Chapter Twenty-Eight
When Hope Is the Only Thing Left
LIAM O’CONNOR
Pain is my whole universe, a relentless agony that permeates every inch of my body. Each moment is punctuated by the strain on my wrists and the cruel tease of gravity. The cold, slippery concrete beneath my bare toes offers little respite as I dangle from the ceiling like a condemned man.
Which I am. Oliver has no intention of allowing me to survive.
My body swings, oscillating between summoning the dwindling strength to lift myself and giving in to overwhelming exhaustion. The strain on my wrists is an insistent burn.
Oliver’s voice, laced with malicious triumph, bounces off the damp concrete walls, seeping into my bones. “Aiden cut and run with her. Didn’t marry her. Thinks he can change my plans because of a stupid magickal connection between you and Imogen.”
His laughter is a guttural sound that crawls across my skin. “It’s all for nothing. And your brother died for it.”
Bastard. Kill. My wolf is angry. Vengeful. I feel the same, but I can barely draw a breath.
Oliver’s face looms close, his breath hot and acrid on my skin. Each spoken word sends a moist spray across my face, but I’m too far gone to summon the energy to turn away. My body is burned from hot lights, weak from blood loss, and broken from physical brutality. My wolf is the only reason I’m not dead. But the healing can only go so fast and for so long.
“I win. I always win.” Oliver’s words slither into my ears. “Your pack will pay for its disobedience and lies just like your brother already paid.”
Jackson. I’ll never be able to unsee the life fading from my brother’s eyes.
He wants me to respond, but I can’t speak, let alone resist. My swollen face is like hardening plaster, crackling with each slight movement. I can’t open my eyes. Each breath I draw is an agonizing challenge, a harsh reminder that I won’t last much longer. My wolf is pushing, clawing from the inside, desperately attempting to heal my body enough to keep it from shutting down.
Oliver’s fist connects with my ribs. Pain explodes in my chest. I let out an involuntary cry as something inside me shatters. A new wave of agony spreads, hot and searing, radiating from my chest. I cough, each spasm producing a sickeningly warm, coppery flood from between my lips.
Steps echo from across the room. Someone else is joining us in the dungeon.
“Oliver. What in Fate’s—” Meredith’s voice stalls, likely from the shock of seeing my brutalized state. “Is that—I thought—”
Her question hangs in the cold air.
“Oh, did you think they got him away from me? Were you privy to those stupid wolves’ plan and didn’t share?” Oliver asks with chilling nonchalance.
“Is he dead?”
“Not yet,” Oliver answers, sounding bored. “Fix him so I can beat on him more. I don’t want him to die until Imogen is sitting in a chair in front of him watching.”
The stench of Meredith’s terror fills the room.
“Do I need to go find Emma to make my point land better, Ms. Banfield?”
“How dare you!” The words spill from her lips, the seething fury behind each syllable vibrates through the basement like the words are alive with power of their own. “You so much as touch a hair on my daughter’s head and your business is dead, and you know it.”
Oliver grunts dismissively. “Eventually you won’t have that card to play, witch. Be very careful how you speak to me.” His voice holds a deadly edge. “Heal this piece of shit so I can rip him apart again.”
His fist connects again, the force of the blow mingling with the symphony of pain already coursing through my body. More blood drips from my mouth. I can’t distinguish old pain from new, but I deny him the pleasure of hearing me scream.
And I refuse to die, to leave Gen—not while that thin, ethereal thread linking our souls remains intact. It pulses within me, an echo of her spirit and strength that persists even through the blinding pain.
Aiden didn’t marry her—Oliver’s words reverberate in my mind, a glimmer of hope in overbearing darkness. Aiden stopped the wedding.
I won’t let go.
Even though I know deep in my soul Oliver will never let me leave this basement alive.
I won’t let go.
I won’t let my little brother’s death be in vain.
He would be pissed if I gave up now. I can hear his cocky little voice in my head asking why I’m not sneaking out of this damn basement.
“Have your man bring the blue trunk from my room. I need things.” Her words ring with a sense of urgency. Meredith steps closer and I feel the heat from her fingers where they hover near my face, but she doesn’t touch me. “I’m so sorry, Liam.”
Orders are given. Retreating footsteps climb the stairs.
“I need his body to be relaxed or this won’t work. Take him down from the beam.”
“Fine. Stretch him across the floor.”
Meredith makes a noise of dismay on my behalf but doesn’t argue.
Within a few moments, my body transitions from hanging to being stretched across the frigid concrete floor, arranged like an offering on a sacrificial altar already bathed in my blood.
Still, the pain is less. But now breathing becomes an uphill battle. The blood pooling in my lungs spreads with each ragged inhale, triggering bouts of coughing.
I’m drowning.
Then Meredith begins to chant in old Welsh. The words are unfamiliar, but the cadence and sound of it is not. It rings with an ancient power that seeps into the room, displacing the chill with a supernatural warmth.
The heat from the magick originates from my core, radiating outward, its touch gentle, yet potent. As it spreads, my pain dissipates, my coughing slows, and my consciousness slowly drifts away from my present reality into a foggy realm I don’t recognize.
It’s not dark.
It’s not light.
I simply exist, caught in a purgatory between agony and relief.
I have no idea how much time has passed when consciousness slowly creeps back in, a gentle tide lapping at the shores of my mind. The first sensation to register through the fog is the cold, sticky concrete against my back. Then comes the muffled hum of Meredith’s voice.
With great effort, I open one eye, surprised when it’s able to follow my command.
The room is dimly lit; shadows cling to the corners like ghosts. I’m alone, save for the two guards stationed at the bottom of the stairs. One of them is Noah. I can smell him.
And then there’s her—Meredith, hunched over an open blue trunk with packets and vials of different herbs and potions stacked on the floor all around her.
I turn my head farther and a groan escapes my lips, capturing her attention. She puts down the book she’s flipping through and our gazes meet.
“Meredith,” I rasp, struggling to string together the syllables.
“Shh...conserve your energy, Liam.” She scoots across the floor on her knees, closing the slight gap between us. There’s an undercurrent of sadness in her eyes, a strange mix of guilt and determination. “I heard about Jackson. I’m so sorry.”
My heart stutters when she says his name. It sounds so wrong to think about him being gone.
She speaks in Welsh again, her hands moving over me in sweeping tender motions. There’s an ethereal glow radiating from her palms, pooling even more warmth into my body. The pain recedes like a wave pulled back by the tide, leaving behind a tingling numbness.
I try to talk a little each time I wake, but our conversations, if you can call them that, are stilted and fragmented, with long silences due to me drifting in and out of consciousness.
We discuss everything and nothing—the weather, funny memories of her daughter when she was younger, funny memories she has of me and Jackson and Bast growing up with Emma and the other children in the coven, and the process of the spell she’s crafting to heal my broken body. She tells me Oliver hasn’t been back down to the basement all day and she’s worried about everyone outside the house.
I know she worries about Emma, but my thoughts are only on Gen. On Bast. Did they make it into the coven? Is she safe?
Meredith tells me she’s doing her best.
I know she is. The pain is less. Breathing is easier.
But it’s hard not to notice the sadness in her voice. She’s realistic. We both are. We both know my life will likely end in this concrete room. But even beneath the sadness, there’s a resolve, a determination that tells me she won’t give up on me. Just in case.
And neither will I.