Chapter 21 #2
I got in his face then. "I'm not telling her anything! You hear me? Because neither of you are going to die!"
Marcus laughed through his tears. "Such noble sentiment. Such pointless sacrifice." He looked up at me, his brown eyes ancient and broken and utterly mad. "You can't save your cousin. You're going to die here with him."
"There has to be another way—"
"There isn't." Marcus's smile was cruel even through his tears. "You can sever my thread and escape, leaving your precious Alex to die. Or you can stay and die together. Choose, little Threadwalker."
Talin, get out of there! Elias's panic flooded our bond.
I can't leave Alex—
YES, YOU CAN.
But I couldn't. I wouldn't. Not after everything we'd sacrificed to find him. Not after everything I'd gone through.
No.
I shook my head.
No. I couldn't fail. I couldn't fail this. I love you, I told him.
Against my better judgment, I looked into Marcus's possible futures one more time. Followed his thread forward through time, searching for any path where he'd let us go.
Wait.
There!
One thin, fragile possibility. So unlikely it barely existed. A future where Marcus released his vengeance, where he used his power to heal instead of harm, where he found redemption through helping those he'd hurt.
I showed it to him.
Marcus went completely still. His power quieted. For one moment—one perfect, crystalline moment—I saw the male he could've been. The uncle who loved his family. The djinn who chose wisdom over wrath.
Then his eyes hardened again. "Pretty lies." His thread tightened around my wrist, cutting deep enough to draw blood even in that realm of consciousness. "But you're still trapped here with me. And the others are growing weaker. You're running out of time."
NO.
The word hadn't come from me. It came from everywhere. From the air itself. From the collapsing walls. From the void rushing toward us.
From Elias.
Suddenly he was there. His eyes flicked down to my bleeding wrist and his mouth opened with a hiss, fangs bared, before they found mine again.
"Elias, what are you—how are you—"
"I don't fucking know and I don't fucking care." His presence wrapped around me, silver light so bright it hurt to look at. "But you're not dying here."
"You can't be here! You have to go back—"
"Watch me rewrite the rules." He moved toward Marcus's thread binding my wrist, and I saw what he intended to do.
"No! Elias, if you touch it directly—"
"I know." His voice was steady, certain. "It'll burn through whatever's keeping me here. Whatever magic or mate bond bullshit let me follow you."
My heart shattered. "You'll die."
"Maybe." He'd looked at me then, and in his eyes I saw everything. Every moment he'd watched me, every time he'd fought his feelings, every second he'd loved me even while trying not to. Every future we could've had. "But you'll live. All of you will live."
"Elias, please—"
The void rushed closer. Marcus's thread tightened, and I cried out in pain. Alex's life energy flickered weaker.
"You'll all be alive," Elias continued, his hand moving closer to the thread. "And that's all that fucking matters."
"I won't let you—"
"You don't get a vote, little witch." He smiled then, that crooked smile that had undone me from the start. "I choose this. I choose you. I choose to give up forever if it means you get even one more day."
"No…Elias… NO!"
Terror paralyzed me, freezing my muscles as his fingers closed around Marcus's thread.
The scream that tore from him was inhuman. Silver fire erupted where his hands touched the binding, spreading up his arms, consuming him from the inside out. But he didn't let go. Even as he burned right in front of me, even as I felt him being ripped away from me, he held on.
Still on his knees, Marcus laughed.
"Take Alex," Elias gasped through the agony. "Take him and run."
The binding loosened just enough for me to pull my wrist out. Through eyes blurred with tears, I wasted precious seconds trying to memorize my mate's face. Then I grabbed Alex with everything I had and yanked us toward the dimensional barrier. Behind us, Elias's scream tore through me.
I looked back.
Marcus's thread snapped.
The backlash hit like a shockwave. Marcus's form dissolved, scattering across dimensions as the cavern's collapse accelerated into chaos.
"Elias!" I screamed, trying to reach back for him, but Alex's weight and the collapsing dimension pulled me forward.
Go, Elias shouted through our bond, the connection different already, altered somehow. Get him home. Save... everyone.
The void caught Elias as I crashed through the barrier with Alex, and the last thing I felt through our bond was his acceptance. His peace. His love.
Then—impact.
I slammed hard into the floor in Judy's circle, Alex with me. His body convulsing as his spirit reconnected to this dimension, gasping and choking as life flooded back into him.
Judy called my name, but her voice was drowned out by Kenya's anguished cry as she flew into Alex's arms, knocking him back onto the floor. I looked over to see his arms come around her as she latched onto his throat and began to drink with apologetic sounds.
"Kenya…" I gently touched her shoulder, knowing she needed to feed, but worried about my cousin. Alex lifted one hand just long enough to brush me away.
"It's okay," he said. I wasn't sure if he was talking to me or to his mate, but I let them be, watching as Kenya clung to Alex with desperation, her trembling hands fisting in his shirt like she was terrified he might disappear again.
Every fiber of my being screamed to do the same.
To reach for Elias through our bond, to feel that familiar connection thrumming between us.
I found the thread that connected us and pulled with all of my might, but there was only silence where he should have been.
A hollow, aching void that made my chest tighten until I couldn't breathe.
He was still in that collapsing dimension.
Alone.
"It's okay," Alex murmured again against Kenya's hair, his large hand cradling the back of her head as she fed. His voice was rough, exhausted, but alive. So impossibly alive. His words felt like a knife twisting in my gut.
Because nothing was okay.
Elias wasn't here. He wasn't safe. And I'd left him behind.
I squeezed my eyes shut against the burning tears, my fingers curling into fists against the floor. I should have held on tighter. Should have reached back for him instead of just screaming his name like some helpless damsel. Should have—
A loud screeching sound tore through the air above our heads, shattering my spiraling thoughts.
Then a body hit the floor hard beside me with a bone-jarring thud that made everyone in the room jump.
Elias?
His body was still. Too still. His chest rose and fell with labored breathing, but it was wrong. Everything about him was wrong.
"Elias!" I scrambled to him, pressing my hands to his chest. His heart beat beneath my palms. Not the slow, measured rhythm of a vampire, but the frantic, failing rhythm of a dying human.
What the hell was I looking at? "Elias?"
His eyes opened, dark and intense, but missing that otherworldly gleam. When he tried to speak, blood bubbled from his lips. Human blood. Mortal blood.
"You absolute fucking idiot," I sobbed, cradling his head in my lap. "You beautiful, reckless, impossible idiot. What did you do?"
"Saved... you." His voice was barely a whisper, so terrifyingly human. "Lost everything else... but saved you."
"Not everything," I pressed my forehead to his, our bond still humming between us, changed but unbroken. "Stay with me. Please. Don't you dare leave me now."
"Trying..." His hand found mine, warm and trembling. "But turns out... being human again... really fucking hurts."