by Jaymin Eve
I turned to face him. “He opened his eyes,” I said. “They were gold and filled with this … lightning power. Like the energy surrounding him in the water.”
Whatever I said, it took Louis by surprise. He jerked his head back and watched me with a confused expression. “Did you say gold?” he asked, like I must have been mistaken.
“It was so bright. No way I was confused,” I said, a sliver of defiance creeping into my tone. Being away from Asher was affecting me in more ways than one.
Louis still hadn’t said anything, and somehow I knew this was really bad. “What does that mean?”
He swallowed, the skin at his throat visibly moving. “I have a theory. But it’s something I’ve only heard about as a fable. I don’t want to worry you at this stage, because there’s really nothing to suggest that’s what’s happening here. I’m going to have to—”
“Do some research,” I said drily, cutting him off.
The woman at his side chuckled and I found myself turning to the supe. She was small, much tinier than me, and even in a world of eternally beautiful people, she was breathtaking. Like a fairy princess from a dream. This had to be Tee, Louis’s mate.
“Louis does a lot of research when it comes to me,” I told her, wishing it was a joke.
Tee nodded. “Yes, he likes to be very certain before he freaks us all out with the knowledge of whatever we’re facing.”
All humor dried up inside of me. “It’s bad, isn’t it?” I practically breathed the words.
Louis dropped a hand on my shoulder. “It might be. I’m hoping I’m wrong. But I will find out everything I can.”
I tried to find some reassurance in his words … and failed miserably.
Turning back to Asher, I watched him for many long moments, wondering what battles he was facing.
I miss you.
Gods. I missed him so much it actually hurt.
Asher had brought so much to my life, and I wasn’t sure I’d survive if I didn’t get him back soon.
15
Time was a funny thing. Sometimes it moved at super speed, like the nights I used to stay up with the Atlantean-five watching old movies and eating junk food—honestly, eight hours would pass and I’d barely even notice it. Then, other times, like when Asher was taken from me last year, the days and weeks had dragged. A week felt like a month. A month felt like a year. And the time I’d spent trying to figure out how to save Asher felt like a lifetime.
“It’s like déjà vu,” I said to Axl, dropping my head into my hands and rubbing at my temples. “Seriously. I’m losing my mind. How can this be happening again?”
We were in the library. Now that I’d discovered it, I found myself gravitating to it whenever I wasn’t in class, because there was something soothing about this quiet room filled with knowledge and the scent of old books. Plus, I soon discovered it was the surefire way to find Axl when he wasn’t in class or eating.
“It’s been two weeks,” Axl said softly. He was unusually distracted, eyes darting around as he shifted in his chair. I was used to his laser focus, and it worried me to see him so out of it. “Whatever is holding Asher has not lessened. If anything, it’s growing stronger.”
It was. I visited Asher every day, and the barrier around him was pushing further and further out. We were basically restricted in a twenty-foot diameter around him.
“Louis said it’s definitely a god thing, and that Asher’s power is combining with the god’s to form something new.”
Louis had disappeared to Antarctica to talk to some old magic users, and I hadn’t heard from him since, which was driving me crazy.
“At least Atlantis has not risen yet,” Axl said, trying to be reassuring. In his way. “I mean, none of us would want to leave the Academy right now, knowing that Asher is…”
He trailed off, and I clenched my fists to stop my arms trembling, fighting down the panic in my chest. If the last word he wanted to say was “dying,” I would probably lose my mind. Asher was invincible, I was almost certain of it. There was no way that god bolt was slowly killing him. No. Fucking. Way. It was doing exactly what Louis suggested … turning him into something new.
The library door burst open then, the noise echoing loudly through the room, and as heavy footsteps pounded toward us, I was up on my feet already.
I sensed her energy a moment before Ilia burst into sight. “Mads,” she gasped, her red corkscrew curls bouncing everywhere. “You’ve gotta get to Asher. Now.”
