Aaron #2
The pain doubles me over, my forehead touching the ground. I retch, my body purging itself as if it could somehow expel this horror. Tears stream down my face, hot and uncontrolled. I’ve never felt pain like this, didn’t know it was possible to feel this much and not die from it.
The magical blade disappears, dissolving into nothing. The warlocks step over her body like it’s trash. One of them kicks her with his boot, sneering down at her, and hatred unlike anything I’ve ever known burns through me.
“Good riddance,” he mutters. “Filthy lioness. We did you a favor, Blackwood.”
I cough, realizing I’ve been holding my breath for too long. My chest burns. My hands shake. This has to be a nightmare. A bad dream. It can’t be real. It can’t.
Something else steps out of the Witching Glen.
I don’t look up. I can’t take my eyes off Mara’s body, as if keeping watch over her could somehow bring her back.
The figure crouches down beside me.
“I’m so sorry, son.”
Eric.
I finally look up, my vision blurred with tears. He’s looking at me with a sad expression, but I can’t tell if it’s forced or if he’s genuinely hurt. His face is drawn.
I stare up at Eric, my emotions warring violently within me.
Hatred, confusion, desperation, they all battle for dominance as I look at the face of the man who claims to be my father.
The man Mara warned me about. Was she right all along?
Is he somehow behind this nightmare? Yet he’s offering help, and I’m drowning, grasping for anything that might save her.
“Why is this happening?” I rasp, my voice hollow, broken. “This has to be a nightmare.”
“It’s far from a dream, son,” he says softly. “You’re time traveling.”
The words hit me, stealing what little breath I had left.
“I don’t wish this kind of pain on you,” he continues, his voice low. “Not now. Not ever.”
“So this is my future?” I choke out, my voice breaking, despair crushing me. “You break out of the Glen and take her from me?”
“I can help you save her,” he tells me.
I look up at him, my vision blurred with tears, hope flickering faintly through my despair.
“The warlocks, Calyx and Brixton, they are higher-level warlocks. I cannot go against them. The Glen is going to open, son. But you can open it sooner and help me stop this.”
I look down at Mara’s lifeless body, the sight of her tearing at my soul. “This cannot be my future,” I whisper, determination hardening beneath my grief. “I cannot lose her.”
“You won’t,” Eric says, “if you let me help you.”
I reach out, gently brushing my fingers over her eyes, but nothing happens. I can barely breathe through it.
“I can feel the ground,” I murmur. “Feel the air. Even smell it. But I can’t feel her.”
“You are not in tune with your magic enough,” Eric says. “But soon, you will be.”
I start to cry. I bend down and press my forehead to hers.
Like I’m dying with her. The mate bond between us, once alive and powerful, is bleeding me dry.
“I can’t do this,” I sob, the words torn from me. “Losing her, it hurts so bad. I love her so much.”
“Go back to your time,” he says urgently. “Send her someplace safe. Then come to me and open the Glen. No harm will come to her.”
“You may not believe it,” he continues, his voice rough, “and I’ve given you every right not to. But please, Aaron. I beg you.”
I look up. Something moves at the tree line and my magic snaps tight against my palms before I’ve placed it. Then she steps through. Tiana.
She steps out from the shadows, her eyes wide, tears streaming down her face. She has a hand over her mouth, her expression twisted in shock and horror.
Eric looks at her.
A grin crosses his face.
“Looks like she was sneaking to the Glen with your sister,” he says, his tone light, mocking.
My face contorts with rage. I want to kill her. I want to rip her apart for this. The fury is so intense it threatens to consume me.
I shake my head, trying to shake off the irrational thought. Trying to get control.
I look down at Mara, the sight of her like this carving new wounds in me.
“I love you,” I whisper, my voice breaking, pouring all my heart into the words. “Please, baby. Please don’t leave me.”
Then I hear her voice.
Aaron? Aaron, wake up! I’m here, I’m right here. Aaron, you’re scaring me.
Her voice cuts through my grief, hope flaring painfully bright.
I sniffle, wiping my nose. I stand up, looking around wildly, desperate to follow her voice back to her. “I don’t know how to get back to you,” I call out, my voice raw with emotion.
Where are you? Where did you go?
I look down at Mara’s lifeless naked body and swallow hard. The Wintermoon alarms start to blaze, loud and shrill, cutting through the night. Tiana disappears into the forest, taking off running.
“You fucking coward!” I snarl after her, rage and betrayal burning through me.
I hear Mara’s voice again, through the blaring sirens.
You have to wake up! Wake up!
Eric stands. “You can change this,” he says. “Just listen to me. Come to the Glen and open it. I’ll be waiting for you.”
He lifts his hand. Blue-gold cracks the air along a clean vertical line.
Through the opening I can see a street. Dark windows three stories up. A bus stop with the bench tagged in red marker. The corner where my mother used to wait for the 53 with all three of us hanging off her. Downtown Detroit.
Eric steps through and the portal closes behind him.
I hear Mara again, her voice pulling at me.
You have to wake up! Aaron!
I look down at Mara’s body. The sight burns itself into my memory, a nightmare I know I’ll never forget.
“I’m going to find a way to keep you alive,” I whisper. “No one is taking you from me. No one.”
I close my eyes and take slow breaths, focusing on her voice, on the pull of our bond.
When I open them again, I can feel Mara’s warm fingers glaze over my chest.
I sit up with a loud gasp. Mara has her hand against my heart, her expression panicked. She’s in her nightgown, her tail rubbing against me in alarm.
I look up at her.
My hands come up to her face and they’re shaking so hard I have to press them against her cheeks to make them stop. Her skin is warm. Her amber eyes are on mine. Alive.
The bond between us is whole. I check it like I’m running my hands over a wound that isn’t there anymore—and it isn’t. She’s here.
I press my forehead against hers and I cannot make myself speak.