by Tenaya Jayne
She gasped, her lungs and mouth filling with blood. She couldn’t speak. Her consciousness teetered on the edge. He grabbed her hand, entwined their fingers, and moved their hands together over the main gear. A purple blast shot out from their hands, breaking the gear. The dress retracted, the spikes pulling in and the web shrinking back in on itself until it turned back into a spider and crawled away.
She gazed up at him, everything going strangely white around the edges. She was so cold. He put both of his hands over her heart. It jolted her.
“Come on, baby.” He said. “Come back.”
“Why? Too…Tired.”
“I need you, Tesla.”
Her eyes fluttered, some of her wounds began to close, but it wasn’t enough. “Dying,” she whispered and lost consciousness.
X had no time. The threat wasn’t squelched. He didn’t have Lachlan’s soul. But if he didn’t get her back to somewhere she could heal, he would lose her. He stripped off his shirt and put it on her. “Come, Fluffy!” he yelled as he picked her up.
The monster came around the corner and flew back into his palm stone like a wisp of smoke. He tore open the air and landed in the Everpath. X ran faster than he ever had in his life. Her blood covered his chest as he held her. The tie he had to her in his hand began to unravel. Her heart faltered.
X kicked the door open to Regia and jumped. His feet hit the floor in her bedroom. “Help!” he shouted.
Syrus took her from his arms and laid her down on the floor. “Put your hands on her heart,” he ordered.
X obeyed. Her power was so faint, he could barely feel it beneath his hands. Syrus covered her in lightning. Her wounds closed.
“She’s all but bled out,” Syrus said.
X took one of his hands from her and thrust it toward Syrus’ face. “Bite me.”
Syrus bit the side of his hand. X held the bleeding spot to her mouth. “Come on, Tesla,” he coaxed. “Wake up a little.”
His blood ran down her throat. Still unconscious, the vampire in her awoke and she clamped her lips on his hand and sucked. X and Syrus both exhaled in relief simultaneously. They both exchanged a that was a close one look. Feet thudded in the living room and came charging. Forest barged into the room with Merhl and Rahaxeris in tow behind her.
She fell on her knees by Tesla’s head. “Oh, my baby.” She cried, kissing her forehead. “What’s wrong with her?”
“Severe blood loss,” X said.
“What happened?” Rahaxeris asked, also kneeling beside Tesla and putting his hands on her.
“I—Ouch!” X yelped, looking down at Tesla. She wasn’t just drinking anymore. She’d sank her fangs hard into his hand. Her eyes broke open a slit, and he laughed in release of tension.
“She’s going to be all right now. Just some more time,” Syrus said, slapping X affectionately on the shoulder.
“She needs elf blood to heal faster,” Rahaxeris said. “Let her drink from me now.”
Chapter Nineteen
Spellcast words woke Lachlan a second before the arrow was ripped from his head. He pressed his hands over the now-empty eye socket and looked up with his remaining eye at Peyton leaning over him.
“You need a new eye.”
“No shit,” Lachlan spat. “She’s gone?”
Peyton nodded. Lachlan got to his feet, flying into a rage that ended with him collapsing on his bed in tears. He sobbed loudly, heartbroken over Tesla.
“What happened?” Peyton asked.
Lachlan shuddered. “You didn’t see him?”
“No. I was chased by some demon. My spells did nothing to it at all. Who else was here?”
“Tesla’s boyfriend, I’m assuming. She never mentioned he was a necromancer.”
“Whoa. Are you serious?”
Lachlan gave him a droll, one-eyed stare. “That’s how that demon thing got in here in the first place, idiot. He brought it with him.”
Peyton blew out a breath. “I guess we’re both lucky to have survived then.”
“Yeah. I was out of it when they left, but I’m sure he had to high tail it out of here if he wanted to save her life…” He put his head in his hands, crying again. “Oh, I hope she’s okay. I hope I didn’t kill her. She has to live. She must know how much I love her.”
Peyton frowned and crossed his arms. “So what now?”
