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But he merely shakes his head. “Do what you need to do.”
And so I keep taking energy from Jaxon with one hand, turning it into power within me and using that power to slowly start putting Flint’s leg back together enough that I’ll be able to attach the two pieces of the next section of severed artery together.
But can I just say that before I try anything like this again, I need some training, because instinct, high school biology, and emergency room dramas can only get me so far. They’re not enough to teach me what I need to know to do this. And I’m so scared. My hands are coated in so much blood, and as fast as I’m trying to work, I can feel his heart slowing, can feel Flint slipping away.
I lift my hand from Jaxon’s arm to let him know there’s no point in killing them both, but he clasps his other hand over mine. “Don’t give up,” he begs me. “Please. I’ve got more.”
I don’t know if he does or not, but I choose to take him at his word. Because I can’t give up on Flint. It would be like giving up on Jaxon, too. And so I grab his arm again, and I draw his power into me, seek out more tears in Flint’s blood vessels, and I knit.
I’m working as fast as I can, sweat dripping down my face as I turn my attention from one mangled area of his body to another, careful to take some of Jaxon’s power and store it in my tattoo for later as well as heal, and for the first time, I think I might actually be making progress. Flint’s heartbeat is still dangerously slow, but I’ve almost got the blood flow stanched. I need a little more and—
Luca fades right up to us. “Hudson says—” He breaks off as he sees Flint for the first time.
“What—” His voice breaks. “What do we— What can we—”
“She’s doing it,” Jaxon tells him, voice blank but eyes absolutely livid.
Luca falls to his knees beside Flint, picks up his hand, and presses it to his face. “Please,” he whispers to me. “Please.”
“I’ve got him,” I tell Luca, even as I pray that it’s true. “I’m not letting him go.”
He nods, looks at Jaxon. “What do I do?”
“Use it,” Jaxon snarls, and Luca nods.
Seconds later, he’s gone, and screams split the sky as witch and vampire alike fall to the rocks below us.
I don’t bother to ask if it’s Luca doing the killing. I already know that it is.
“Go,” I tell Jaxon, and he takes off as I turn to Flint and continue to heal. I think about changing to my gargoyle form, about taking a small piece of myself and using it to heal Flint the way I did Mekhi. But every instinct I have is urging me to stay the course, screaming at me that it’s not time for that yet, that this is the only way to save Flint.
And so I do, pouring everything I have inside me into him until my tattoo grows dull again. Each time it happens, I grow weaker, more exhausted, but it only makes sense. Power is a gift and a responsibility, but no matter how much you have—or how much you can borrow—there’s still a price for cheating death.
I’ve learned it from Jaxon, from Hudson, from Mekhi, and even from Xavier in his own way. There is only so much power can do, but here, now, for Flint, I’m determined to do whatever that is. Whatever it takes.
Hudson and Jaxon pop back around, and they’re even bloodier, even more beat up this time. Still, they hold their wrists out to me, and I don’t hesitate as I grab on to both. I take energy to do the next round of healing, and then they’re fading right back out.
Luca stops in a couple of minutes later to check on Flint. He’s shaky, not steady on his feet, but still insists I siphon as much as I can from him. The moment I touch him, I realize he’s nowhere near as powerful as Hudson or Jaxon, but he’s got some power, and I do my best to tap into it. It’s harder with him than it is with the two of them, and I don’t know if it’s because he just doesn’t have the same strength or if it’s because my life has been irrevocably connected to the Vega brothers.
I guess it doesn’t matter in the long run, especially since Luca jerks away from me the second a witch pops up next to us. She sends a bolt straight at Flint but it misses, and Luca takes off after her. He almost catches her, but at the last second she turns around and sends a spell careening straight toward him.
He tries to dodge, but it’s too late. The bolt slams straight into the center of his chest.
Till Death Do Us Part
I scream as the sickening scent of charred flesh fills the air. It makes me gag, nearly makes me vomit, but I swallow down the bile…until Luca’s lifeless body lands a few inches from where I’m kneeling.
I knew he was gone before he hit the ground, but it doesn’t stop me from reaching for him, from telling myself it’s not true. From trying to take it all back.
But it’s too late. There’s nothing left for me to do, nothing left for me to heal. He’s gone. He’s really gone.
And Flint is likely to follow.
Grief and fear and rage consume me. How can this be happening? He sends us to jail for trying to stop a war and now he’s starting one? He’s killing people, destroying them, because he’s greedy—and because he can. But we’re the criminals?
I look out at what was once one of the most peaceful, beautiful places I’d ever seen. Hot springs and trees against the backdrop of mountains and an arctic sea. Now, it’s littered with bodies, with blood and gore and broken hearts, and I want to be out there. I need to be out there.
The wolves are here, too, now, fighting with the vampires and the witches. There are so many of them—too many. There’s no way the dragon guard can hold them off, even with so many of my friends fighting alongside them.
I think about shifting. About going out there to fight with Hudson and Jaxon and Macy and Mekhi. But if I do, Flint will die. It’s true they need more fighters, but I have to trust them to pull this off. Trust them the way that they’re trusting me to take care of Flint.
It’s a lose-lose situation, but maybe—just maybe—I can save Flint. Maybe. And if I can, maybe they can find a way to save the rest of us.
I scramble back to Flint’s body, wishing I had something to cover Luca with out of respect. But there’s nothing, so I empty myself in an effort to save the boy who Luca gave his life for. The boy who Luca loved.
Tears are flowing down my face, sobs racking my body, and I know that I need to stop. I need to take a minute and just get my shit together. But I can feel Flint’s spirit flickering inside him, and I know that this is it. This is when things go right or they go very, very wrong.
And so I keep my hands where they are, emptying every single speck of power that I can find inside him. A werewolf bounds across the rocks at us, and I brace myself for the attack. I’ve left myself open. In draining myself this much, I don’t even have enough energy left to shift.
But at the last second, Macy drops down in front of me, and she sends a spell at the werewolf that petrifies him where he stands, his body sliding straight off the rocky edge into the hot springs.
“Jaxon told me what happened,” she says. “I’ve got you.” And then she performs another spell, one that slaps up a magical barrier between us and the rest of the world.
Hudson basically squeaks in before the barrier closes. He takes one look at me and holds a hand out so that I can siphon more power. But then his eyes fall on Luca’s body, and everything inside him withers right in front of me.
“He was trying to protect Flint,” I tell him even as I take his hand and channel more power from him. Not too much, because I know why he’s here this time, and it has nothing to do with giving me power and everything to do with putting an end to this once and for all.
“Who was?” Macy asks, turning around for the first time.
She gasps as she catches sight of Luca’s body, her eyes filling with tears as she looks between him and Flint’s injury. “Oh no,” she whispers, and I know a part of her is thinking about Xavier.
I brace myself, expecting her barrier to falter—it’s hard to control magic when your emotions are volatile, I’m learning the hard way—but Macy’s magic never wavers. Instead, she locks her jaw, keeps her wand pointed at the barrier, and stretches her other hand out to me.
“Use me this time,” she says. “Hudson needs his energy more.”
Which means that she, too, knows why he’s here.
I switch to channeling her energy. It’s so different from Hudson’s or Jaxon’s or Remy’s that at first I’m not sure I’m even doing anything. But then I feel it, feel her—light and feminine and powerful in a very different way—and I start pulling in as much of her as I think she can stand.
More screams echo outside our barrier, and Hudson seems to crumble right in front of me. “Grace,” he whispers, and I nod. Because I know what he’s here to ask. I know what he needs me to say.