Chapter 17 Axel
Axel
Liz’s body has nearly hit the ground when I reach her, my claws closing around her bleeding and broken form just in time. Even so, the impact of my talons on her soft human body when I wing my way upward can’t be good.
The strike blessed fry several men in uniform firing guns before I rip open a portal and wing my way through. They follow me back almost immediately.
Hyperion hasn’t even left the area. What happened?
Liz. I gently set her on the ground. Find someone with an ensnared healer of some kind. The humans shot her.
Hyperion flies away without a single word of argument. I crouch over her tiny body, listening for the telltale sound of her heartbeat. It’s faint, but it’s there. Only, it sounds erratic. Instead of the steady boom boom boom I’m accustomed to hearing, it’s staccato.
Boom.
Boom boom boom.
Pause.
I use just one claw to prod her gently.
She gasps, and blood spurts from the hole in her shoulder. Her eyes fly open. “Azar.”
I bring my head closer, my nostrils almost touching her.
“Throw me in the volcano. If I’m dying anyway, I may as well bargain with Freya before it happens.”
No. You aren’t dying.
When she laughs, blood sprays from her mouth.
What if she’s right? Is she dying? From one little bullet?
Asteria lands beside us. What’s wrong with you, moron?
“Yeah,” Jade asks. “Why are you letting her die? Do you hate her that much?”
Hate her? No. Not at all. In fact, sitting here and looking at her, worrying she’ll die feels worse than any injury I’ve ever endured. It feels. . .devastating. Horrible in every way I can’t even explain or understand.
Bond her, stupid, Asteria says. I don’t understand why you haven’t already.
All my reasons fade—if that could help her. . . You really think she’s dying?
Jade rushes to her side, pressing her hand against Liz’s forehead. “She already looks dead, to me.”
Her heart. . .is it beating? Am I already too late? I reach for her then, pulling on her soul with all my might. But there’s nothing to pull on.
It’s gone.
I’m too late.
When humans’ hearts stop beating, they die.
“Shock her,” Jade says, her eyes pleading with Asteria. She takes Liz’s hand and squeezes. “It’s the only chance we have. Please.”
What?
“It’s what the doctors do in movies when someone’s heart stops,” Jade says. “They zap them with electricity—not a lot. A little. Then a little more if that doesn’t work.”
You want me to. . . Asteria creeps closer, her face studying the cold, pale form of Liz. She looks worried. I might hurt you.
Jade releases Liz’s hand. “Now.”
I suppose now it’s my turn to beg. If there’s even a chance it will help. . .no matter how you feel about her, please do this for me.
I don’t hate her, Asteria says. I’m jealous. That’s not the same. But winning because she died. . . She shakes her head. The only thing worse would be causing her death myself. You’d never forgive me for that.
“Please.” Jade’s crying now, and she leans one hand against Asteria.
The strike blessed princess isn’t cold, but she’s hardly warm. In that moment, though, she looks at Jade with affection. Alright. Step back.
I watch intently as Asteria zaps Liz.
Her soft body spasms, more blood oozing out.
“That might have been too much.” Jade peers at her.
Nothing happens.
“Or maybe try just a little more.” Jade’s eyes are wide.
Do you have any idea what you’re asking her to do? I want to rend Jade into tiny pieces for not knowing.
“I don’t know.” Jade’s crying furiously, now. “Their bodies jolt around like that in movies, too. They shake and spasm.”
The ground around Liz is now reddish brown, sticky with her blood. Her heart’s not beating. She’s pale—so pale—except for her mangled wing. It’s scarlet in one large section, and that part’s glistening brightly.
Asteria leans over her again, and she zaps her harder this time, the lightning visibly arcing from her face to Liz’s chest.
This time, Liz gasps and half-sits up, gasping and then wheezing.
I don’t wait for her to die again. I pull as hard as I can on her very soul, and she spins toward me, her eyes wide and terrified. The bright light that’s the core of my warrior expands, burning like a supernova, and then it explodes around us.
I’ve never seen anything like that in my life, Asteria says. What just happened?
“What was weird about it?” Jade asks. “I mean, her hair turned red, but it did that before—I didn’t see anything else. Is she going to be alright?”
It was too bright, Asteria says. Like the sun.
Liz collapses again, her body convulsing, her now-red hair strewn across the ground underneath her head like just another pool of blood.
That wasn’t the golden light of a normal bond, Asteria continues. At least, it wasn’t only that. It was brilliant gold, but also red, and then layered inside the red, a bright, vibrant green.