I took off, not waiting to see who else was with me, and before I could think twice about it, I opened a doorway and stepped right through it. It was supposed to be impossible to do that within the magical barriers of the Academy, but somehow my energy circumvented this rule. I wasn’t sure how, but if it got me to Asher faster, I wasn’t going to argue.
I stepped out in the forest, almost smashing into the back of Jessa and Braxton. “Whoa,” I said, skidding to a halt as Jessa wrapped her arms around me, stopping me from bowling them down. This was a very good thing, because Braxton had two kids in his arms—their twins.
“I’m sorry,” I said in a rush. “My step-through was a little closer than expected.”
Jessa shook her head, and I almost cried at how watery her blue eyes looked. “What’s happening?” I whispered. Everything inside of me wanted to step forward, to go to Asher, but I was also so afraid of what I would see.
“I wish I could tell you it’s going to be okay,” Jessa said softly, very unlike her normally blunt tone. She didn’t really do the softer emotions much. I normally enjoyed that aspect of her personality—we’d actually become friends over the last few weeks while the pair of them gave me private fight lessons.
The change in tone worried me, and it could only mean one thing. I stepped around her, barely even giving their gorgeous twins a second glance. I did notice that the two of them looked a little glum as well, their faces like perfect little dolls with cherry-red lips and mops of golden curls. Eve, their daughter, had the most incredible hair I’d ever seen. Pure gold ringlets fell to the middle of her back. She was not even three yet, but her hair was spectacular.
The four of them were the most beautiful, perfect family. Powerful. Strong. In love.
And I was distracting myself so I didn’t have to see whatever had brought Ilia to me at such a pace. Louis turned his head from where he waited near the barrier, “You’re back,” I whispered.
I stared into his eyes, and the look there…
Tears trailed down my cheeks, hot and slow, dripping my pain to the ground below. I hadn’t seen Asher yet. I couldn’t look at him knowing it might be the last time I looked at him. I wasn’t ready for that.
I would never be ready for that. Ready to let him go.
Louis wrapped his arms around me, pulling me into his side, my tears soaking into his shirt. “I’m so sorry, Maddi.”
I shook my head against his chest, still refusing to acknowledge what I already knew to be happening.
“What for?” I asked, my next stupid question.
“I figured out what the power is doing to him,” Louis said softly, his strong arms holding me.
Crashing of trees and undergrowth sounded around us, but I was too gone to look at what it was.
“Give her to us,” Jesse said roughly from nearby, and I choked back my next sobs before I pulled away, slapping at the tears.
“No,” I said shortly. “No. I can stand on my own. I don’t need anyone to hold me up.”
Jesse, Axl, Rone, and Calen were all there, their faces filled with fear and grief and pain.
“Asher’s dying,” Axl said softly, and I was surprised to see tears in his eyes. I’d never seen any of them cry. Not even a single tear. But all four of them looked to be on the edge. Even Rone.
It shouldn’t be a surprise. The Atlantean-five were brothers. Family. Closer than any friends I’d ever known, and now they were facing a huge loss.
It’s your loss too.
I pushed
at the incessant voice but it wouldn’t leave me. It continued to poke and prod and scratch at whatever mental barrier I’d erected to protect myself. Look at him!
My head turned toward him, but my eyes squeezed shut. “Not looking won’t change anything,” Rone said, wrapping his arm around me as he pulled me closer. I noticed that Larissa and Ilia were there as well—Rone’s other arm was around Larissa as he held us both up.
“I can’t—”
My voice broke. I cleared my throat and tried again, those incessant tears still falling.
“I can’t do this.”
I can’t let him go.
My eyes found the tank, and my chest tightened to the point where I couldn’t breathe. The last time I’d seen Asher—yesterday—he’d still looked like himself—in his stasis, the tank keeping him alive and floating, power zipping around him. Today though … well, I understood the drawn faces and urgency of Ilia’s tone. Asher looked like he was minutes from death.