Lachlan stood and collected himself. “First, I’m going to get my eye rebuilt. Then we attack Regia. Send out the word. We prepare for war. I will kill every living creature there and bring my queen back. Tesla must not be harmed.”
Darkness and ice. That’s what she felt. Cold metal everywhere, separating muscles, tissue, blood and bones. Too weak to wake with a start, Tesla slowly opened her eyes in the darkness. What was the dream? Was she having one now? She wasn’t cold, or hurt, or surrounded by silk. She blinked once. Her body felt flattened. It was her bed underneath her. It was X slumped against the side of her bed, holding her hand as he dozed. She was home. He’d come for her. He’d made it, when it should have been impossible.
He’d saved her.
“X,” she rasped.
He lifted his head and looked at her, his ice blue eyes bright in the darkness.
“Tesla…” His eyes filled with tears, and he pressed his lips to the hand he held. “I’m sorry.”
She reached up and touched his cheek, memorizing his face. It seemed she hadn’t seen him in an eternity. She thought she’d never see him again.
“Sorry for what?”
“Lying. Being a coward. Rejecting what I wanted most because I didn’t trust it to be real. I didn’t trust you. I was scared of the magnitude of what I felt for you…can you forgive me?”
“Yes…I should have waited when you asked me to. I can’t believe you came for me.”
“No matter where you go, I will always come for you.”
“Why?”
A small smile pulled into the side of his mouth. “Insecure again?”
She nodded, her heart flooding with joy. She hadn’t lost him. They were still the same together.
“I go through the impossible to rescue you from a fate worse than death, and you’re still insecure.” He huffed in mock exasperation. “Oh, Tesla, I’m sorry!” he said quickly, when she started crying.
“No.” She shook her head. “I’m crying because I’m happy. You’re teasing me. I missed you so much. I didn’t even realize how much until right now.” She shivered, thinking of Lachlan. “So cold and dark without you.”
Tragedy filled his eyes. He rose up on his knees, leaning closer to her, and slid his hand inside her shirt until it rested over her heart. She closed her eyes and sighed contentedly.
“I need to tell you about Alex,” he said quietly.
“I’m listening,” she whispered.
X sighed, steeling himself to pour his guts out and tell her everything so she could understand who he was. But the words wouldn’t come out. Not because he couldn’t tell her, but it wasn’t him anymore. What did it matter? He frowned. No, he owed her the knowledge. Determined to say it all, and yet still he struggled to speak.
“That’s okay,” she said. “Can you give me the gist of it?”
“Yeah, I can do that…I lost everything. My future. My community. My status. My fiancée. My friends. Even my family. The whole of what my life was, given and earned alike, was taken from me in one second…and yet, if that was the price I had to pay to have you, then I would gladly pay it again.”
He stole her breath. Overwhelmed, she cried again.
“I lied, such a terrible lie,” he continued. “And I hurt you because I feared being hurt.”
“Say it, X. Please. Tell me.”
“I love you.”
She wiped the tears from her eyes and smiled up at him. “I know. I always knew.”
He leaned down and kissed her lips. It was soft, as though he feared she would break. Just as she sighed into the kiss he pulled back.
“Are you okay? I mean, I know you’re healing,
but are you okay? The things he did to you…”
She groaned and rolled away from him, curling into the fetal position. “No. I fear I am not okay. He tortured me. Played with me. Screwed with my head. I don’t want you to know what he did to me. I can’t talk to you about it. You saw enough for yourself.”
He was quiet for a few minutes. “What can I do for you?”
She sniffled. “Hold me.”
He climbed on the bed next to her and wrapped his arms around her. She nestled down into his embrace, her heart unclenching.
“It doesn’t matter to me, Tesla. Whatever it was he did. It won’t make me stop loving you. You don’t have to tell me. I don’t need to know.”
She relaxed more. “Thank you,” she murmured as she drifted back to sleep.
He lay awake for a while, his fingers slowly tracing up and down on her arm. He hardly believed the events of the last three days were real. He’d failed her so badly. True or not, he blamed himself that she’d been tortured. A monstrous hate germinated inside his heart as he remembered the machine dress that had all but killed her. His hands gripped her tighter. Never again would she be hurt because of something he did. Never. He swore it to himself.
