Chapter 25 #2
“What did you do when you took those leeches from me?” I needed to know.
What I'd felt wasn't just magic. It was something intimate and profound, as if he'd torn something from within himself and placed it inside me. And I’d seen what the act did to him when the leeches flowed out of my body into his.
His gaze drifted to my lips, lingering as if replaying the memory, before snapping back to meet my eyes with that trademark steely stare. “I gave you what you needed to survive.” The words came out barely a whisper, but I felt the truth of them in my bones. “Can you still feel it?”
I nodded once. “It feels warm and powerful.” And like the only thing keeping me alive.
“It’ll wear off eventually.”
I wanted to ask him about his other powers—the ones that felt like death incarnate—but I stopped myself. It didn't feel like the right time, and I got the impression that nutshell explanation was all I was going to get.
The ship groaned deep, like a wounded beast. We looked out the window, watching the world beyond shed its obsidian skin. In its place, a misty gray wall emerged, scattered with speckled gradients like the space within dreams.
My heart clenched with unease, catching like a snagged thread inside my chest. Static buzzed beneath my skin and the air in my lungs felt wrong, thick, and heavy, different from what I breathed only moments ago.
I drew my gaze back to Wolfe. He was already watching me.
“What’s happening? Are we in danger again?” My breathing quickened.
“No. We’ve just breached the Veil. We’re on our way out of the mortal realm.” His gaze held mine, the weight of those simple words hitting me like a sledgehammer to the gut.
I’d already thought I was far away from home, but being on the sea was a different feeling than leaving the mortal realm. Throughout this entire time, I never considered how this part would feel.
Breeching the Veil. Leaving the mortal realm. Entering the magical realm.
I was going to a place I’d never been before. A place where I had no family.
The enormity of the truth sank into my very essence, reshaping my world. It terrified me.
I tore my gaze away from Wolfe and pressed my cheek against the pillow as I watched more mottled gray fill the space outside. Then it got brighter. Too bright considering it was so dark before.
It wasn’t until Wolfe tugged on my hand that I remembered he was holding it.
“Come, let me show you something.” He spoke in a gentle voice that soothed me and intrigued me in equal measure.
“What is it?”
“A better introduction to the magical realm.” His eyes lit with an almost boyish excitement.
I was about to tell him I couldn’t walk, but he slipped his arm behind my back and scooped me up as if I were as light as the air.
My fragile body crushed against his hard chest. A pang of pain pulled on my insides from the movement, but I was too captivated with being in his arms to let it affect me.
The last time we were this close and I’d felt the same pull toward him was last night when he kissed me. Not the kiss of life. The other one. The one I knew we might never speak of again.
Wolfe cast me a sidelong glance, as if he could read every wayward thought, then carried me from the room with slow, measured steps. I could feel his weakness in the careful way he moved, yet he still carried me like the warrior he refused to stop being.
The bright light greeted us in the hallway, shadows retracting with each step he took. I tried to keep my head up because I wanted to see what awaited us outside.
When we turned the corner, fresh sea breeze washed over us. It filled my lungs with the cleanest air and pulsed through my body as if it knew I was desperate for rejuvenation.
Both Sirril and Arielle had told me the air in the magical realm had healing properties. I was eager to see if it would truly work. Work on me.
We emerged on the deck, breaking into vibrant sunlight with sparkling rays that warmed my skin.
Behind us was that mass of gray—the Veil. It rose into the sky like a curtain of writhing smoke with no beginning nor end, no matter where you looked. Up, down, left or right. The mass was dreary and depressing to look at, filled with endless woe.
It was disturbing to think that was where I’d come from.
I had no idea what awaited me on this side of the Veil, but the connotation of endless woe felt fitting for the mortal realm. Life there seemed like it would never get better. Especially of late with the harassment from Chancellor Blackthorne and my marriage arrangement to Thayden.
It was strange to think that I didn’t have to worry about either of those things now.
A blade of sorrow cut through me when I thought of my family left behind to pick up the pieces while I was here. The Ruskiel’s false hope of being reunited with them felt worse. Like a jab at my heart for my helplessness.
I quickly shoved the feeling away. It was best not to think about my family now. Not thinking about them would hurt less. And it wouldn’t hinder me from getting back to them.
My prayer was that Wolfe didn’t make them suffer more than necessary. He said he wouldn’t. I had to hope with everything inside me that I could trust his word and my disappearance wouldn’t affect my family too terribly. All I had now was the journey ahead, where magic met mortality.
A light flutter of fingertips over my arm called me back to the moment, compelling me to bid goodbye to things I couldn’t control.
I turned away from the wall of despair and glanced up at the Fae prince, my eyes tangling with the blue gaze that hadn’t stopped haunting me.
He’d been watching me, and I was certain from that knowing look in his eyes that he was aware of my worries. Still, he remained silent. His wordless stare reminding me I was at his mercy.
Wolfe Nightblade had the power to change this. To fly me right back home or keep me. He would choose the latter because he needed me. Just not in the ways I wanted to be needed by him.
Foolish girl. He was three hundred years old and a Fae prince. No matter what I thought I saw in him and felt last night, we were right at the top of the list of things that were never going to happen. And quite rightly so. I would do well to remember that.
I looked away, choosing to stare ahead. But then I was met with the dreamlike scenery before us. A vision that redefined the word beautiful. It instantly stole my breath.
The endless cerulean sky above was just as vast as the sea, but it looked different to what I was used to in the mortal realm. The blue was bluer, infused with purer hues that reminded me of the first colors of spring after a dreary winter.
