Chapter 21 - Annika
The tight, tugging sensation in my chest pulls my attention westwards through the kitchen window, breath escaping my lips in a gasp that leaves my throat feeling awfully dry.
My eyes widen with horror, with the sudden realization that something is wrong, even though there’s nothing except a light snowfall whispering on the imposing mountains.
Beyond those mountains, Heinrich and the other wolves are after the humans and the demons, and I can feel it in my bones that something has gone wrong.
The tight sensation hugging my chest releases, leaving me with an empty feeling that has me gasping for air, clawing my throat as if I can’t pull oxygen into my lungs.
It’s because I can’t.
I can’t feel the air going into my lungs, and it feels like my eyes are going to pop out of my sockets. Something is wrong, and every instinct is telling me that something happened to Heinrich.
I’ve felt this way before—when he was hurt fighting the demons—and that’s when my powers flared up uncontrollably. Now that I have control over my powers, I’m not bursting into flames or doing something reckless like rushing outside and risking falling into a trap.
But my body tingles like my powers are stirring, and I begin to pace the floor, waiting.
And waiting.
Until finally, I hear the commotion outside that has me rushing to the front door.
“Annika! Annika!” It’s Sophie's voice I hear through the ensuing chaos of thundering steps up the hill toward the cabin.
I race off the porch, only to come to a dead stop when my heart stops beating, and I see Dedrick carrying a lifeless Heinrich over, his friends marching beside him.
“No!” The word tears from my throat as if my lungs have been ripped out, and I fall to my knees, my jaw dropping nearly as far as tears spill from my eyes. “No!” I cry out again when I notice Heinrich’s eyes are closed.
Sophie charges toward me, one hand cradling her belly, the other reaching for my shoulder.
“He’s not dead, Anni!” she says, shaking my shoulder because I probably look as dead as I feel inside. “I tried to heal him, but it’s not working! He needs you. He needs his fated mate to heal him.”
I blink in disbelief, looking up at her as Dedrick and the others pass me and advance to the cabin. She holds out a hand to me, and I take it, while wiping fervently at my tears and getting to my feet.
She goes on to explain that Heinrich was impaled in the stomach by a blade made of the only metal deadly to a werewolf—silver—and while the mere injury could have easily been healed, the silver acts as poison in his bloodstream, and his only hope is me.
She clutches my hand as she leads me inside after them, and Dedrick lays Heinrich on the couch, his arm flailing off the side with lifelessness that makes my heart lurch with dread.
“You are his only hope, Anni,” Sophie repeats, nudging me forward. “Silver is known to kill a wolf, but you’re his fated mate. There must be something you can do….”
The hopelessness in her voice only fills me with dread as I drag my feet forward, dropping to my knees in front of Heinrich and picking up his hand. I pull the cold hand to my lips, sobbing profusely over him because he’s as good as dead.
The thought alone has me choking, the life we didn’t have together flashing before my eyes like a montage to taunt me, haunt me for the rest of a life I’d have to spend without him.
And I can’t bear it.
I place my hand on his stomach, where he’s lost so much blood already, shirt ripped and fabric drenched in crimson ribbons of his lifeforce that has already begun to crust over. I can’t stop sobbing, can’t stop choking, even while the others speak, pace, belt out solutions that I can’t even hear.
“Heinrich, please…” I whimper, vision clouded by the tears I’m shedding. I blink to let his pale face come into focus, eyes tracing the lines of his jaw, fingers ghosting over the light beard on his cheek.
“Please, wake up…” I plead, returning my hand to the injury and closing my eyes, calling upon that center of my magic, not for destruction, but for healing.
I find the center, my hand tightening over his, when the gold and scarlet threads behind my eyelids brighten, and it turns into something else.
Something sacred.
A space I’ve never tapped into before, and the colors merge into brilliant white light that spreads to every corner of my vision, and though there’s nothing else around me, I can feel Heinrich’s presence, along with a divine presence that makes me feel safe.
“Heinrich…?” I call out using the voice in my mind, not my own lips, my voice echoing around the solid white I find myself standing in.
“Annika…” his voice echoes back, and I turn around in that direction, breathing a sigh of relief when I find him walking toward me, dressed in a black robe with a strange sigil embroidered on the left side of his chest. He smiles at me warmly as he approaches, reaching out a hand toward me.
“Where…where are we?” I ask, looking around me as I slip my hand into his. Right now, his hand is warmer than it was just seconds ago, but I realize that we aren’t exactly where we were, with me crouched on the floor, and him lying on the couch, on the brink of death.
His brows furrow gently as he lifts my hand to his lips, pressing a warm kiss on my knuckles. “I guess we’re somewhere in the in-between.”
“The in-between?” I repeat, this time, my brows furrowing. “I don’t even know how we got here.”
“It seems that you brought us here, Anni. Or, at least, you found me here.”
I nod slowly, the extent of my magic shocking me as I realize that this place, the in-between or whatever it is, isn’t somewhere I consciously chose to visit. But in my attempt to heal Heinrich, I’ve come here now, because that’s how much damage was done to him.
