Page 22 of Hellfire to Come (Infernal Regions for the Unprepared #5)

Chapter Twenty-Two

DOMINIC

Something had to change.

Long-lived or not, I had a feeling my heart would give out if my mate continued to throw herself at danger at every turn.

She thrashed all night, fighting unseen monsters from her psyche that I could not tear apart or shred with my bare hands.

So, I watched her now from where I stood near the threshold of the shaman’s house barely lit by the coals still smoldering in the fire-burning stove, her silhouette hunched, fingers pressed to her temples like the weight of the world still hadn’t finished grinding her down.

Her breathing was shallow but even. Her spirit, though, it was unraveling.

Just in silence now, instead of screams and whimpers.

She’d given too much. Again.

And like a fool, I let her.

The guilt crawled down my spine like something alive; Feral and unrelenting, its claws sinking into every vertebra with merciless precision.

I had sworn, sworn with every breath in my body, that I would never again stand idly by while she bled for the people she loved.

And yet, I had done just that. I had watched as she stepped willingly into a circle etched with power older than the bones of the earth, and offered herself, body, soul, and magic, to spirits that existed long before time itself.

I didn’t stop her.

I couldn’t.

Because somewhere deep beneath my skin, in the place where instinct and reason warred, I understood: had I tried to interfere, she wouldn’t have hesitated to fight me.

Not with claws or fangs, but with the sheer fire of her will.

And it wasn’t the pain of her fury I feared.

It was the fracture it would leave between us.

Her rage would not cut me down, but it would cast me out.

And in that moment, nothing was more important to her than the war she chose to fight.

Not the Syndicate. Not her own survival.

Saving Alice.

That was her holy ground. Her line in the sand. And I… I was just trying not to lose the only thing in this world still tethering me to something good.

Still, the question pulsed beneath every beat of my heart. How long could we survive like this? How many more sacrifices before there was nothing left of her to save?

The door creaked behind me. Laughing Crow’s light tread brushed the wooden floor as she entered. She didn’t speak. Not at first. Just stood beside me in the shadows and stared at Brooklyn the same way one watches the sea after a storm: searching for what it left behind, and what it took.

“She’s stubborn,” I said, not looking at the shaman. “I wish she wasn’t.” I muttered to myself.

Laughing Crow didn’t move. “She’s fire walking on bone.”

“Is that your poetic way of telling me she’s breaking?”

“No.” The shaman finally folded her arms. “It means she’s dangerous. To herself. To others. But mostly to the things that would try to take her light. She says she doesn’t care what she pays but she will defy the universe to keep her light intact.”

I let out a humorless breath. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“You fear she’ll die,” the old woman said simply, still not looking at me.

I didn’t answer. What was I supposed to say to that? Lie?

She turned her head slightly, studying me now. “You carry the weight of a protector. But what happens when the threat isn’t from outside?”

My jaw clenched. “Then I protect her from herself. Even if she hates me for it.”

A quiet hum of approval. “Then you’re not as blind as I thought.”

I looked at her now, finally, forcing my hands to curl into fists so I didn’t grab her by the throat. “Did the spirits take something from her? Tell me the truth.”

Laughing Crow’s expression gave nothing away. “They always take something. But not always in the way you expect.”

“That’s not an answer.”

She gave me a small, sharp smile. “And yet, it’s the truth.”

I turned away before I did something reckless, like kill her, or drag her into another circle and demand clarity. The only clarity I needed was in Brooklyn’s pulse, in the way her eyes stayed open now, not clouded by pain.

She was alive.

But for how long?

I crossed the floor and crouched beside her. She didn’t look up, but she didn’t pull away either. Her energy pulsed erratically through the bond, flickering between numbness and the low throb of something unresolved.

I reached for her hand, threading our fingers together.

“I can’t lose you,” I said softly. “And you can’t keep throwing yourself into the fire expecting me to drag you back every time without it killing me first. One day there won’t be anything left to pull free, Brooklyn. What will become of me then?”

Her breath hitched. Just barely.

I leaned in, my voice lower. “You don’t have to do this alone. You never did.”

“I know,” she whispered. “But I didn’t know how to let anyone else carry the burden of my kind’s sins.”

“You don’t have to allow me to carry it for you,” I murmured. “You just have to let me carry you with it.”

