Chapter 38 Laurent
thirty-eight
Laurent
The obsidian beneath my paws sliced deeper with each step, black glass that hungered for blood as much as the creatures that stalked this realm. I’d grown used to pain in this place. We all had, but Bastien’s labored breathing behind me scraped my nerves raw in ways the mountain never could.
Marcel caught my eye, the silent communication we’d perfected over years of brotherhood speaking volumes.
Our younger brother was fading. The poison that had seeped into his wound days ago now pulsed through his veins, turning his normally vibrant energy into something dim and stuttering.
We needed to rest, but in Hell, stillness was just another invitation to die.
“There,” I projected through our bond, nodding toward a slight depression in the mountainside ahead. It wasn’t much. Just enough space for the three of us to huddle together, protected on two sides by jutting rock. But it would have to do. Bastien couldn’t continue like this.
Marcel nodded, his massive form moving ahead to secure the area.
Even in this half-transformed state, walking on two legs instead of four, my oldest brother maintained the regal bearing that had made him king in our former life.
He’d lost none of his authority, none of his strength.
But I could see the fear he tried to hide, the way his gaze kept darting back to Bastien.
I fell back, positioning myself beside our youngest brother. “Just a little farther,” I encouraged in my almost human voice, letting my shoulder bear some of his weight. “We’ll rest soon.”
Bastien’s drowsy gaze flickered toward me, fever-bright and unfocused. “I’m fine,” he growled, the words slurring slightly. “Stop coddling me.”
Stubborn as always. Even with poison eating through his system, he refused to acknowledge weakness. In our previous life, I’d found this trait exasperating. Here, it might be the only thing keeping him alive.
We reached the ledge just as Bastien’s legs finally gave out. Marcel caught him before he could fall, lowering him gently to the smoother section of obsidian. Our younger brother’s fur was matted with sweat, his breath coming in shallow pants that made my own chest ache in sympathy.
“The wound’s worse,” Marcel observed, carefully examining the gash on Bastien’s thigh where a demon’s barbed tail had caught him during our last skirmish. The flesh around it had turned an ugly, mottled black, veins of poison spreading outward like cracks in glass. “The darkness is spreading.”
I nodded grimly, settling on Bastien’s other side. Together, we positioned him between us, our bodies creating a fortress around his smaller form. Protection was instinctive now. The three of us against the endless horrors of the Dark Lord’s domain.
“I’m not dying,” Bastien muttered, though the effort of speaking made him wince. “Stop looking at me like that.”
“No one said you were,” I replied, trying for a lightness I didn’t feel. “But even the most stubborn prince needs rest occasionally.”
Marcel’s thought brushed against mine, private from Bastien. He’s getting worse. The poison shouldn’t have affected him this long. Something’s different about this attack.
I met my older brother’s gaze over Bastien’s head. I know. The Dark Lord is changing tactics. Using something stronger.
We both knew what that meant. Our enemy was getting desperate, or creative. Neither option boded well for us. But at least we’d felt a change in Isabeau over the past few days. A strengthening. Her presence in our bond had been more consistent, more alert, though strangely distant from the castle.
“She’s awake more,” Bastien murmured, proving he was still coherent enough to track the connection that bound us all together. “Growing stronger.”
“Yes,” I agreed, taking comfort in that small mercy. Whatever hell Isabeau was enduring in our absence, she at least wasn’t starving anymore. “But she’s not at the castle.”
Marcel’s growl rumbled through the ledge beneath us. “No. Someone’s taken her.”
The knowledge should have enraged me. It would have, under different circumstances.
Isabeau belonged with us. At the castle.
Where our bond was strongest. But I couldn’t ignore the evidence of my senses.
She was healthier now. More aware. Her fear had lessened, replaced by a wary sort of comfort that suggested she was being cared for, even if she remained cautious.
“She’s better off,” I said finally, the admission tearing from me like a piece of myself. “Wherever she is, she’s being fed. Kept warm. Protected.”
“By someone else,” Marcel growled, the possessiveness in his tone something I understood too well. We’d only just found her—our mate, our salvation—before being ripped away. The thought of another protecting what was ours...
“Does it matter?” I asked softly, watching Bastien’s chest rise and fall with concerning irregularity. “If she’s safe? If she’s healing? We always said we wanted what was best for her, even if it wasn’t us.”
Bastien’s laugh was a pained wheeze. “Always the diplomat, Laurent. Always trying to see the best in every shitty situation.”
I smiled despite everything, combing my clawed fingers gently through his matted fur. “Someone has to balance out your cynicism, little brother.”
Truth was, I didn’t like it any more than they did.
The thought of Isabeau with another protector made something primal and ugly twist in my chest. But we had more immediate concerns.
Like keeping Bastien alive long enough to find a way out of this realm.
Like figuring out how to break the Dark Lord’s hold on us all.
“She’s dreaming,” Marcel said suddenly, his head tilting as if listening to something beyond my perception. “I can feel it. She’s reaching for us in her sleep.”
I closed my eyes, focusing on the delicate thread that connected us across dimensions.
And there she was, our Isabeau. Her essence more vibrant than it had been since our separation.
The familiar warmth of her spirit brushed against mine like a caress, sending a shudder of longing through my entire body.
“Marcel,” I whispered, suddenly afraid to hope. “Do you feel what she’s trying to do?”
