Page 43 of These Eternal Bones

“I will rid your flesh from your bones.” Elric’s voice isn’t raised, it's simply… everywhere . The eerie notes and deep baritone floating between the trees, and for the first time, I have the logic of mind to be sacred.

“Let go!” Rummes orders.

“What?” I squeak, “You’re insane!”

“I need you to trust me. We aren’t going to make it. Let go!”

I puff out two, maybe three, calming breaths. Honestly, I’ve likely already pushed him far enough to complete the bond, but we’re already here, may as well commit fully, I suppose.

“Yes, sweet Molly, let go .” The eerie command from Eric settles in my core. It’s visceral, deeper than a growl, but certainly not words.

I do. I let go.

A scream erupts from my throat as Rummes suddenly slides to a stop, sending me flying over his giant head into a pile of snow.

It hurts, but not as badly as I had expected it to.

There’s a scratch on my face that stings as I work myself up, groaning just in time to watch a clash of orange fur and tendrils.

They connect like a thunderclap, snarls and violence filling the forest as I scramble to my feet, desperately trying to find any physical sign of a barrier.

Panic whirls in my stomach as I look for help from Rummes, who is no help, busy being mauled by my mate.

I clutch my shaking, frigid hands to my chest. “Elric!”

He stops, like he paused in time as his head snaps to me. He responded to his name, but I haven’t a clue how much of him is truly in there right now. My distraction gives Rummes an opening, a perfect one to land a crushing blow, but he doesn’t.

His bloodied, human form lends me a quick nod before slapping his palm on a tree. A rush of wind and a blinding eruption of light is all that follows, and he’s gone .

I’m still shocked, reeling from it, when Elric blurs to block the space the fox god had been, as if he cannot stand my eyes on anyone else.

My heart makes a funny little flutter at the thought.

My eyes widen as he paces back and forth in front of me, his tendrils snapping and thudding off of… nothing at all.

I made it.

This is the barrier.

I ignore the raging, maddened animalic version of my mate, taking another step back that sends him into a snarling frenzy as he rushes the barrier, slamming into it. His black hair hangs in his face as he pants.

This…this is the power of an angry god and the power of the witches who trapped him.

The forest seems to quake in the wake of his rage.

But not me.

Not in the way I should, at least.

“So help me, Molly, I swear to the gods if you do not come to me, I will–”

“I am not running from you, Elric,” I assure him.

He doesn’t stop pacing, his eyes wild; they see everything and nothing at all, his tendrils never stopping their war on the invisible wall between us.

“Yet you ran, with the fox. I can smell him on you. I can feel him inside you; you shared your name! You formed a soul connection with another God!” With the latter part, he seethes, more beast than man.

A connection?

I feel slightly less bad about getting him hurt. He’d said nothing of a connection and what it might mean. Although belatedly, it makes sense, like when Péal gave me her name, just to a higher degree.

“I will kill him, Syringa. I will do it over and over again, and I will make you watch. ”

My mouth opens just a bit, my core tightening in the most sick and perverse way. “I-I will come to you, but on one condition.”

He stills his pacing, his eyes doing another panicked scan of the woods behind me before he levels me with them, waiting.

I stand a little taller, forcing my back ramrod straight despite the cold. “You will complete the bond.” I don’t ask, I demand. Leveling him the same way he is with me, albeit less effectively, I’m sure.

The smile that floods his face is predatory, so wrong it loses its human quality, but so…right at the same time. “My sweet little Molly. We are far past that.”

He paces again as I take a step closer to the barrier, unsure of where it really is, trying to keep my victory smile off my face.

I go to take another step before I halt, remembering myself.

The diary…everything that has led us to this moment.

It is so much more than me , it’s him who suffers the most. At the root of this is fear.

The God of Blood and Eternal Death is afraid.

My eyes blur with tears as I look up at him, his attention already on me as he slows his pacing for a moment. The tendrils continue, but I pay them no mind. I’m not sure how much of him is in there right now, but I need him to hear me, to understand my words.

“If death comes, I will hold you tighter than it can tug. I swear it.”

He stills, his eyes on me.

“It’s going to be okay.”

He’s silent for a beat, his chest heaving. “Come, syringa. Now.”

I shut my eyes, taking a deep breath, knowing he heard me.

Hoping that despite the state he’s in, my words meant something.

They aren’t much, and in the grandiose scheme of things here, I have no power, but they mean something.

They have to, and even if it is pure delusion, I choose to believe them wholeheartedly.

Enough for us both. My lungs expand painfully, filled to the brim.

I don’t release them until I step into a whirlwind of tendrils.