Chapter 29
Imake sure the girls are okay and are being taken to the healing center before heading toward my mates. I’m ready to figure out why we’re blocked again when the edge of my senses picks up something, making me pause.
I follow the feeling and move around the building and through the forest, letting my instincts guide me and eventually come to one of the thickest trees I’ve ever seen. The truck alone is at least two widths the length of me.
A gasp catches my ears, and I move as silently as I can around the tree to find Willow up against it, and Sasha’s hand around her throat.
“Let her go,” I call out as I move toward them.
Sasha’s gaze whips to mine, her expression transforming from smugness to rage.
“How the fuck did you survive the attack?” she hisses and I still when I realize she doesn’t mean the mountain fall.
She’s talking about the Terrigon attack.
And the only way the bitch would know about something that literally happen less than a few minutes ago, was if she had something to do with it.
“Let. Her. Go,” I grit out while everything in me wants nothing more than to slam my sword through her chest.
“Or what? You’ll attack me?” She looks me up and down with nothing but superiority in her eyes. “You’re useless,” she says before glancing at Willow and tightening her grip. “Just like this one.”
I move over to them, each step measured before standing a couple of feet away from them and staring her in the eye.
“Last chance,” I warn but the humor in her eyes only grows.
“What are you going—” I raise my hand and my sword forms directly under her neck and she freezes.
Her eyes widen when she tries to move, and it nicks her. “What the fuck are you?” she hisses while looking at me with new eyes.
“Someone you should be very afraid of,” I warn her. “Now let her go before I decide to end your miserable life here and now.” I can’t kill her if I don’t want Levington’s suspicion thrown my way. But she doesn’t have to know that.
She slowly releases her hand, and Willow drops to the ground before scrambling away from her.
Sasha raises her hands and steps back. I release my sword and turn to Willow to help her up, but Willows eyes widen. I whip around to find Sasha attempting to jump me.
I duck and block her, moving quick to get behind her before punching her in the face.
Instead of crying out in pain, her eyes narrow, and she tries to rush me once more. I dodge her next attempt and slam my elbow into her side before swiping her legs from under her.
She immediately tries to get back up, but I call on my sword and it forms directly in front of her pointing over her black heart.
“You’re not going to kill me,” she says like she already knows I can’t. But that doesn’t mean I can’t hurt her. I doubt she’d run back to Levington to tell him all about me and my powers anyway without outing herself.
I’m about to give her a second black eye and broken nose when something inside me tells me to put my hands on her. I release my sword and follow my gut, bending to place them on the center of her chest.
The minute my hands touch her, she freezes as if she can no longer move, no matter how hard she tries to.
Energy slides over my skin, and seconds later I feel a pull and shift. The dirty, barren ground beneath us grows into lush green grass while flowers of every color spring up around us.
My gaze falls on Sasha as her face grows pale, and dark circles form beneath her eyes. It takes me seconds to realize what’s happening.
I’m syphoning her energy.
But instead of keeping it, I’m giving it back to the world around us.
When her eyes start to roll to the back of her head, I drag my hands away and she gasps before scrambling back away from me.
She eventually gets to her feet on trembling legs, narrows her eyes at me with a look that tells me this is far from over before stumbling through the forest away from us.
I let her go and head over to Willow, finding her lying in the same spot I left her, almost unmoving.
She blinks up at me and gives me a weak smile. My heart drops when I realize her face is paler than Sasha’s was after I syphoned her.
“Willow? What’s wrong? What can I do to help?”
She shakes her head and gives me another weak smile. “Nothing,” she whispers as she slowly glances over to the spot where Sasha and I was, where there now sits a beautiful path of land with lush green grass and flowers.
“I was trying to stop… her from stealing… another piece of the crystal,” she says, each word slow and breathless.
My eyes widen when I realize what she’s saying. My head whips from the tree to Willow. “The crystal is in there?”
Willow nods. “Most crystals made by royals last centuries… All were destroyed… But the last royal Alita, Queen Amara created ours… in haste… knew she was dying…”
The queen… my mother. I glance over at the tree and realize why I was drawn to it. A piece of my mother’s essence is inside it.
I push it to the back of my mind for now and focus on Willow.
“I need to get you to the healing center,” I tell her and try to help her up, but she shakes her head, giving me another sad smile that tightens something in my chest.
“My bracelet fell off… Sasha was already syphoning from the crystal when I found her… She sensed my essence and knew she could syphon me too.”
“It’s too late for me now,” she says and ice crawls down my back.
“No.” I shake my head. “No, Willow.”
“It’s okay,” she says softly already accepting the fact that she might die here and now.
“It’s not okay,” I tell her while panic threatens to consume me. “That bitch does not get to live while you die.”
Fuck. If I had known, I would have drained the bitch and given it to Willow.
I freeze at the thought and glance down at her.
If I can syphon Sasha’s energy and give it to the ground beneath us, surely I can do the reverse. Or at least give Willow some of mine.
Sending a silent prayer to my mother or anyone willing to listen, I place my hands on Willows chest, just as I did Sasha. This time, I focus and instead of letting instinct take over, I will the thought of some of my energy transferring to her.
