Page 222 of The Spider Queen

Thane pressed his forehead to mine and chanted something in his unknown language, and still I didn’t move.

I felt my essence drifting farther and farther away, my awareness growing fuzzy. This was it. This was truly the end. There were no last cards to play, no magical potions that could bring me back to life.

My body was dead, and soon my spirit would scatter, and I would no longer be…me.

But then I felt it—a slight tug at the end of my mental connection, the mental connection I thought had shattered when I’d left my body. But it was still there. Faint. Weak. With my last bit of consciousness, I reached for it. I felt it snap around me, binding me.

The battlefield scene disappeared and suddenly I was flying through a tunnel, like I was inside of a rainbow, and I was nothing but air and light and stardust and magic.

I was love.

I was hope.

My essence slammed back into my body, and my heart immediately started to beat. It pumped magic and blood. It united flesh with otherworldly abilities and restored my leg. My body began to heal.

I took a deep breath and my lungs filled with air and life again.

Opening my eyes, I peered into an ebony gaze now ringed with gold.

With aching slowness, I reached up and brushed away the tears at the corners of his lids.

“You’re alive,” he whispered in disbelief. “I didn’t think it would work.”

“Didn’t think what would work?”

His smile was slow and crooked, filled with relief and tenderness. He hugged me tighter as he buried his face in the crook of my neck. “Begging.”

“Who did you beg? God?”

Thane lifted his head to look at me. “You, Poppy. I begged you not to leave me. And you listened.”

Chapter 45

I sat on the bank of the River Styx—the river Thane had pulled me into—and let my feet dangle in the cool water. Thane was currently speaking to Gabriel who was nodding along at whatever Thane was saying. Every so often, my mate glanced over at me, his eyes searching for mine, as if to make sure I was still there.

Couldn’t blame him, considering a few hours ago I’d been a corpse with my guts hanging out. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to process it. I still didn’t know how Thane’s begging had been able to bring my essence back into my body. We hadn’t had a moment alone since Gabriel had gently called to him while we’d been in the river.

It was dawn and the battlefield was littered with the dead from both sides. Grass ran red, black, gold, and silver with the blood of magical creatures. Just as I wondered about what it would take to wash the death away from this place, puffy gray clouds dotted the dark blue sky. A moment later, warm rain began to shower the land.

I turned my face up and closed my eyes. Drops splattered my dirty skin. I wanted a long, hot bath more than I wanted a place to rest, more than I wanted time with Thane.

My eyes snapped open, and I watched a golden-scaled dragon fly through the storm clouds to dive toward the river. It slipped into the water like an expert diver, its large body completely submerged by the silvery blue currents. A moment later, a woman’s head covered in long golden hair emerged. The dragon woman floated for a bit before paddling toward me.

“I will ache for days. I haven’t battled like that in ages,” she said by way of greeting. She pulled herself up onto the bank to sit next to me, not at all concerned about her nudity as she twisted her hair.

I was currently wrapped in some sort of leather fur, my skin drying from my own quick dunk in the river.

“I’m so glad to meet you,” she said, her smile wide and friendly. “I’m Auri.”

“Hi,” I said slowly.

Auri rubbed her shoulders, and I heard the bones in her back pop. We sat in silence as the rain continued to fall. Eventually, it stopped, and the clouds parted to reveal glimmering gold sunshine.

She rolled her eyes. “He can’t be bothered to send aid when we need it, but he has no problem presenting a pretty picture.”

I was a jumbled mess of emotions that I hadn’t had time to sort through. I wanted to work through everything with Thane as my sounding board, but he was talking to a fallen angel about warding the entrance to Hell.

The box the mage had built to house all the emotions that didn’t belong to me had been shattered when I’d died, and then been brought back to life. Now, I couldn’t distinguish my own feelings from others. I was feeling elation, anger, and depression. And those were just a few of the emotions I could even name. There were others that were more complex.