His only thought had been to get Tesla back…But it wasn’t over.
Knowing she was deeply asleep, he got out of bed and left the room. He strode out into the garden and looked up at the night sky. Intuition sniffed the air. X realized he’d kicked the hornet’s nest. Not that he regretted it. He crossed his arms and sighed.
The front door opened behind him.
“What are you doing?” Syrus asked, coming to stand beside him.
“Wondering if I messed up. Wondering what I should have done differently when I got Tesla back.”
“What does it matter? You got her.”
“Hmm…Lachlan’s not dead. I don’t know how I know, but I know he’s not going to retreat. By taking her back, I set things in motion.”
Syrus nodded gravely. “You’re probably right. War is upon us.”
“I have a plan. The dead will protect the living. They are ready… Lachlan is the only wizard I’ve seen, but he’s not alive. Not naturally anyway. His soul is caged inside some sort of object in his body. I have to collect it.”
“I’ve killed a wizard before.”
X faced him, his eyebrows raised. “How?”
“The same way I’d kill anyone else in the circumstance. I shot lightning into his eye and fried his brain straight out of his skull, but he was old. I watched him age as I grew up. He never got younger, he wasn’t reconstructed as you put it when you explained earlier. Perhaps what we will face is different than the one I killed, but still, they can be killed. Anything can be killed.” Syrus cleared his throat. “I, um, I’m sorry for the way I treated you before.”
X chuckled. “Don’t. You’re the only thing that has played out as I expected.”
Syrus raised one eyebrow in question, making X chuckle harder.
“I knew you would be hostile toward me before I came here. I understood.”
“Thank you, X. For everything.”
“I love Tesla.”
“I know that.”
“You…” X hesitated unsure how to say it. “You don’t object?”
Syrus smirked. “Not anymore. You’ve proven yourself to me. If she wants to be with you, I won’t stand in the way.”
Thunder rumbled, and red rolled over the sky. They both looked up, then at each other.
“Here they come.”
All of Regia’s leaders gathered in Forest and Syrus’ garden. The council members of Fortress, Zeren, Rahaxeris, Sabra and Shreve, Merick and Netriet, Merhl, Redge and Journey, Ithiel and the masters of the Blood Kata. X stood off to the side with his new pet, Fluffy, pacing behind him like an anxious dog, while Tesla slept, she was still too weak to stand.
“I will send the guardians everywhere,” X said. “Along with the ghosts I’ve collected.”
“We have no idea how this will really play out,” Rahaxeris said. “The wizards X and Tesla have described are unlike the ones that infiltrated Regia as spies. All we know is they want us all dead, and they are near impossible to kill.”
Forest’s eyes lit up. “Wait! Instead of everyone fighting to protect their territories and people, what if we all mixed?”
“What do you mean?” Sabra asked.
“Each race has a particular strength. If we confronted them as a mixed army, all the races together, all our gifts together, and now with the protection of the dead as well, we might be able to tip the scales.”
“Yeah. Let’s do that,” Syrus said.
Rahaxeris gazed at Forest with unabashed pride. “Brilliant… Are we all in agreement?”
Everyone nodded.
Zeren stepped forward. “I will lead Paradigm from Fortress castle.”
“All the ogres will open portals in every city and town so the people can mix,” Merhl said.
“Where will you be, Necromancer?” Shreve asked X.
“Tesla and I will be with the Heart.”
All eyes moved from X on to Journey. “What about you, Journey? Where can your gifts be applied?”
She bit down on her bottom lip for a moment. “I don’t know. If I can survive, I will travel through the fighting. I will be everywhere.”
“The children need to be put into sanctuaries,” Netriet said.
Merick pulled her into his side. “We’ll handle that. Where should they go?”
Ithiel looked at Syrus, silent communication going between them. Syrus nodded.
“The Obsidian Mountain can hold the children,” Ithiel said. “Well, lots of them anyway.”
