I had no time for that.
The only thing that hadn’t been torn to shreds was the cloak I wore. Whatever elements it was made of, it could withstand the force, unlike my flesh that didn’t last thirty seconds.
Then a new battle rose inside me. Like it did every time it happened, I felt my curse swallow me up from the inside and the exhaustion rested on my shoulders. The storm, somehow, pulled and made the fatigue stronger.
I staggered.
I feel like I need you, Sebastian. I can’t explain it, but the darkness likes you just as much as it likes Harvest.
It was the memory of her sweet voice and all of its honesty that had me remembering what was at stake. Through the sleep-fog, I searched for her.
Thank you, Sebastian.
For showing me what it feels like to feel protected. Even if we are practically strangers.
Those words sent an unnerving amount of desperation through me as I recalled the things she said to me. The surrounding lights ebbed, and the darkness grew in my line of sight.
I want to be like you.
Isabella, you were so much more than me. You fought against your fate, our fate. There was no way I was letting you go.
In the distance, she finally came into view. In a protected bubble, she floated with her arms out and her head dangling in front of her chest. My skeletal arm and hand reached out, but I still hadn’t closed the distance between us yet.
I was almost there. But so was the desire to sleep.
I need you, but I want you just as much as I need you.
“Fuck needing, Izzie,” I whispered in the storm as I forced my legs another step, then another. “I just want you.”
Just don’t leave me, and I’ll be okay.
“I fucked up,” I admitted to her. “But I won’t again.”
Several feet in front of me, Izzie was protected within a barrier.
Her red flesh was blistered. The power of the sins would destroy her the same way they had Delena.
But my witch was proving her strength—no person should be able to hold so much power.
Fury ripped through me as I realized why Harvest wanted Izzie.
Her death date changed within seconds, and as I felt that data store itself away inside my head. She was dying. Today.
Fear clamped ahold of me, and I fought my brain another three steps when that bone-deep dread smacked into me relentlessly, not liking the fight it was taking to bring my body into slumber. I’d never found a way to fight until now.
I wanted to tell her how much I had walked to get here to her when I should have been asleep already.
I fell to my knees. My essence flickered in and out around my bones, and I knew the only reason I was even in this form was because my body was protecting itself inside the vortex.
I lost my vision first, but I hadn’t lost the will to crawl, and that was what I did.
I crawled to her, arms stretched out, I knew to go straight since she was right in front of me.
I felt one of my hands breach through the barrier she was in first, then the other, followed by my head. Only I collapsed on my stomach. As much as I told myself not to, my body did so on its own. It couldn’t fight the curse anymore. I didn’t even know how I fought it this long.
The darkness that stole my vision wormed its way into my head.
I lied to myself, I knew that now. I still needed her.
“Izzie!” It took every ounce of strength I had left to raise my voice. “I need you to come the rest of the way.”
Then I fell into the darkness.