He’s about to die.
“You can’t die,” I tell him with urgency ringing through my voice. “You’re gonna die, and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to heal you.”
“You’re healing me right now by just being here,” he admits, wrapping his arms around me, but despite the warmth of his presence, this doesn’t feel right.
It feels like a goodbye, and I don’t like it, so I push gently at his shoulders and shake my head when he tries to lean in to kiss me.
“You’re saying goodbye, aren’t you?” I ask, my voice quivering with fear.
His expression softens with a sigh. “Perhaps I am, but I tried, Anni. I tried coming back to you, but there’s poison in my system, and my body can’t survive it.” His crestfallen eyes drop as he hangs his head. “I made a promise to you, and I couldn’t keep that promise. Forgive me, please.”
“No…” I shake my head as I step back, glaring at him furiously. “No. I don’t accept your apology, Heinrich. You can’t die on me. You can’t leave me alone out there.”
“Anni, I’m already d—”
“No! You are not dead! I refuse to accept this!”
My thundering voice echoes all around me, the vibration setting into my being with frightening strength that ignites my fingertips with the magic I wield outside of this in-between dimension.
I’m shocked at myself, gasping as I watch the warm ropes of scarlet paint my veins and the lines in my palms, putting color to the white all around me.
“I can heal you, Heinrich. I can bring you back,” I say with conviction as I look up to meet his curious eyes.
“It’s impossible, Anni. My body isn’t strong enough.”
“I refuse to give up, Henry. I refuse to accept that this is the end for you, for us…” I take a step forward while my fingers tingle with magic.
“I know I’ve had so much resistance to this whole thing, but I understand it now.
I understand the fated mate bond, and I know there is no escaping it,” I say breathlessly, planting my hands on his chest as the ribbons of my magic wrap around his arms. “I don’t want to escape it. ”
His hands settle on my hips as my magic flows through his veins. “You had every right to be resistant, Anni. What I did to you was wrong, and I’m sorry for that. I literally kidnapped you and forced you into marrying me. I don’t blame you for being angry.”
“I’m not angry anymore, Heinrich,” I admit with a sigh.
“I was livid before, yes, but I get it. You couldn’t tell me about any of it without me blowing a fuse.
I have been stubborn, but I don’t want to be anymore.
I forgive you, and I am ready to be your luna, and I am ready to fulfill my duties beside you, and help the valley with my powers. But I can’t do that without you.”
Heinrich lets out a long, drawn-out breath as he leans in. “Do you mean that?” he whispers, and I nod as I move in, closing the little distance between our faces, my breath warming his parting lips.
“I mean it with everything in my being. I just need you to come back to me. Please. Just come back to me.”
Heinrich gives a gentle nod as our lips meet, and the kiss erupts into a fusion of dancing tongues and unyielding power that flows from my palms and fingertips into his body as if healing his soul.
That’s what I just met—our souls met in a space that blurs the lines of time and physicality, and those are the lips I am kissing now, the part of him that needed healing.
I am healing his soul, so it’s strong enough to fight the effects of the silver in his physical body.
And as I continue kissing him and feeding healing energy into his soul, my eyes open to the physical world where he’s still lying on the couch.
I haven’t stopped wielding magic from the palm flattened on his wound, his blood soaking my fingers where it's pressed against his open wound. He hasn’t opened his eyes yet, but I feel movement beneath my palm, a metallic taste washing over my tongue as if I’m drawing the poison of the silver into my system.
It flows through me without poisoning me, and with my magic, I’m able to transmute the hazardous metal into nothing but invisible mist that disappears into nothing in the air.
“It’s working!” I croak, voice hoarse as I call for the attention of everyone in the room, feeling Heinrich’s skin knit under my touch as his wound heals. A smile of pure excitement grows on my lips as I wait with bated breath until he finally sucks in air through parched lips and opens his eyes.
“Heinrich!” I exclaim, throwing my arms forward and flinging myself at him.
He chuckles hoarsely as he places a loose hand on the small of my weak, still evidently weak from just having his soul returned to a body he was ready to give up on.
“Whoa…a little easy, yeah?” he chuckles, and I pull away slowly.
“I’m sorry. I’m just really glad you’re back. You almost died.”
He smiles softly at me. “You brought me back, my fearless dove,” he says as he gently cups my cheek, stroking my skin with the pad of his thumb. “You brought me back.”
This time, it’s his arms that wind around me, drawing me close as he becomes stronger in an instant, as if he hadn’t been dying just now. With the warmth of his arms and breath against my neck, I feel safer than ever and relieved that he didn’t die.
I was able to save him because of my magic.
But I needed to save him because I needed him in my life, just as much as I need the air in my lungs.
The profound realization has me basking in his embrace, even as the others gather around us to greet him and witness the miracle performed.
Everything around us fades, and even though we’re in our physical forms, I cling to the soul I kissed, the soul I have come to love.