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I know what this is; I can feel it already taking root in my bones.

Death.

It comes so swiftly I don’t have time to panic or plead.

Love you, Memnon…forever and always…

A warm and inviting darkness closes in and snatches me away.

CHAPTER 37

MEMNON 27, YEARS OLD

59 AD, Panticapaeum, Tauris

Love you,Memnon…forever and always…

Roxi’s voice is a whisper down our bond, like the last smoke that curls up from an extinguished flame. It’s only then, only as the final notes of her voice fade away, that the whole godsdamned world grinds to a stop between one breath and the next.

I’m feeling my mate’s…death.

My chest spasms as a sharp, cutting pain slices through it. I collapse over my horse, the pain tightening my throat. I cannot breathe, cannot think?—

“ROXILANA!” I bellow, her name ripping from my lips.

My power explodes out of me, wiping out everyone two wagon spans away—both friend and foe.

I straighten on my steed as I wrestle with my magic, trying to get it under control so I can actually do something beyond killing everyone all at once. It’s bitter agony, forcing my power back into me. So much of it leaks out, and I can feel it gnawing on my conscience like a termite on wood.

ROXILANA! I think I’m still shouting. My eyes burn and blur and I cannot tell if it’s from the rain or tears. My steed moves as though he can hear my thoughts, charging through the thick of the fighting and trampling bodies in our wake.

I throw out my power, frantic to locate her. The blue ribbon of it snakes between cavalrymen and foot soldiers, forming a path that I drive after, heedless of the arrows and swords I’m galloping into.

Abruptly, the line of my magic turns downward, and?—

No, no, that blood-soaked body cannot be hers. But then I see that long, cinnamon hair and Ferox’s dark form draped over her body, his nose nudging her, as though trying to rouse her.

“ROXI!”

Maybe I swing off my horse, maybe I fall. Then I’m racing to her side. My knees hit cold, wet mud and cooling blood.

Roxi’s blood.

A sob rips from me. Her neck has been partially severed by an arrow.

When I try to push Ferox off her, he turns to me and snarls.

“I’m trying to save her life, damn it!” I roar, my magic shoving the panther fully off. Arrows and swords are still flying by us.

Leaning over her, I press my hand to her throat and force my magic inside her, ignoring the way my chest feels as though it’s collapsing inward. Roxi’s body arches at the violent thrust of my power, but it doesn’t heal.

I shout out my frustration.

“You will not leave me,” I tell her. “I forbid it.”

The girl who entered my mind and woke my magic. Who saved my life and owns my entire godsdamned soul. She cannot leave me alone in this world.

Determination washes over me. I forbid it.