Slices of silvery clouds were dotted across the vast expanse like threads of magic weaving through the air. The illustrious golden sun gleamed in the background, rich with color that looked like someone had painted it to perfection. Then I saw…the moon?
Wait, not just any moon. It was the Phantom Moon—the eclipse of souls.
The very same moon that set me on this path. It was just as eerie and enchanting as it had been on the night I saw it, with its gun metal and silver hue and haunting faces.
In the mortal realm, there were certain times when you could see the normal moon and the sun at the same time. But never so vividly as this.
“The Phantom Moon,” I whispered. “I thought it was gone.”
“Not here.” Wolfe's answer brushed against my ear, his breath stirring loose strands of my hair. “Things look different here. They stay longer. The Phantom Moon will be visible for at least another two weeks. Night and day, no matter how bright the sun.”
“That’s so fascinating.” I couldn’t imagine such a thing, but it deeply intrigued me.
“Wait until you see it at night.”
A thrill of anticipation ran through me. I found myself genuinely eager to witness such a sight. If it was this beautiful during the day, what would it look like when darkness fell?
Wolfe carried me over to the railings. I was glad we were on the other side of the ship, far from the section where the Ruskiel had attacked. I had no desire to see that place again.
Wolfe closed his eyes and took the deepest breath, holding it for several heartbeats before exhaling. The moment he did, the cut skin on his cheek began weaving back together, healing itself.
I gasped, realizing this was what Arielle and Sirril had been talking about. The healing magic in the air was working.
Wolfe's skin glowed with a subtle crystalline tone that spread across his wounds until they were fully healed and sparkling. Sparkling as if his skin had been infused with reams of starlight.
Mesmerized, I reached out and touched his cheek, feeling the smooth skin there, checking that what I’d seen was real. It was.
Slowly, his eyes opened, and he faced me, our noses brushing. The intimacy of being cradled against him with his lips so close to mine again made my chest tight.
“Your face has healed,” I muttered, my fingers still pressed to his cheek.
He tilted his head toward the horizon, where the sea met the sky in a clash of impossible colors.
A dangerous smile played at the corners of his mouth. “Breathe the air, Ziyka. Breathe the air and heal, too.”
“Will it really work on me?”
“No reason it shouldn’t. You’re just like me. Magic born.”
Those simple words gripped me. I was never like anyone. Even in my own home, it always felt like me and everyone else.
I breathed the air, inhaling as if taking my first breath in life.
It filled my lungs like liquid oxygen, pure, ancient, alive. It tasted of power that had existed long before time itself. Each second that passed drew more of it into me, threading through my veins, seeking out every ache, every wound, every hollow space that needed healing.
My skin tingled, and I held up my hand, watching it take on a similar crystalline glow to Wolfe’s. Mine was fainter but still there, a shimmer that made my mage blood hum beneath my skin. It felt like the realm recognized what I was never allowed to understand.
The pain that had wrapped around my ribs began to dissolve, replaced by a sensation of warmth that spread through my chest like honey.
“It's working on me. I feel like I'm finally... whole.” And like pieces of me I didn't know were missing just slotted back into place.
Wolfe held me closer. “Because this is where you belong.”
Belonging.
I'd never experienced anything like it.
The magic here recognized something in me, whispering to me that I didn’t have to be different here.
Back home, my abilities felt like a burden, something to hide.
The idea of existing in a place that didn't just tolerate what I was, but embraced it, appealed to me more than it should.
Even if that place came with a dangerous keeper.
A stronger wave of healing breeze swept over us, and my wounds eased further, leaving a tingling awareness of Wolfe's body pressed against mine.
“Hold on tight,” Wolfe whispered over my nose.
“What are you going to do?”
“Just hold on to me, Ziyka.” He gave me a wicked grin, then suddenly, as if out of nowhere, the wings on his back appeared, massive and deadly with their talons breathing shadows against the sun.
I just about managed to catch my breath when he held me closer and soared up into the heavens like a daunting dragon.
He’d flown with me last night, but I was so out of it I couldn’t think past the terror of the Ruskiel’s attack.
I held on to him now, gasping as we flew up and up and up until it felt like we were in between the soulful sun and the menacing moon. We were so high I couldn’t even see the ship anymore.
Wolfe slowed his flight, and we hovered by a wispy cloud. There he stayed airborne, wings outstretched with me pressed against him.
Each powerful beat of his wings made his muscles flex against my body, a reminder of the predator who held me.
Terror should have consumed me. I was suspended hundreds of feet above the earth with nothing but Wolfe’s arms keeping me from plummeting to my death. But the exhilaration of flying overwhelmed my fear, leaving me breathless with wonder.
I looked down and around us at the vast beauty of a land plucked from dreams.
Beyond the sea, sparkling spires pierced the clouds, their surfaces reflecting purple-tinged light.
Forests of silver-leafed trees stretched toward the horizon, their canopy occasionally broken by ruins of ancient marble structures.
Rivers wound through the landscape, their waters glowing with an inner luminescence that pulsed like a heartbeat.
I held my breath absorbing it all, wanting to see it up close.
“This is Vaelthorne, my Lady. The magical realm.” The awe in Wolfe’s voice spoke straight to my soul. And I allowed myself the selfishness to enjoy this moment.
It was another danger I couldn’t afford, yet here I was indulging anyway.
One more temptation I couldn't resist. Just like him and whatever was blooming between us in the space where captor met savior and hatred blurred into something that tasted like forbidden dreams.