“Maybe it’s because she bonded Axel and Azar at once,” Jade says. “It wasn’t really a normal bond.”
I couldn’t care less how it looked. I lean closer to Liz, hoping that it worked. She looks pale—too pale. But then I remember to listen. I’m relieved to hear a heartbeat—boom, boom.
Then nothing.
Again.
No, I say. She’s—is she still dying?
As if I prompted her, a great, pulling weight claws at my magic, and I shove the strength toward her. Yes, take it, I say. Take whatever you need.
Then, right in front of our eyes, the hole in her chest begins to close, red tissues knitting together, and then skin closing over it too. I sit back on my haunches, horribly relieved.
“Oh, good. It worked, plus, now Azar can eat,” Jade says. “It’s great news all around.”
I’m not at all sure Liz will agree, especially since the attack kept us from recovering enough humans to satisfy my brother.
Six hundred and fifty isn’t likely to make Hyperion happy.
I’m not happy with it either, if I’m being honest. I appreciate that Liz doesn’t want to force the humans, but we can’t very well let the blessed die in droves because she’s not a fan of how we’re ensnaring them.
And if the blessed were to be attacked by the humans right now.
. . we’ll break apart like rotten fruit smashed with a hammer.
By the time Hyperion returns with Memna—a strike blessed who apparently bonded a human nurse—Liz’s wing has already almost healed on its own.
The humans with guns were waiting on you? Hyperion’s expression is flat.
Let’s talk about this when Liz wakes up, I say.
Bonded for one moment and already letting the human dictate our actions again. He snorts. Just as pathetic as when you remembered everything about her.
Look at you, I say. You’re scared to bond a human at all. You’re afraid of what you’ll do for yours.
Actually, I was serious. He tosses his head. I wanted to bond that one. He sighs. I suppose I’ll have to choose another, but now that we’re going to have to fight them either way, we may as well simply go to war and ensnare all the humans we need all at once.
“It’s not that simple,” Jade says. “Brights aren’t easy to find.”
Your sister’s been finding hundreds of them a day—they’ve been coming to her, begging to come even when they can’t be bonded, Hyperion says. How hard can it really be?
I heard that it’s not always that easy, Asteria says. Ocharta told me it took them days to locate the hundred or so they bonded in Houston.
All the more reason to get started right away, Hyperion says.
“I should have known you’d be here, already yammering.” Liz heaves herself up to seating, cradling her head in her hands. “Ouch. What in the world happened?” She freezes, slowly turning to look at the strand of hair in her right hand. “Why is my hair. . .” She turns toward us.
“Axel finally bonded you,” Jade says.
Are you sure she didn’t arrange for someone to shoot her? Asteria asks.
I know Liz’s feeling better when she glares at Asteria. “Not everyone is as pathetic as you.”
I expect to have to defend my newly bonded human, but Asteria laughs. You’re the worst.
“Right back atcha, big silver.”
I don’t understand the relationship between them at all.
No, Liz says. You didn’t understand before, but now that you’ve forgotten everything I ever taught you, you’re really hopeless.
She’s always been able to communicate with me this way, but she hasn’t until now.
She must not see a point unless she needs to tell me something privately.
I can’t help being pleased, even if she’s not sharing anything substantial.
What she said finally registers with me.
Everything you taught me? What did you teach me, exactly?
“Don’t worry,” Liz says out loud this time. “I’ll start over right away.”
I can’t tell you how pleased I am that you two are sharing private conversations again. Asteria doesn’t look upset, even though her tone sounds like she is. I’m even more confused now.
Whether you bonded Liz or not, we still have to find more humans, Hyperion says. It would probably make Azar happy to go right back to where they shot you and roast some of those soldiers.
“There were quite a few humans willing to come with us before those military people tried to kill me,” Liz says. “They had signs.”
Ridiculous signs, I say. That’s what distracted me.
“And you can’t make shields anymore,” Jade says. “Because you’re not entwined anymore.”
“I’ll miss the entwined perks.” Liz shrugs. “But Azar can make them for me.” She nods. “And if we have to fight anyway, we may as well fight the soldiers where we know there are willing humans. Maybe some of them will still want to come with us, even after that mess.”
“Plus, if any of them do come, we know they aren’t scaredy cats,” Jade says.
Brave humans are better than the alternative, Asteria says.
I feel Liz’s pulse of pride in her sister—Jade may be small, but she’s smart. I also doubt she’d run away from a fight, which probably upsets Liz. “You can’t come with us, though,” Liz says. “You have to stay put.”