His body was almost petrified, the skin pulled tight across emaciated muscles and organs. He was no longer golden; his skin was a gray-green shade; there was literally not one healthy part on him. The lightning energy filling the water, on the other hand, was much brighter and stronger.
“What’s causing this?” Axl said to Louis.
The sorcerer started to talk, but the roaring in my head made listening impossible.
Asher was dying. Focus. I needed to focus. He wasn’t dead yet … maybe there was still something I could do.
“…god bolt is powering itself from Asher’s energy.”
I tuned back in at the tail end of Louis’s explanation.
“Sorry … what?” I interrupted, turning my head to meet his eyes.
He cleared his throat, starting again. “I had to research it, because I’ve only heard rumors that some gods possess the ability to send their energy into a supe, draining their power and giving themselves a boost. It was the lightning power in the water teamed with the impenetrable barrier that initially clued me in on what was happening. The god who attacked you may not have been specifically aiming for Asher—”
“Me,” I interrupted. “Asher pushed me out of the way. The god was aiming for me.”
Louis nodded. “I suspected as much, because you are so very powerful, and this would have been a huge boost to them.”
“So … this god’s power has been slowly leaching Asher’s energy from him and we never knew?” A burst of anger pushed through my pain and sadness. “It’s been weeks, Louis! You disappeared for weeks without giving us so much as a heads-up. We could have been trying to reverse it before it was too late.”
I hated the sympathy that bloomed across his face. “There’s no way to reverse it, Maddi. The power, the moment it hit Asher, was in every single cell, vein, and organ. It’s a parasitic energy that had an immediate hold of Asher, and nothing would make it let go.”
“That’s why you kept having to heal me,” I whispered, remembering how long it took them to bring me back.
He nodded. “Yes, and you were only hit with the edge of the blast. Almost like you got sprinkled with the energy, but Asher absorbed it all. I’m afraid there is nothing we could have done at any point to save him.”
I choked down a cry. I heard Larissa sobbing nearby. Rone folded his huge frame around her like he could hold her together. Or maybe she was holding him together.
“He fought for a long time,” Axl said, his eyes shiny and red. “I know the sort of parasitic energy that you speak of, although what I researched was not from a god, and still it’s usually very quick-acting. From the strength of a god, I would expect even faster, but Asher has fought the entire way.”
Panic clawed at my chest, because they were already talking about him like he was dead, and I was not okay with that. I was not fucking okay.
“I don’t accept this,” I said suddenly. All of my tears dried as fierce determination rocked me. “I will not just stand here and watch him die. Larissa and I got close to his tank by working together. We can do it again.”
Louis’s lips thinned; I could see that from the corner of my eye. “Even if we get close, Maddi, there is nothing we can do. There is nothing of Asher left now. The energy will have drained him completely.”
“Then he won’t die alone,” I said suddenly. I wouldn’t risk my friends, not if there was no way to save Asher, but I also would not just stand by and let him face this last step without me.
Before anyone could stop me, I opened a doorway, stepped through, and ended up right in his tank. I’d had no idea if that would work, but it was my last hope. I just wanted to hold him for his final moments. I wanted him to know I loved him.
I sank into the water, the free energy biting across my skin but not going any deeper than that. Water filled my lungs, and despite the fact that Asher had been dying in here for weeks, it tasted pure and clean. There was nothing in this water that held death, and I wondered how it could be that Asher was…
There was no way I could finish that thought and stay sane, so I pushed my own emotions down and focused on the Atlantean at my side. The pain from the lightning was fading as my own power rose, protecting me.
I wrapped my arms around Asher, careful to be gentle, surprised that I still couldn’t reach right around his broad shoulders. He was literally wasting away, and somehow still managed to be larger than life. Sobs ripped from me despite my best efforts to focus just on Asher and not my own pain.
