Chapter 25
Malakai and I just gazed at each other, but no one said a word.
It was like nothing could express what was going inside our heads.
All I knew was how tightly he adjusted his arms around me, afraid I’d disappear.
The only thing he was wearing was a pair of cross-earrings, shimmering a pearly silver.
Like whoever kept him hidden here didn’t think him worthy enough to wear clothes.
Seeing all of the streaks across his skin, some red, some white, made me realize that he must have been tortured for so long.
I was so angry at the person who did this to him and sad that I hadn’t been able to prevent it.
My fingers brushed lightly against his wings.
I was afraid to overstep a boundary, but I longed to touch them as if their feathers were a way of finding a way back home.
Damien shifted into his dragon form hours ago and swam through the portal to see if I could make it in my human form.
Since then, he hadn’t come back.
There had been this fear inside me, after coming here, finding the ones who truly loved me, that it was all too good to be true.
Gwendolyn, my love.
The voice appeared out of nowhere, and all I could think about was that it was Xavier. I couldn’t respond to Xavier calling me by my name, I still had no idea how it worked with speaking mentally to him.
But I heard his voice… he was trying to speak to me. He was nearby. He’d found us.
“Are you okay?” Malakai asked, his fingers brushing over my back.
“I think Xavier is trying to talk to me, but I don’t know how to respond.”
“You bonded physically to him already, right?”
My cheeks flushed, knowing what he meant by it.
“Yes,” I replied, my gaze drifting toward the floor.
I felt Malakai gripping my chin making me gaze upwards.
“No need to be embarrassed.” He pressed a soft kiss to my forehead.
“Then it is easy. You just need to think of these moments of desire and push everything else out of the center of your mind.” I felt his fingers gliding along my jaw, his fingers brushing the corner of my lips.
“And what if I can’t find him in my mind and answer him?”
“Then I’ll help you, for as long as it takes,” he said, his fingers brushing against my lower lip.
I closed my eyes… trying to use my connection, my desire, to find Xavier. To locate him… wherever he was.
And I almost lost all hope, before I felt a small shadow wrapping around my mind like silk.
“Xavier?” I asked quietly. It felt so weird to try to talk with a shadow of my mind, but I started to get anxious. What if it wasn’t Xavier? What if I failed all of them?
Malakai’s hand slipped from my chin to the curve of my neck, his fingers tracing the line of my collarbone with reverent slowness, almost like he tried to ground me.
“Don’t be afraid… open your mind. Think of him.”
He leaned in again, kissing the spot just below my ear. His touch relaxed me.
I was thinking about the first time I saw Xavier back in the tunnels…
how much I’d hated him for bringing me here, and how much I truly wanted him.
Every time Xavier glided his hands down my side until they settled at my waist, I felt my body heating up.
It almost felt like his touches pulled my body into devotion.
Gwendolyn?
It was a question from… it was Xavier’s voice.
I answered with a nod, the kind that came from the heart, not just the body.
My achingly beautiful, stunning little creature… Tell me where you are.
Although Xavier only spoke with me in my mind, it felt like he whispered against my skin, as if the words hurt him to say aloud.
Damien and I found Malakai… he was trapped in some underground cave, beneath the Ancient Springs.
It was silent between us… nearly unbearable until I perceived his voice again.
Are you safe?
Damien is gone, Malakai and I are waiting for him.
I’ll save you, my love. Nothing is ever coming between us.
I could feel his forehead pressing against mine, although he was only there in my mind.
Suddenly, Malakai’s thumb brushed my cheekbone, leading me to open my eyes.
His gaze was intense, clear, and full of knowing.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his thumb brushing strokes over my face.
I gazed up at him, tears welling in my eyes before I could stop them. “I don’t know where Damien is… I don’t feel him. I don’t even know where Xavier is… if he is able to find us, and you…” My fingers trailing along all the painful red wounds, brushing softly across them.
“I don’t even know what happened to you here… I couldn’t save you.”
He cradled my face with both hands, his thumbs wiping the tears away. “You have saved me.”
I blinked, confused, my body still pulsing from the remnants of the connection I built up with Xavier in my mind. “What do you mean?”
“Through you. Through our bond… I collected all my strength for my time down here. I didn’t obey.
I didn’t let the darkness consume me. Because I knew you would find me,” he stated, his fingers intertwining with mine.
