Page 51 of A Fate of Blood and Magic (Fated #2)

“I-I think you need to sit with your back straight,” she told him. “I think it’s supposed to help.”

With Nate’s help, Donnie slowly shifted, and Nate gripped his shoulders and pulled them back so that he sat straight. It didn’t help, and with every second that passed, Donnie grew worse. His face had gone ashen, his lips blue. His nostrils flared with each desperate breath he tried to take.

I strained past the growing pain in my head and reached for Leah through my mental connection. I couldn’t reach her. Overhead, I heard the flapping of mighty wings. I looked up and almost cried but didn’t have time to react when Donnie’s head fell forward.

Ryenne shouted something as Nate leaned his head closer to Donnie’s chest.

“He’s still breathing,” Nate said.

“Help him.” Ryenne’s words trembled, and tears collected in her eyes as she begged me to do something .

“Nalari,” I called to her, her name coming out as a frantic plea as I stared at the sky.

“Bring your friend to me, and I’ll see how I can help him,” she said.

I pointed toward the clearing she landed on.

“Nalari can help,” I told them. “She said to bring Donnie to her.”

Nate struggled to pick Donnie up, but eventually, he was able to hoist him over his shoulder. Donnie’s body was listless, his breathing labored.

When Nate set Donnie beside Nalari with his back against the dragon, I dropped to my knees again.

“Tell me what to do,” I asked, my voice desperate and scared. “How can I help him?”

Nalari was quiet for a long time. “I think . . .”

From somewhere behind us, a spray of bullets sounded. Nate threw himself on top of Ryenne while I covered Donnie with my body, knocking him to the side.

Just then, Elias appeared with Leah at his side. Elias dropped to the ground, falling hard on his knees as more bullets sounded around us. Angling his head up, he fisted the snow beneath him.

“I heard you trying to call for Leah.” He said each word slowly as he looked at Donnie’s unconscious body.

Nate shifted so that Leah could touch Donnie’s shoulder. Just like the rest of us, her magic was exhausted. Leah looked at her palms in bewilderment.

“I don’t know how to help him,” she said, her tone regretful. “I’m sorry, I don’t . . .”

“I think I can pull what remains of your magic, Teddy, and send mine to Leah. I think it could be enough to heal him,” Nalari said .

“Take it,” I told her.

“Do you understand you could lose your magic?” Nalari asked.

“I don’t care.” I wiped at a tear that fell down my cheek. “Take it. Please, Nalari, he can’t die.”

Elias rested a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Take mine too.”

I expected Nalari to argue with him. Instead, I felt her tug against the threads of magic that remained. Something inside me struggled against it, and I tried to force it to still. Beside me, Elias stiffened.

He trailed a hand down my arm to cup my hand in his. “We’re going to lose our soulmate bond,” he said in my head.

I jolted at his words.

“Leah needs every bit of our magic to heal him,” he said, his eyes lingering across my face. “I can live with losing our bond as long as I don’t lose you.”

Something in my chest wrenched at his words. It twisted and stabbed in such a way I wouldn’t have been surprised if I started to bleed.

“I love you.” I said the only words I could think of, but they didn’t feel like enough.

Before he said anything else, I felt the tattoo Eiran had gifted me on the back of my shoulder start to tingle.

“I think Eiran wants me to see him,” I said aloud.

“Go, then,” Nalari said.

My tattoo tingled again, this time with an uncomfortable sting that bolted down my arm to Elias’s and my joined hand.

“Did you feel that?” I asked.

“I think he wants both of us to go,” he answered.

The moment the words left his lips, I felt my body grow weightless. While my physical body fell to the ground, I soared upward and landed on my feet on the shimmering ground I recognized as the astral realm.

Elias stood beside me, his hand immediately seeking mine.

I turned around, trying to find Donnie in this realm.

Eiran’s cloaked figure approached us, and when he drew back his cape, he gave us a quiet smile.

Elias took a small step back when Eiran’s shadows lurked toward us.

When I didn’t move with him, Elias drew closer to me, positioning his body in front of me as if he thought he needed to protect me.

Eiran’s lurking shadow covered Elias’s feet and trailed around his ankles.

“Eiran,” I said. Although I knew my heart ached back in my realm, I didn’t feel it here. Still, I wiped my cheek at the nonexistent tear that never fell. “Is Donnie . . .?”

“He’s not here,” Eiran said.

I looked back at Donnie’s body that shone duller than the rest of our friends back in our realm.

“He’s not there either,” Eiran continued.

“Where is he?” I looked around, that feeling of hopelessness reaching me even in this realm.

