CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE #4
“You’re… you’re—” My voice cracked. Tears burned down my cheeks.
Asher’s voice came quiet, steady, but threaded with something old and heavy.
“Ava…” His voice dropped. “You know what I am.”
I shook my head, backing away, shaking so hard I could barely breathe. “I—I don’t understand.”
“Say it,” he said, low now, almost a growl. Each step forward was measured, careful, predatory.
My lips parted. The words scraped out like a wound.
“You’re Veyari.”
He stilled. Then, slowly, he nodded.
Something in my chest broke clean in two.
“You…” My throat tightened until it hurt. “Oh gods. It was you.”
He flinched. “Ava—”
“You…” My throat tightened until it hurt. “Oh gods. Jax.”
Asher flinched.
“The Veyari were connected to what happened to him.” My voice broke. “You knew.”
“Ava, let me explain.”
But the words fell flat. All I could hear was the sound of my heart breaking.
The bite burned.
Not a sting—not even pain—burned. Like fire and shadow had found a home beneath my skin.
I looked down and watched in horror as black veins pulsed from the wound, threading up my arm like something alive.
“Asher…” My voice broke.
He took a step forward, panic flickering in his eyes. “We need to get that checked. Now.”
“You’re staying the fuck away from me.” My voice was hoarse, shaking. Fire gathered at my fingertips, the air around me warping.
“Ava—”
“No!” I screamed, tears spilling over. “Don’t you fucking come near me!”
The veins crawled higher, the skin around them blistering, and every heartbeat felt like an explosion.
“Aether!” I called down the bond, wild and frantic.
His voice thundered back, raw with alarm. “Flame one, run!”
My breath caught. Where are you?
“Zya’s got me,” his voice fractured with a snarl. “She’s stronger than she looks. Run!”
The bond fell abruptly silent.
I lifted my gaze.
Asher was still standing there, every line of him coiled, controlled, waiting.
He already knew what I was about to do. He always knew.
That was what made him terrifying. What made me love him.
The male who had my heart—the male who had just destroyed it.
“How could you?”
My voice cracked in half. The tears came harder, hot and endless. The bond between us pulsed wild with agony, the ache of it nearly knocking me to my knees. “I trusted you. I loved you.”
“Ava, please,” he begged. His voice wasn’t smooth anymore; it was jagged, splintering. “Just let me explain.”
“No.” I shook my head. “No, you don’t get to explain. Not after this. Not after him.”
He flinched, and I felt it—his guilt, thick as blood in the bond.
“I wanted to tell you,” he whispered. “Gods, Ava, I tried—”
Then he turned his head and whistled.
The infection screamed under my skin, burning, consuming.
“Why?”
He took a step toward me, agony etched into every line of his face. “Because I couldn’t lose you too.”
Before I could speak, a shadow moved next to me from the trees.
A flicker of auburn. Familiar.
“Ezra,” I breathed, hope catching in my throat.
He stepped into the light. Same auburn hair. Same freckles.
But his eyes...
Not molten orange.
Crimson.
“No…” I whispered.
Cold iron cuffs snapped around my wrists, runes flaring across their surface. My magic died instantly, the fire beneath my skin brutally snuffed out.
“I’m sorry, Hotshot,” he said, and the sound of that name—his name for me—broke something deep inside me.
The black veins had reached my shoulder. The infection was pulsing faster, feeding on my panic.
“It’s spreading,” Ezra murmured, horror flickering across his face.
But I could barely hear him. The roaring in my ears drowned everything else out.
My magic screamed inside me, trapped, clawing to get free.
I dropped to my knees. The world went white around the edges.
Fire and poison warred in my veins.
I screamed until my throat tore.
The agony ripped through me in waves.
My fingers dug into the dirt as I tried to hold on—to something, anything.
Strong arms lifted me. Ezra’s. His hands were shaking.
I tried to fight, but my strength was gone. The infection was eating me alive from the inside.
Through the blur of tears and pain, I found Asher.
He stood a few feet away, his jaw locked, shoulders rigid, eyes bright silver again—but colder than I’d ever seen them.
The bond throbbed, desperate and wild. “Asher…”
He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. His expression was carved from stone.
“Let’s take her,” he ordered, voice flat, final.
Ezra hesitated.
“Now,” Asher snapped, shadows curling at his boots like smoke.
Ezra swallowed hard, cradling me against his chest.
My vision flickered, darkness creeping in.
“Asher…” My voice was barely a whisper. “Please…”
He looked at me then, and what I saw in his eyes was worse than hatred.
It was love—raw, unending, tearing him apart.
The world dimmed. The last thing I felt was the brush of his magic—cold shadow against burning fire. The bond cracked open one last time, and I heard his voice soft, breaking.
“It wasn’t supposed to be this way, darling,” he sent, the words sounding like a death knell.
“I swear to the gods, Ava, I do fucking love you.”
The world darkened, and the fire went out.