Chapter 44 #2
“If she bleeds, that means her heart still beats,” the spae said and pointed to a shelf beside David. “Hand me that blue phial there.”
He obeyed, slapping the elixir into the spae’s hand just as the door opened and another spae entered.
“Ekko,” the new spae said. “What is it?”
“Stab wounds. Heavy bleeding.” Ekko poured the phial over Anna’s wounds, though it didn’t seem to change much.
“Djiante,” said the newcomer with a quick dip of her head. “I am called Estel. Please stand aside.”
David moved to the corner, hating the lack of control. He could do nothing to fix this, nothing to save her. His heartbeat bloomed in his temples and clogged his throat. “Just save her,” he said, not bothering to hide the uneven edges in his voice.
Estel set her hands on Anna’s stomach, her face grim. She closed her eyes, concentrating, while the other focused on Anna’s chest. Her heart.
Fuck the Light! Had the bastard nicked her heart?
Beneath the fear and shock, anger coalesced. If he ever caught the creature who did this, he’d carve them into slivers so small, people would think it was confetti.
Minutes passed—or maybe hours—but she didn’t wake. Neither did Sean appear with Isobel to save the day. David searched their connection, but he couldn’t find the end. He was too distracted, his thoughts too scattered.
His feet brought him closer to the bed. Neither spae stopped him, not even when he dipped onto the mattress beside her to hold her hand.
Her cold hand. Her lifeless hand.
He swallowed against a rising lump in his throat.
“Djiante,” one spae said, but he was unsure which it was, “our magic will not always penetrate fatal wounds. Not if the intervention has arrived too late.”
Fatal? Did she just say fatal?
The words robbed him of breath, and suddenly there was no air anywhere.
“We have stopped the bleeding, but the tissue is beyond repair,” said the other spae. “Our ministrations will not last long. There is only one who could save her now. Lady Isobel may yet arrive before it is too late.”
David could only stare.
They withdrew their hands from Anna’s limp body.
“No, wait,” he said, wide-eyed. “Where are you going?”
“There is nothing more we can do,” Estel said. “The Mother will protect her while we search—”
Fuck that. “No!”
“We understand this is difficult, David. Let us help find the heir of Erdéa before her heart stops. That will serve this girl best. Stay with her. Talk to her. We will return.”
Before David could formulate a reply, they slunk from the room, shutting the door behind them. He drew in a serrated breath and turned to the girl on the bed. Anna’s skin was deadly pale, but the wounds on her stomach had stopped bleeding.
He scooted closer, holding her icy hand in his.
Could he compel her to live? Did his magic extend so far?
David bent near her ear. “Anna,” he whispered, injecting sugar straight into her brainstem. “Wake up.”
Blue eyes flickered open, and her agonized gaze landed on him. Her emotional core spun out of control. She moaned. “It hurts.”
He touched her cheek. “It doesn’t hurt. Breathe, Anna.”
The torment eased from her expression, and she sucked in a rattling lungful of air.
“You’re going to be fine,” he said.
Her brows scrunched.
“No pain,” he crooned. “Keep your heart beating, okay? Isobel is coming.”
Fearful tears glistened in her eyes. “Please don’t let me die, David.”
That tone. Those words. Things were breaking apart inside him, cracking into splinters so tiny, he didn’t think they’d ever reconnect correctly.
David prided himself on control. He could control so much, but he couldn’t control this.
He tried anyway. “You will not die. You aren’t scared. It doesn’t hurt. Do you understand me? You are not allowed to die.”
The coercion flooded her, and while it didn’t control life and death, it alleviated Anna’s fears until shades of irritation darkened her emotions instead. “And suddenly you’re acting like you care?”
He deserved that, but it still stung. He grazed his thumb down her cheek. “Everything I do, I do because I care.”
Her eyes closed once more. “People don’t break the things they care about.”
David eyed her injuries, still bloodless. His entire life distilled down to those punctures in her body. If she didn’t make it…
“Open your eyes.”
She obeyed and winced. “Why?”
“You need to stay awake.”
“It hurts to look at you. I don’t want you to be the last thing I ever see.”
“Then don’t look at me. Just keep your eyes open.”
She stared at the ceiling, and a tear slipped from the corner of her eye that he caught with his thumb. He studied the delicate lines of her face.
“I’m dying, aren’t I?” she whispered.
“No.” He saturated his voice with sweetened magic until it was dripping. “You will not die today. Do you understand?”
Blue eyes turned to stare deep into his. At her throat, a weak pulse fluttered, vulnerable and exposed. Where was Sean? What was taking so long?
“I wish I’d never met you,” Anna said, and despite her weakness, that love he’d sensed the last night they’d been together spun to the surface of her emotions, dazzling.