I blinked at him, dazed by his words, my mind still tangled with many thoughts.
My body yearned for his skin, making me lean even closer to Malakai’s touch.
But before I could let myself melt fully into the moment, a pulse rippled through the air, and within a blink of a second, Damien’s dragon form flew through the portal entrance again.
“Damien?”
My lips parted, stunned, as he shifted back into his human form. His naked body bent forward, his chest rising and falling with ragged breaths. His beautiful eyes locked on mine.
“Damien?” I whispered, still not sure if this was real.
“I told you I’d come back,” he said, wrapping me in his arms, stroking over my head.
I didn’t move. I couldn’t. My body was frozen between Malakai’s closeness and Damien’s return.
“I thought I had lost you,” I murmured against his skin, my voice barely audible over the roar of my heartbeat. “How did you…?”
“Through you.” His voice trembled with something raw. “Through our bond. I felt you, even in the dark. Even when I couldn’t see a way out. But I also felt you communicating with Xavier through our bond… he and Sparrow are nearby.”
“Sparrow?”
He nodded.
“Yes, his siren powers… I felt their pull. They are trying to find us. I tried to create a rope with my powers in order to make them find us… because I do believe that there is only one way for us to leave this place…”
“And what is the way?”
“When I flew in my dragon form through the portal, I was stuck in a very weird place, it was dark. There was a glass wall, it looked like an ice surface, the only barrier between the Ancient Springs and Carnivalland.” He paused, his eyes searching for mine as if he needed me to ground himself.
“But I didn’t want to go through it alone.
Not unless I was sure I could bring you both back. ”
He reached for me, his hand cradling the back of my head as he pressed a tender kiss to my hair.
“You always find me…” I whispered, the memory of him pulling me from the Siren Lake came to the surface.
“I followed the connection to you,” he said softly. “Your fear. Your hope. It led me back to you,” he explained.
“That is how I feel with you, Gwendolyn,” Malakai said, his fingers brushing over my hands, causing a smile to curve my lips.
Before I could respond to both of them, the surface of the portal began shimmering, and then with a burst of wind, someone stepped through.
Xavier.
His blouse was soaked, his dark strands of hair plastered to his forehead, his eyes burning with that sharp, determined red glow only seen when his animalistic instincts of his vampire nature were dominant.
The moment his gaze found mine, something in his shoulders eased and he drew me into his arms. His body trembled, and the desperate way Xavier clung to me made me realize he had thought I was gone.
“You’re here,” I breathed, my voice nearly lost to the rush of energy around us. “How… How did you find me?”
“Sparrow felt the pull of Damien’s magic and located the other portal,” Xavier said.
“Where is Sparrow?” Damien asked.
“I told him to go back to the surface… to Nathaniel. I couldn’t risk my little brother being separated from him. It would feel the same as us being separated from each other,” he said, burying his face into my neck, stroking through the strands of my hair.
“Sparrow… he helped open it. But it only let me through when I thought I had lost you both. When I believed…” His voice broke slightly. “When I thought I wouldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t try.”
Damien stepped forward, tense. “You crossed realms. As a vampire.”
Xavier’s lip twitched in a dry smirk. “Don’t sound so surprised. You think dragons are the only ones willing to shatter rules for her?” His gaze drifted back and then he noticed Malakai’s state. His eyes turned red again… it was like he wanted to say something, but he kept silent.
Xavier’s hand cupped my cheek. “Next time, don’t leave me behind, love.”
“I didn’t mean to… Damien seemed to open the portal while I located Malakai… I didn’t…”
“I know,” he said gently. “But wherever you go, I’ll find you. Through glass, through magic, through madness, wherever you are. I will find you.”
Xavier glanced back at the portal entrance which had now started to pulse faintly, as if it seemed to be waiting for us. “If we’re all here, then maybe this place is done with us.”
“We can try to leave all together… our bond is whole right now,” Damien said, stripping quickly and giving Malakai his shirt to cover up his naked skin.
Damien pressed a soft kiss on my forehead, noticing my anxiety. “I’m here, we all are here. Don’t worry.”
I nodded, and then we all intertwined our hands together, forming a circle as we stepped through the portal.
As soon as every one of us had stepped into the new portal, it shifted, darkness surrounded us.