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Some sharp emotion tore through him. Fear? Helplessness? Anxiety? He couldn’t pinpoint what it was when his heart constricted in a way he’d never experienced before.

NO!

Rurik hadn’t gone to all this effort, healed her wound and given her his breath, just to fail.

Slapping her father’s hand out of the way, Rurik got on the table to kneel over her torso. He took over, determined to see her breathe again.

Come on, Witch. You are not allowed to give up.

He started to pump his arms, his eyes moving frantically over her pale face. Her head bounced with each push before it settled for the split second he released the pressure.

There was something haunting about looking down at this female who usually radiated beauty and warmth to find her ashen and cold.

To know that her parted bluish lips held no life to them, didn’t gasp at the force he was shoving against her, and wouldn’t turn into the enthralling smile that always made Rurik feel strange inside. Instead of shouting at him for what he was doing with a fierce glare, her lids were closed. The azure blue lagoon eyes he wanted to swim in were shut from the world, possibly forever.

You did not take my blood.He pushed against her chest.You did not take my child.Another push, his lips curling over his gritted teeth.You did not plunge me with that knife.Push.You did not leave me defenceless to save yourself.

He bent over and pushed his breath past her cold lips that felt as though they were freezing his own every time he did it.

He leaned back to continue to pump his arms as his mind continued with its chaotic and erratic thoughts, his brows slowly furrowing together while he looked down at her face further.

You took that blade yourself. You removed the hexes on my body. You blinded Strolguil. You gave me the opportunity to kill him. You hurt yourself to save me.

Rurik was reaching for that trust he’d held for her before this day, was trying to use what he had witnessed as well as heard from this man to rebuild it by himself. Hewantedto trust her, wanted to have faith in her because... he had once felt something tender.

She had been his friend, had been a place of his desire.

He’d come to care for her.

You satisfy the rage in me.

Since she came to his lair, she had calmed his anger. Instead of his irritated huffs and snarls filling his tunnels, it had been her laughter – and his own. Rather than lying under his riches waiting for information, he’d found fascination in her, in this tantalising creature who had stolen all his attention, whether he was with her, or without.

If she truly did not know...Then her kindness towards him had been real, and the innocence and sweetness he’d liked in her... It hadn’t been a façade.

Her father was watching him while standing to the side, unaware of the swirling emotions twisting his stomach.

“She is gone, WitchSlayer.”

Rurik’s eyes crinkled into heavy bows because heknewhe was right. This wasn’t working.

Amalia had truly given up.

But I do not want her to die.

He couldn’t stop picturing the moment she shoved that blade into herself rather than him. Or, that deep, wet sound of impact when she shoved it hard enough through her own womb that the hilt guard had been pressing against her skin.

And the more he did, the more he felt something inside his chest twist. A painful ache he didn’t want to bear.

She would not have done that if she had been a part of it.He knew it was the truth, knew she’d had no purposeful part in what happened this day.

She’d been a tool to Strolguil’s plans as much as he was. But she had also been the one to save them.

She caused harm to herself and would have known her death could have been a possibility in doing so... just to save him. Him. Someone who had threatened her with fire.

Looking back to when she had been in that dungeon, he thought she hadn’t cared.

She tried not to look at me... Perhaps she could not have.Perhaps what he had seen wasn’t a lack of care, but a desperation to pretend not to. She never said thatshewanted to do the things that Strolguil wanted.