Impossibly, it had grown stronger, like breaking her heart had only bled her love for him over everything else.
“And now I’m going to die, broken and alone. ”
“You aren’t dying,” he whispered because his voice wanted to shake the same way his hands were. “And you aren’t broken or alone.”
She sucked in a pained breath. “Yes, I am. The heartbreak is unbearable.”
“I’m sorry.” David wished there was a stronger word, a better way to express how much he wanted things to be different. He wanted to love her, but he could never do it wholly. How fucked up was that?
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, you’re sorry. Do you even mean that, or is it just something to say?”
He might have defended himself if he had any words that would matter. But he had none.
None at all.
He deserved this spite.
“I wish I could take it from you,” he finally said.
Her pallid skin went bloodless. “Maybe you can,” she said, though it slurred together in a smear of words.
He looked down at her wounds, now weeping blood once more. “Anna?”
Two more blinks, and her eyes closed.
“Wake up,” he said. She didn’t, so he said it louder, squeezing her lifeless hand, pouring energy into his magic. “Anna, wake up!”
Nothing.
Her breaths stopped. Her chest stilled.
No.
No.
No.
“Anna. Wake up now!”
The door burst open. Sean and Isobel spilled into the room.
They’d come.
They’d come.
David fell into a sea of deliverance while Isobel rushed to the bedside, pushing him out of the way. She bent to press her mouth against Anna’s.
Anna jerked, a last breath pulled into her lungs.
Then…nothing.
Isobel kept her lips on Anna’s for several more seconds, but the pixie’s skin remained ashen, her limbs still.
David stared, unable to breathe, to think, and black spots danced in his vision.
Were they too late?
Please. No. Wake up. Please wake up.
With a flash of movement, Anna gripped Isobel’s shoulders to hold her in place.
David’s breath released in a great rush. “Yes,” he whispered. “Thank you.” Every muscle in his body relaxed.
She was alive.
Bel had arrived in time.
He had never been so grateful for the existence of Isobel Faywood. When she backed away, Anna took a full breath. Pink returned to her lips and cheeks.
Isobel touched her mouth. “That was very close.”
As Anna’s ribcage moved—a rapid flare and retract as if she’d been sprinting—David felt a collar release from his neck. It had never been so clear to him—the precariousness of his sanity, totally dependent on the existence of this small woman.
“You will not die,” he said, the words ripped from him, out of control. The magic in them was so powerful, it shimmered with Luster in the air between them, and his head swooped with dizziness. He fell against the wall, letting it prop his weight.
He knew he couldn’t control it, but he’d never wanted something more than he wanted her safety. The magic slipped out, desperate to obtain it for him.
Anna blinked dazed eyes at him. Her pupils blew out until the blue disappeared. “I won’t die.”
“Anna?” Sean asked, stepping closer to the bed.
She sat up slowly, clutching at her healed abdomen. Isobel touched her arm. “You’re going to be all right?”
“Yeah,” Anna said. “Thanks.” Her gaze lifted to David, then to Sean. “Thank you all.”
“I’ll let the spaes know she’s safe,” Isobel said, gliding toward the door. She left them in silence.
“Who was it?” Sean asked, his hands clenched at his sides.
“I don’t know,” she answered, voice weak. “He was a deva. Tall and thin. Dark hair. I didn’t recognize him.”
He sat on the corner of her cot. “Did he say why?”
Anna stared at her hands fidgeting in her lap. “He called me Princess and said I was on the wrong side.”
Brow creased, Sean glanced at David, but David only shrugged. Hours of research on mind apparitions and the royal genealogy of Luxoria had resulted in nothing. He had no clue what any of it meant.
“This is for the Savior,” Anna murmured, barely audible. “That’s what he said.”
Sean’s outrage detonated through the room, through their connection, and he jerked to standing. Anna winced, clutching at her chest. “Please calm down,” she said.
“Calm down?” he demanded. “Did he say anything else?”
She sighed, looking so drained, so tired. “Long live Caden Sidera.”
David’s own anger slunk beneath Sean’s, cold and quiet, a snake poised to attack. Sean, however, was a lion’s roar—sudden and deafening, impossible to ignore. “I’m going to kill him,” he said.
Anna’s grimace only grew. “Sean, please. Can you— You need to calm down.”
He opened his mouth as if to argue, but David cut him off. “You’re hurting her. Calm down.”
Angry expression easing away, Sean stole a deep breath into his lungs.
“Take a minute,” David said to him. “I’ll stay with her.”
Anna shot him a pained frown as if his presence wasn’t any better, but Sean muttered something under his breath and exited the room, shutting the door firmly behind him.