I love you, Asher. My hair washed across both of us, hiding our faces from our friends outside the tank. A part of me knew they were screaming and trying to get to us, but in here, it was like being cocooned in a little bubble. Nothing existed.
My head drifted toward his shoulder, and I was surprised by how warm he still felt. Like … something strong still beat inside him … despite everything that had been stolen from him.
The water hid my tears, but they were still there. I felt them burning from my eyelids as I brushed a hand across Asher’s cheek and down to his chin. He barely even looked like Asher, but it didn’t matter. I felt our bond, strong and sure, beating in my chest.
For a second, I had hope.
Heat swirled in my center, and I searched desperately for a way to save him.
Only to realize that the heat wasn’t mine.
It was Asher’s.
A beat later, everything went blindingly bright.
Then he exploded.
16
It took two days before the power in the tank faded enough that they could get to me. I couldn’t really remember much, only that I drifted in some sort of semi-catatonic state, my head firmly locked in an endless loop of memory. Asher … explosion … god bolts … my own agonizing pain.
I ended up at the Atlantean house after that, and at first when they tried to place me in Asher’s room, I started screaming and thrashing so hard that they eventually just bundled me up on the couch, someone standing vigil with me as I cried and sobbed and screamed myself to sleep. Jesse was the only one who could comfort me, wrapping his huge body around mine, holding me together as I crumbled into nothing more than the fine dust that was left after Asher’s death.
Sometime later, possibly days or longer—time had no meaning to me—I found my tears finally drying up. My body could just not cry any longer. I lay with my head against Jesse’s chest. I’d thought he was asleep, but when his hand came up and tangled in my mess of hair, gently dragging up and down, an emptiness settled deep in my body. His touch was nice, but it wasn’t the touch I needed. It wasn’t the touch I craved.
“I can’t believe he’s gone,” I whispered, the first words I’d spoken in days, my voice hoarse from tears and lack of use. “Asher was so strong. He was always so sure. I never expected anything could ki—”
I couldn’t say it. Kill. Death. Gone. They were too permanent for me, and the fragile hold I had on my sanity was protecting me in whatever way it could.
“We should swim,” Jesse said softly, shifting
on the couch, dragging me with him. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d drunk or eaten anything, or had a shower, so the swim was probably more for him than me. But I found myself agreeing.
“A swim might be nice.”
My legs were shaky when I got to my feet, and a sudden urge to pee hit me hard and fast, so I dashed into the bathroom, making it just in time. Jesse waited right outside the door for me, his expression hard as he locked eyes with me.
“Worried I was going to off myself in there?” I tastelessly joked, dark humor creeping in.
It hadn’t escaped my attention that I had not been left alone once since Asher.
“You won’t do that,” he said confidently, his tone heavier than usual. “You know that’s the last thing Asher would want from you. He would kick your ass if you even contemplated it.”
I did know that, but that didn’t make the aching pit in my chest any easier to live with. “Time is not going to fix this,” I said, knowing it to be true. “Asher was it for me. I don’t care what the fates say, I felt the true mate bond with him. I felt it.”
Jesse didn’t argue, he just pushed back my snarled and matted hair, tucking it best he could behind my ears. “Yes. You guys were true mates. And I’m not sure how one survives without their true mate, but I need you to try. For me.”
“For all of us,” Axl said, bringing tears to my eyes again as I turned to find him standing in the hall, Calen and Rone right behind him.
I bit my lip, tasting blood as I used the pain to keep myself from shattering into a million pieces. Not literally, of course. But emotionally.
“Let’s swim,” I managed to choke out, and the five of us made our way down to the pool. I hadn’t noticed the time when I woke up, but it was clearly very early in the morning. The sun was not up yet, but there was a sliver of light on the horizon.
The water did exactly what Jesse hoped; my head cleared. I focused on nothing but swimming, back and forth, over and over, pushing harder until hours passed and I was basically beyond exhausted and unable to swim another lap.