She finally looked at me, eyes rimmed with exhaustion but clearer than before. “I don’t know how to stop fighting, Dominic.”

“Then don’t,” I said, brushing her cheek with my thumb. “Just don’t fight alone. That is all I ask. Let me fight whatever it is with you, next to you.”

And for the first time in a long while, she didn’t argue.

The fire crackled low beside us, casting lazy shadows that danced against the far wall. The smell of herbs, sage, pine, the acrid bite of valerian, clung to the beams and to my skin. But beyond the scents, beyond the shimmer of soft embers, the land outside pressed in. Silent. Waiting.

She leaned her head against my shoulder and exhaled like the weight of all her choices might finally tip her sideways. I didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just let her be exactly where she needed to be, alive, breathing, and within arm’s reach.

A shudder went through her then. Not cold, but like a memory come to life. I recognized it for what it was: the aftermath of giving too much.

“I felt something shift,” she murmured. “When the spirits answered. I thought it would take me with it. I thought I wouldn’t come back.”

I closed my eyes and swallowed. “Then next time when we need help, we find a way that doesn’t require blood. No more sacrifices, for either of us.”

She didn’t answer. Her fingers tightened around mine instead.

“I need you whole,” I said, my voice a quiet rasp against the hush of the room.

“Not just because I’m your mate. Not just because I love you.

But because they’ll come for you again. For all of us.

And if you keep giving away pieces of yourself every time one of us is hurt…

” I swallowed, hard. “You’ll disappear before we ever make it to the end.

You’ll bleed out in spirit long before they get the chance to kill you. ”

She didn’t argue. She didn’t even flinch.

Instead, her head shifted slightly against my chest, her fingers curling unconsciously into the folds of my shirt like she was holding onto the only thing in the world still tethering her here.

I felt her breath move in small, shallow currents, each inhale threading through my ribs like a prayer she wasn’t sure she still had the right to speak.

Her voice, when it came, was barely audible. “But I didn’t push you away this time.” A pause. “At least not when it mattered.”

My throat tightened. “No,” I agreed, the word heavy in my mouth. “You didn’t.”

And it had meant everything. That she let me stay. That she hadn’t turned me into an enemy simply because I wouldn’t stand by and watch her die. That she had finally, finally trusted me enough to remain at her side while the earth itself weighed her soul in its hand.

She shifted again, and I looked down as she tilted her head back to meet my gaze.

There was something in her eyes, something broken, yes, but still fiercely alive.

Still burning. A kind of quiet, exhausted defiance that made my chest ache with a longing I didn’t have words for.

She’d walked through hell again for someone else, and still came back with her spine unbent.

“Promise me something,” she said.

My breath caught. “Anything.”

As soon as the words were out of my mouth I regretted them. I would not, and could not promise her anything. Not when it came to her safety and life. I stayed silent though like the coward I was.

“If it comes down to it…” Her voice faltered, just for a beat. “And I have to make that choice again…you won’t stop me.”

The words lanced through me like a blade to the gut. Cold, clean, and impossibly sharp. My first instinct was to tell her no. To swear I would chain her down with my own body before I’d let her burn herself to ash again. But I didn’t lie to her. I never would.

My jaw clenched, and it took every ounce of control I had to steady my voice. “I’ll try,” I said, the words scraping raw against my throat. “But don’t ask me to let you die. Not without tearing the world apart first.”

She stared at me for a long, quiet moment, eyes darker than night, shimmering faintly in the glow from the burning stove. Then, slowly, something softened in her expression, some hard edge easing back just enough to let the humanity bleed through.

She smiled. Faint. Crooked. A curve of pain and gratitude both.

And this time, she leaned her forehead against mine.

“If it comes down to it,” she whispered, “we’ll tear it apart together, then.”

And I knew deep down to the marrow of my bones that she meant it.

She wasn’t bluffing. She never had been.

If the world demanded her blood again, she’d bleed for it.

But this time, she wouldn’t do it alone.

Not if I had breath left in my body. We would tear through the veil of fate itself.

Rip down the heavens and unmake every damn law written in fire and bone if that’s what it took.

Even if it killed us.

And in the sacred quiet that followed, I held her closer, felt the uneven rhythm of her heartbeat sync slowly with mine. I let the silence settle not like a burden, but like a vow. One I intended to keep no matter what came next.

Because we weren’t done yet.

And gods help anyone who thought they could take her from me again.