“We can put children in the underground of the Lair as well,” Shreve said.
Thunder cracked over the sky again. Red fracture lines lit up through the blood lock.
“Let’s get moving. We’re out of time,” Forest said.
Instead of dispersing, the weight of the moment held everyone still, looking at one another. Shreve moved first. Eyes bright, he strode to Forest and clasped her in a tight hug.
“I love you, Sister. Thank you for everything. I hope we meet again.”
Following his example, everyone began to embrace and say their goodbyes.
“They won’t defeat us! Not when we stand together. This is our world. It will stay that way!” Forest shouted.
Everyone raised their voices in a roar of agreement. Merhl opened portals for all of them, and they scattered, leaving Forest, Syrus, X, and Rahaxeris in the garden.
Lachlan held the universe sphere with both hands, resting his forehead against the cool, smooth exterior, watching it break Tesla’s wall. In spite of himself, he smiled, proud of her handiwork. He made a mental note to tell her how proud he was when she was back.
Every wizard stood at the ready, prepared to go to Regia as soon as the wall gave. Every wizard except himself and Peyton. They would remain in the castle and watch the battle in the sphere.
“You sent word to everyone about Tesla?”
“Yes,” Peyton said. “Although, I don’t see that being adequate. She could easily be killed in the chaos.”
“True. Here, hold the sphere for a moment.”
Tesla’s blood was still on the floor of the bedroom. Lachlan put his hands flat in it and came back to the throne room.
“Hold it out,” he ordered Peyton.
He put his blood-covered hands on the sphere and closed his eyes, forcing it to take her into itself, along with his will that she wouldn’t be hurt. The sphere vibrated and turned hot to the touch for a second. Her face swam into view inside the sphere. She was asleep. He was seeing her in real time. He grabbed the sphere from Peyton and sat down cross-legged with it, running his fingers over and over it in a sensual caress. Light sparked from his fingertips and rushed inside. He put his mouth right next to the surface and exhaled. Her hair blew back from her face. He smiled and pressed his head back against it.
“Tesla…
” he whispered.
She frowned in her sleep and whimpered.
“You hear me, don’t you, sweetness? I’m going to get you back. You’re mine. You know it.”
Chapter Twenty
All of Regia prepared for war as fire began snaking through the fractures in the blood lock. This was everyone’s fight. Not just the soldiers, but the merchants and farmers, the wealthy and poor alike had the same amount to lose. Thunder continued to rumble across the sky without ceasing.
Forest looked out her bedroom window at the burning clouds. This was the battle of her life, and yet there was a calm inside her, a place that refused to give an inch, like a vault door in her heart. Steel coated her spine and ran molten in her veins.
She looked over at Syrus; he was methodically laying weapons on the bed, carefully considering each one.
“Hey,” she said quietly.
He glanced up, meeting her gaze.
“I want one moment, Syrus. Just one.”
He crossed to her and pulled her against him. It wasn’t desperate, or harsh, but it was solid, something else that refused to give an inch. Their bond connected them tightly, hands, lungs, eyes, hearts, and souls. She exhaled and leaned her head against him. Everything existed in that one moment. Everything that was real. Everything that mattered.
“Kiss me one last time.”
He placed his hands gently on her cheeks and tilted her face up. His heart flooded hers as he kissed her mouth.
“That was not the last time, Forest,” he said sternly, tapping her on the nose with his fingertip. “Now get your boots on, baby. You’ve got some ass to kick.”
She smiled and nodded. Forest dressed for the fight and armed herself with multiple blades, tucked her one nine-millimeter in the back of her pants, and finally strapped on her lightning sword.
“No matter what, we stay with Tesla,” Forest said.
“Absolutely,” he agreed.
Only then did her eyes feel hot with emotion. “Our daughter’s going to save the world.”
He smirked. “I think you’re right… Ready?”
She closed her eyes for one second and exhaled. When she opened them again, she was gone. Forest wasn’t there anymore. She was a machine of death with cold, surgical edges.