My older brother nodded, his eyes wide with a mixture of wonder and fear. “She’s never done this before. Never reached this far, this deliberately.”
Bastien stirred between us, a faint whimper escaping him as the poison pulsed visibly beneath his skin. “What’s happening?” he managed, his words slurring more pronouncedly now.
I didn’t answer, too focused on the miracle unfolding through our bond. Isabeau’s consciousness, still dream-hazed but undeniably present, had homed in on Bastien. On his pain. On the foreign darkness destroying him from within. And she was...
“She’s pulling it out,” Marcel breathed, watching in astonishment as tendrils of black began to lift from Bastien’s wound. “Gods above, she’s drawing the poison through our bond.”
I couldn’t look away. The dark venom literally lifted from my brother’s ravaged flesh, defying gravity and everything I understood about our separate realms. It rose like reverse rain.
Droplets of pure corruption pulled through some invisible siphon toward whatever part of Isabeau was reaching for us.
Bastien gasped, his back arching as the poison began to flow more freely. Not toward his heart as it had been, but outward, drawn by a power none of us had realized Isabeau possessed.
“It hurts,” he choked, claws digging into my arm. “Laurent, it fucking burns.”
“I know,” I soothed, though I didn’t know what he was experiencing. “But let it happen. She’s helping you. Let her help.”
The poison continued its impossible exodus, more and more of the black substance lifting from Bastien’s wound, from the infected veins surrounding it, even from deeper tissues where it had burrowed toward vital organs.
It hung suspended above him for a breathless moment, a cloud of pure malevolence, before streaming away over the cliff’s edge like some perverse waterfall.
Marcel and I exchanged stunned glances. We’d always known Isabeau was special, had sensed the magic in her blood from the moment she entered our forest. Our beasts knew her as our mate immediately, hence why Marcel claimed her upon her arrival, unable to fight the urge.
But this? This was beyond anything we’d imagined.
This was the power of a goddess, channeled through a mortal woman who probably had no idea what she was doing even as she did it.
“The Dark Lord,” I whispered, realization dawning like a cold sun. “He knew. That’s why he wanted her blood. That’s why he didn’t just kill her when he had the chance.”
Marcel nodded grimly. “He’s been trying to use her power against her. Against us. But she’s stronger than he realized.”
Between us, Bastien’s breathing had steadied, the ragged edges of his pain smoothing as the last of the poison drained from his system. Color returned to the flesh around his wound, the angry black receding to leave only a clean gash that, while still serious, no longer threatened his existence.
“Isabeau,” he murmured, his voice clearer than it had been in days. “I can feel her better.”
So could I. Her presence had grown stronger through the connection, the delicate thread between us thickening to something more substantial. I reached for her instinctively, projecting all my love, my gratitude, my awe at what she’d accomplished.
Her response was immediate. A wash of emotion so pure it brought tears to my eyes. Love. Fear. Determination. And beneath it all, a message that wasn’t quite words but that I understood perfectly.
Protect each other. I’m trying to save you too.
“She has no idea what she just did,” Marcel said softly, stroking Bastien’s forehead as our younger brother drifted into the first peaceful sleep he’d had since being wounded. “She doesn’t know the extent of her own power.”
I shook my head, still reeling from the miracle we’d witnessed. “No. And she’s doing it from wherever she’s being held. Imagine what she could do at the castle, at the nexus point.”
Marcel’s expression darkened. “If the Dark Lord realizes how much her power has grown...”
He didn’t need to finish the thought. We both knew the danger.
If our enemy discovered that Isabeau could reach across dimensions, could affect physical change in this realm from her position in the mortal world.
He’d stop at nothing to recapture her. To bend her to his will.
To use her as a weapon in whatever cosmic war he was waging.
“We have to reach her,” I said, the words a vow more than a statement. “Have to find a way back to her before he does.”
Marcel nodded, his gaze fixed on the horizon where the black poison had disappeared.
“We will. For now, we let Bastien heal. Let Isabeau rest.” A grim smile curved his muzzle.
“And then we continue climbing. Whatever’s at the top of this mountain, it’s important enough that the Dark Lord doesn’t want us to reach it. ”
I settled more comfortably against the obsidian wall, positioning myself to keep watch while my brothers rested.
The hellscape stretched endlessly below us, rivers of magma carving paths through blackened terrain, lightning erupting from the ground in unpredictable bursts.
But for the first time since our arrival in this realm, I felt something dangerously close to hope.
Isabeau was growing stronger. Learning her power. And if she could reach us here, in the darkest pit of the Dark Lord’s domain, what else might she be capable of? What other miracles might she perform, this mate of ours who carried goddess-blood in her veins?
I closed my eyes, focusing on the connection that bound us. Rest now, my love, I sent through the bond, not knowing if she could hear me, not caring. We’re safe. You saved us. Saved Bastien. Rest and grow stronger. We’ll find our way back to you, no matter what it takes.
The bond pulsed once in response, a gentle acknowledgment, before settling into a steady rhythm that matched Bastien’s now-even breathing.
Whatever came next, we wouldn’t face it alone.
We had each other—three princes bound by blood and curse and love.
And we had Isabeau, reaching for us across impossible distances, refusing to let go.
The Dark Lord had no idea what he’d awakened in her. But he would learn, just as we all would, the true extent of her power.
And gods help anyone who stood between her and what was hers.