Frustration bleeds inside me when nothing happens but I don’t give up and dig deeper, dragging up the energy from somewhere deep inside me, imagining it flowing through my hands and moving into Willow.
Seconds later I feel it. Warmth. It brushes over the surface of my skin before moving down into my hands and seeping into Willow.
Relief fills me when I see some color start to come back into Willow’s face as her strength slowly grows.
“Sena… What…” she breathes while watching on in awe as my hands start to glow and the light slowly envelops her chest before expanding out to every inch of her body.
A beam of light blares out around us, completely consuming her and me. After a minute, it finally recedes and reveals a completely healed Willow, her cheeks flushed and eyes bright.
I pull my hands back as she sits up and checks over her body. “I… How? I mean…” She stares at me, her eyes softening, and tears of joy fill them.
She reaches out and quickly pulls me into a hug. “Thank you, thank you. Thank you.”
Elation fills me as I chuckle and grip her tight. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
She pulls back and looks around me with awe. “I don’t know how you—”
“I don’t know either. Let’s just forget about it for now.” I move and give her a hand to help her stand. She takes it and gets up before twirling around in joy.
“I feel so…” she stops and takes a deep breath of fresh air. “Just alive.” Her eyes find mine. “Whatever you did, Sena. Thank you. Truly.”
I nod and we start making our way through the forest with no direction in mind. Both of us just happy that things turned out the way they did in the end.
“I think you should stay far away from Sasha for the moment,” I tell her. “Just in case she decides to get payback.”
She bumps my shoulder. “I have a couple of hidden spots that she knows nothing about, don’t worry about me.”
I nod. “How did she get you up against the tree?” It almost looked like she was holding her up against it.
“Sasha’s power is strength,” she says, and I give her a questioning look. “Like she’s super strong.”
Oh. I raise my hand to my throat and remember her grip when I was on the mountain. I thought it was just the angle she had me against the cliff, but it makes sense that she was able to easily hold me there if that’s her power.
“Who has the ability to control vines?” I ask, needing to know which of the other two helped her and to look out for her should Sasha decide to rope her in for future attacks.
Willow gives me a look. “Leigh. She also can control any type of weed.”
Lovely.
Knox’s bond finally brushing up against my senses. “Sena? I just heard about the attack. Where the fuck are you?”
“I didn’t block you out,” I promise him not in the humor for a fight. “I tried reaching out to you all as soon as something happened, but the block happened again.”
He sighs. “I know you didn’t, baby. I just need to see you to make sure you’re okay.”
Something in my chest warms. I guess we’ve come a long way.
“I’m in the forest. Past the building I went into and further back to where a huge tree sits. You can’t miss it.”
“Are you okay? Cyrus says he doesn’t sense any pain from you, but Theon said you’re pissed.”
“I’m fine,” I tell him, not liking the worry in his tone.
“Then why are you pissed?”
“I ran into Sasha, she’s the bitch Alita that shoved me off the cliff. And also, apparently the one who let the Terrigons into the last test.”
“Where is she? Actually, don’t tell me. I want to hunt her down and—”
“We can’t kill her yet. If something happens to her, Levington might get suspicious. And we need him unknowing and in the dark right now.”
“The bitch tried to kill you… twice,” he grits out. “And we would have never known because of the block…” he sighs. “Fuck, Sena… if anything where to have happened to you…”
I freeze and Willow gives me a questioning look. But I’m too busy mentally kicking myself for not realizing it sooner.
With the bond now fully in place between us, if I die so does Knox, and Cyrus now, too.
Shit. “I’m sorry,” I tell him as my throat tightens. “I’ll be more careful.”
He quickly realizes why I’m feeling so fucking guilty and releases a long, sad sigh. “I don’t give a fuck about me. I don’t want to be in this world if you’re not in it. But I’m going to fight like hell to make sure you get the life you deserve.”
“I love you,” I tell him not knowing how else to explain the feelings rushing through me right now with his words.
He pauses and silence is all I hear for a moment before he speaks again.
“I love you, too,” he says, his tone full of tenderness and affection.
“You can come with me, if you want?” Willow says and I look at her trying to figure out what we were talking about.
Then I remember: her hidden spots from Sasha.
I shake my head.
“My mates are on their way,” I tell her and laugh when her eyes widen in shock.
“Mates?” she asks, and I nod.
Her mouth opens and closes a couple of times before she nods to herself and gives me a wide smile.
“Alrighty then,” she says before dragging me into another hug.
“Thank you,” she whispers before pulling back and waving me off and disappearing into a different path through the forest.
“There you are,” Knox says, and I turn around to find him heading straight for me. He scans me from head to toe making sure I’m okay before wrapping me in his arms, instantly soothing every tense muscle and bone in my body.
“You’re staying with us tonight and from here on out,” he says, and I nod, easily agreeing to his demand. I don’t want to be away from them anyway.
We’ll just have to sneak around and make sure Levington doesn’t catch us.
Once we’re all together, nothing else matters.