Page 265 of Alchemised

Luc was faster. By the time Helena reached him, Luc was already on his knees, pulling Soren up into his arms, stained with the rush of blood that poured out of him. Sebastian was a moment behind him, immediately throwing himself into Blackthorne’s path and holding him off as Luc knelt in the water, Soren clutched against his chest.

Luc looked up when Helena reached him.

“Y-You can heal him, right?”

“Luc—”

But he was already pushing Soren into her arms, the weight dropping her to her knees in the water.

She held on to Soren with trembling hands, ignoring the throb of her wrist.

“I’ll cover you,” Luc said, picking up his sword. And then he was gone.

The battle did not stop for Soren.

Helena tried to ignore the fighting that raged around her, trying to focus. A thread was all she needed. She could keep him alive.

Just like she’d kept Lila alive.

But the wound was so big. Wounds like this didn’t survive a journey to the hospital. This blow had been lethal. Soren’s remaining life was feeble, slipping away as her resonance tried to grasp it.

Fingers brushed against her hand.

Soren was staring at her. “Two souls is still a bargain.”

The words had barely passed from his lips when a surge of cold deathly energy hit, slamming through Helena’s resonance.

She was so raw with exhaustion, so focused on trying to keep him alive, her vision blotted out as a jolt of death ran through her. She doubled over, for a moment too dazed to comprehend what had happened. Her vision cleared and Soren’s blank, sightless gaze met hers.

He was gone.

“No. No. No. Soren!”

He hung in her arms, his blood still flooding against her skin, the only warmth.

Helena looked around. Alister was calling to Penny to fall back as she fought the chimaeras using a knife, letting them get dangerously close before she could hit them. One mistake was all it would take.

Soren was dead. Purnell was dead.

Sebastian was doing everything he could to keep Luc protected, holding off Blackthorne. Luc was fighting, but his focus was split. He kept checking on Helena where she knelt with Soren clutched in her arms. She could see the desperation in his eyes. The certainty that she was going to save Soren. That she could.

She met his eyes for one guilt-stricken moment and turned back, pulling Soren’s body against her.

“Anything,” she said, pressing a hand against his neck. “Whatever the price.”

She pushed the energy out of her body and brought him back.

It was more than just easy. It was instinctive.

She knew Soren, knew exactly what it felt like when he was alive.

Her resonance wound through him like a current, knitting the wound closed with absolute efficiency, stitching the severed sections of his organs back together, rejoining the bones, but she didn’t stop there.

She felt his mind return, a shadow, the barest glimmer of him, and she poured her energy into that.

Come back. Come back. You can’t go yet.

Soren blinked up at her, and she felt a connection materialise between them, a wisp. She strengthened it, because she couldn’t let him go.