Chapter 29
Chapter
Twenty-Nine
W ater closed in over Kade’s head. His body itched as decay skittered along his skin. He shuddered and gasped, trying to take in air, but there was none, only filthy water burning his throat, choking him. Bands of iron clamped around his chest. No matter how hard he struggled, the blackness, the oil-slick rot, coated him, clogged his lungs, and stole his ability to breathe.
The vice grip tightened as the spirit dug into his brain and buried itself there until nothing was left of him, stripping him of control over his own body. He thrashed, attempting to throw it off, but it was too strong.
A warm hand pierced through the filth and closed around his wrist. His skin buzzed at the contact.
“Breathe,” a soothing voice said.
Waves of calm tried to wash over him, but breathing was impossible in the torrent of decay and rot that had invaded him.
“Kade, I need you to breathe for me. You can do it.” The words were gentle, but they withstood the onslaught of corruption.
The tingling in his wrist increased, sweeping up his arm. A cool, clear presence in his mind pulsed with calming energy that whispered over his skin, and he caught the faintest hint of a scent—bonfire and old paper and pack. His own scent, but more. Better.
He tried to force his lungs to work, taking in a ragged breath, shaking with the effort. His eyes were pressed shut against the filth he was drowning in.
“Breathe, Kade,” the voice said again.
Kade took in another painful gasp, then another, until the polluted water began to subside, inch by inch, freeing him from its embrace. It receded until his head was above water, though his chest was still tight.
“That’s good.” Another calming pulse rolled through him, growing stronger, warmer, driving away the water, the spirit.
He peeled his eyes open and found Liam staring down at him, his expression concerned, moonlight highlighting his features.
Kade sat up, shaky from the nightmare.
“Are you okay?” Liam asked.
Clearly he was not.
“Why am I not over this shit?” Frustration roughened his voice. He dragged a hand through sweat-damp hair.
“You dreamed about drowning? In the spirit?”
For a moment, the water was back, but then Liam’s hand was on his arm again. Kade swallowed the bile in his throat.
“When it possessed me, it came out of nowhere and surrounded me, and I couldn’t breathe. It filled my lungs like polluted water. Like I was drowning in it.”
“We can leave the window open. I’ll wear another layer to bed and put a ward on the screen. At the very least, I should be able to manage a ward that blocks snow.”
Kade snorted. “No. I have to get over this. It’s too cold in here for you with it open, and if I’m being honest, I want it closed so the room smells more like you.”
Liam’s gaze softened, but then a determined expression crossed his face. “In that case, there’s something we need to do. We have to heal the decay spirit.”
Kade’s brow furrowed. “Why?”
“If we heal it, if you can overcome it, I think it’ll give you closure.”
Knowing that spirit was gone would be a relief. Kade couldn’t imagine the weight of that off his chest.
“To be clear,” Liam said, “healing isn’t linear. If we get rid of the spirit, it doesn’t mean I expect you to never have another panic attack. If you still have nightmares, I won’t judge you for that. But let’s do this. Let’s heal the spirit so it’s no longer in this house.”
Kade wanted that, but the idea of facing the spirit made his heart race. “We’ve only done small spirits.”
He’d never seen Liam look quite as resolved as he did when he answered. “We can do it. Together, we can do it.”
Liam rolled out of bed, and Kade blinked at him. “Now?” It was the middle of the night.
“No time like the present.” He held out a hand to Kade and hauled him to his feet.
They didn’t change, just slipped through the quiet house in their nightclothes.
Kade followed Liam to the room where the spirits were stored, and they grabbed the cedar chest Elijah had used to capture the decay spirit. His skin crawled as he picked it up. It had been in the house since his childhood, but now the sight of it made him feel unclean.
In the workroom, Liam drew a larger circle than the ones they’d been using and placed the chest in the center of it.
“Ready?” he asked as Kade sat next to him.
Kade was, but that didn’t keep his lungs from threatening to close as Liam flipped the latch and opened the lid. The spirit churned, and Kade could swear there was no air left in the room.
Liam’s hand found his, their fingers intertwining. “This is going to take a lot of energy.”
Given how much the smaller spirits took, that wasn’t surprising. Kade nodded. He’d give anything to lessen the helpless feeling that overtook him whenever he thought about his encounter with this spirit.
Liam channeled his energy and fed it into the circle. At first, it seemed like nothing was changing, like the spirit wasn’t being healed. But Liam didn’t give up; he simply pulled deeper on Kade’s energy and continued to pour his magic into the spell.
He kept working until sweat glistened on his forehead. Until, little by little, the spirit began to fade.
It was a long process, far longer than it had taken them to heal any of the handful of spirits they’d done before. But this one had been so much bigger, and it hadn’t completely lost its size while locked up in the box.
The spirit shrank, giving way to the healing spell, and then it was gone.
Kade sucked in a breath and clean air filled his lungs.
The spirit was gone.
He stared at the empty chest, feeling almost numb with shock.
It was gone.
It was over.
Liam’s hand squeezed his. “Is that better?”
“I think so.”
“Good. But like I said, this doesn’t mean you have to be okay.”
“I thought I was okay after my sense of smell returned. I… I’ve been using your scent as an anchor, as something to remind me that I’m in the present moment whenever I start to panic.”
“ Oh .” Liam seemed unsure how to respond to that.