“He hasn’t accepted his death and is somewhere in between.” Eiran’s deep green eyes watched me carefully.

Good. If he wasn’t here and hadn’t accepted death, then maybe Eiran would let him live the way he’d let Brenton live.

“I told you before, Theodora, death isn’t meant as a punishment.” His words came out soft and tender as if he willed me to believe what he said.

I didn’t. I couldn’t.

“This isn’t a gift.” I cleaved the words from my heart and offered them to Eiran. “Maybe for some, but this . . . Eiran, please. ”

Because Donnie . . . for so many years, he’d been my safe place.

Even over Ryenne, I’d sought him out because I knew he’d sit with me through any pain I’d felt.

Sure, he’d also try to make it better, even if I wasn’t looking for a resolution, but first, he’d sit with me, never feeling uncomfortable with my emotions.

“Grief is the gift,” Eiran said. “The anger, the fear, and the hopelessness are the gift. In the aftermath of death, love dresses up as grief because love doesn’t simply vanish when someone dies. It transforms, and that enduring love is the gift.”

I bit back the whimper that built in my throat. “Can we save him?”

Eiran gave a sullen nod. “As the dragon stated, Nalari can strip you both of your magic, thus removing your bond, and use it for your healer to absorb and heal your friend,” he replied, stroking his long fingers across his chin.

“Okay,” I said. “We know that.”

“We’re willing to make that sacrifice,” Elias said, his words echoing mine.

Eiran quirked up a sleek brow, his attention fully on Elias. “Teddy’s life span will no longer match yours.”

Elias tipped his head down. “I know.”

“What?” I asked and turned to him. “I can’t. You can’t. No.”

“ Mo elma,” he said, his voice quiet but full of affection. “Eternity would never have been enough for me, but if all I get with you is your lifetime, I’ll use every moment of it loving you.”

“There has to be another way,” I said. “Can’t you heal him the way you healed Brenton? ”

“I’m sorry, Theodora,” Eiran said. “If he were here, I could heal him myself, but I can’t reach him where he is. The only way to save him is if you and Elias relinquish your magic for your healer to absorb.”

“One of your best friends gets to live,” Elias said, running his fingers through my hair before his palm rested on my stomach. “Our babes will get to grow up with the most honorable male I know as a part of their extended family.”

I stepped into him, hugging his waist while I rested the side of my head against his chest. “What about you, though?” I tipped my head up to look at him.

He kissed my forehead. “I’ll make every beat with you count, and when my time is over, I’ll meet you in the afterlife.”

“You’re sacrificing so much,” I told him.

It was one thing to give up my magic. As much as I enjoyed it, I hadn’t lived with it very long.

Elias, on the other hand, had never known an existence without his magic.

And our bond, while it was something I once didn’t trust, I’d come to treasure it.

I loved threading our very souls together.

I loved knowing I was made for Elias as much as he was made for me.

But this . . . asking Elias to live hundreds of years without me while I waited for him in the afterlife? It was too much.

“Only a few months ago, you were willing to give up your life to save Brenton,” he said. “Allow me to do the same.” He drew in an unsteady breath. “Besides, you have given me everything I could ever ask for.”

“Elias.”

“Don’t you see, mo elma ?” He huffed out a laugh.

“Whether you’re in our realm or another, there is nowhere you can go where I will not follow.

It may take me some time.” Another dry laugh.

“But I’ll get to you.” He cupped the back of my head and rubbed his pinky over the nape of my neck. “You just have to be patient.”

“There is an option,” Eiran said, his dark eyes seeming to glow at his words. “I can tie your life to hers, and when she passes, so will you.”

“Yes,” Elias said.

“Elias.” Again, I said his name without knowing what else to say.

“You once decided to tie your life to mine,” he said, his palm nuzzling my face. “I’m making that same decision.”

“You’ll lose hundreds of years of life.”

And his people—our people—would lose him far too quickly as their king.

“What is the point of hundreds of years if you’re not in them?” He leaned down to kiss my nose and then my cheek. “We do this for Donnie.”

I pursed my lips, and although I knew the absoluteness of this decision would crack another fissure through my heart, I nodded. For Donnie.

Eiran’s bowed head snapped up, his eyes narrowing to something behind us. “Elias . . .”

Elias spun, and when I turned with him, I gripped his hand as a startled sob stuck in my throat.

“Dearest.” His mom shone with an unworldly vibrance I’d never witnessed in her. It wasn’t just that she shimmered in this realm, but that for the first time, I saw the true beauty she possessed.