He needed all the information laid out before him in order to make a decision, and Kade could give him that. “I can’t describe how perfect your scent is, how well it mixes with mine. None of this is remotely how I’d pictured this happening, but it has, and now I don’t want to sever our bond. I want to keep this. I want us to be together.”
Liam hesitated, and Kade could only wait for his reply.
Finally, he grimaced. “I don’t know if starting a relationship with a mistake is the best idea.”
Kade shook his head. “No. The situation wasn’t ideal. It was probably the worst way for us to bond. I messed this up, but it wasn’t a mistake.”
“How can you say that?”
“Would you have given me a chance without this happening?”
Liam inhaled, about to speak, but then he paused, and Kade sensed him wavering.
His shoulders slumped. “I don’t think I would have. Sorry, but I wouldn’t have been around you enough to get to know you. I mean, I would have thought you were hot, but I doubt I’d have realized how much more there is to you than the terrible pickup lines.”
Kade huffed. “Hey. I have amazing pickup lines.”
“That has yet to be seen.”
“Alright. Challenge accepted.”
Liam grinned at him.
Sobering, Kade stared him in the eye. He needed Liam to understand. “This was not a mistake. It wasn’t some adorable, fictional meet-cute, sure, but I don’t regret it. You’re everything I’ve ever wanted. You’re not a mistake. Not even close.”
He sensed those words hit Liam, saw the hitch in his breath, heard the skip in his heartbeat.
“I wouldn’t want to stay here forever,” Liam said. “I do enjoy it here, just not all the time.”
“Same. After this is over, I want to explore the world with you. I want to be by your side as you find all the knowledge your heart desires, and I want to help you save it, preserve it.”
“So we travel for a few months, then come back home? And maybe we could avoid the worst of winter here?”
Kade grinned. “That sounds perfect.”
“How did you picture this happening?” Liam asked.
“This?” Kade’s cheeks hurt with the extent of his smile. “Us?”
“With all those books you read, you must have had an ideal scenario. No spirits, no bonding when neither of us was ready for it. What was it?”
Kade drank in Liam’s scent, savoring it. There were so many ways this could have played out, but most started in the same place. “You’d come to visit Elijah, and from the moment you met me, you’d think I was insanely charming and handsome.”
Liam chuckled. “Okay, we can pretend you’re the smoothest wolf shifter to ever exist.”
“I’d flirt with you, and obviously you wouldn’t be able to resist my charms. We’d edge closer. You’d shoot me looks across the table at dinner, glancing at me out of the corner of your eye. As we got closer, I’d notice your scent and crave more of it. You’d be here for the full moon. You and Elijah would be sitting by the bonfire, and I’d strip to shift, knowing you were watching me. Maybe you’d follow me into the forest, or just think about it the entire night. Elijah would try everything in his power to keep us apart, but you’d be far too attracted to me to stay away.”
Liam shook his head fondly. “Sure. You’re irresistible. I’m magnetically pulled to you.”
“As you should be. Then I’d woo you.”
“ Woo me?”
“Yeah. I’d woo the absolute hell out of you. I’d take you out for a romantic dinner. Candlelight, fine dining, me looking dashing in a suit.”
“I am partial to a good candle.”
“And then after dinner, we’d end up in my bedroom. I’d go slow, drive you out of your mind with pleasure, until you begged for me to bite you, to give you my knot.”
Liam shivered. “I’m not sure I’m the type to beg for someone’s knot after one dinner.”
“It’d be a very romantic dinner. But I’d be willing to make it into a whole series of romantic dinners. We’d go to a hotel, or find a cabin with a fireplace and one of those overly expensive rugs in front of it. And if none of that works for you, I’d buy you a dozen books.”
“Not roses?”
Kade scoffed. “You wouldn’t want roses. Books all the way. I’d get ones with red covers, if you wanted. Or I suppose I could give you a bouquet of dick-shaped candles or suckers. Or anything dick-shaped, really.”
“I’ll take the books, thanks,” Liam said dryly.
“Whether it’s books or candles or MateHub merch—”
“Definitely not that.” Liam’s laughter settled in Kade’s chest, warming him.
“I’d sweep you off your feet and into my bed. It’d be exactly what we both wanted.”
“We should do that.” Liam had the softest smile on his face, his eyes shimmering with amusement, their bond full of happiness and delight. “Our order of operations is backward, but after we take care of everything, let’s do those dates. I won’t be a mistake, and you won’t mess up. But maybe tonight…” He slid his fingers along Kade’s. “We could do that last part?”
Kade let out a low rumble. “Are you sure?”
“I want to explore the world with you too. I want you to see all the places you’ve longed to see. In person, not just in the books on your shelf. I want you to go everywhere you’ve dreamed of going, experience everything you’ve dreamed of doing. And I want to be there with you when you do. For us to do that together. Travel the world together. Find that future together.”
Kade leaned closer and reveled in their scent, in the promise that Liam could be his forever. He rested his forehead against Liam’s. “East or west?”
Liam was light and giddy in his mind. “Whichever way you want to go.”
Kade didn’t care as long as it was with Liam. He ran his hand along Liam’s sharp jawline, tilted his head up, and brought their lips together. It was a soft brush that had them both gasping, but he didn’t deepen the kiss.
He pulled away, and Liam chased after him, silently asking for more. He blinked his eyes half-open.
“Give me ten minutes?” Kade said. “Then come upstairs.”
Liam looked bemused, but he nodded. “Okay. I’ll see you in ten.”
Kade swooped in for a quick kiss, then hurried out of the room. He had things to prepare.