“You’re kicking my head,” I say. My voice is so scratchy I barely recognize it.
It taps me again.
I can’t see Lena—just Lena’s boot—so I roll to my stomach. Somehow, I rise to my hands and knees. Her foot is the only thing that’s moving. It’s absently twitching from side to side. That might be all the movement she can manage. She looks exactly how I feel, like a zombie raised from a rotting grave.
My gaze moves past her, focusing on our surroundings. It’s dark, and my vision is blurry. It takes me a while to recognize where we are, and I only do so after I see my car parked on the side of the road. We’re at the Vegas gate.
It’s not the best anchor-stone I could have chosen, but there are much worse places we could have ended up, and at least we have transportation.
If I can get Lena to my car.
“Think you can walk twenty paces?” I ask. She’s still hasn’t opened her eyes.
I crawl toward her head.
“Lena.” I shake her arm. Her head rolls to the opposite side, and she mumbles something in Fae.
“Lena!” I try again. Still no response. Damn it.
I can’t carry her to the car, so after finding the key in my glove box, I bring the car to her. She’s heavy—deadweight, really—and her skin feels tor’um cold when I finally get her into the passenger seat.
The next twenty minutes are the longest of my life. Lena still hasn’t said a word, and the tech surrounding her is agitating her chaos lusters. I don’t know if this was the right decision, putting her in my car, but I couldn’t leave her at the gate. She needs help, and she needs it quickly.
I need help. My vision is still blurred and I swear it goes completely dark at times. I don’t think that’s because I lose consciousness or close my eyes, but I shouldn’t be driving.
When I finally pull into a driveway, a bright blue bolt of lightning lights up the interior of the car. Jesus, what if I’ve damaged Lena’s magic permanently?
I shut off the engine, pocket the keys, then get her out of the car as quickly as I can. I’m not sure how I make it to Nick’s front door, but I’m standing there knocking when it finally swings open.
“Hello . . .” Kynlee stares at Lena then back to me, then at Lena again.
“Dad!” she calls out.
Nick appears in the doorway.
“I don’t know where else to take her,” I tell him.
My arms are shaking, trying to keep Lena upright. Nick’s jaw clenches. A few seconds later, he opens the door wider.
“Kill the breakers,” he says to Kynlee, then he scoops Lena into his arms. When he turns and takes her inside, I stumble over the threshold. I only make it two more steps before my body decides it’s had enough. Nick has Lena. I’ve done all I can.
My knees buckle. I collapse on the tiled-entryway floor and don’t make any effort to pick myself back up.
• • •
I awake ages later on the couch in the media room. I don’t move, I don’t think, I don’t feel. I just lie there, staring at nothing and knowing that if I attempt to do anything at all, I’ll be filled with pain. Physical pain, yes, because I pushed my body far past its limit, but that’s not what I fear the most. The emotional pain, the pain of loss . . . that’s what will destroy me.
Don’t think, McKenzie. Just sleep.
• • •
ANOTHER millennium passes. This time when I wake, I do feel something. I feel someone. Kyol’s nearby. He made it out of the palace. He survived, which means I’ll survive. I can’t find the energy to feel relieved.
My back is to the door when it opens. I don’t turn. I don’t move at all.
“Kaesha,” he says. He places a hand on my arm. The bond opens fully, pouring his fear and his worry, his strength and his love into me. I close my eyes tighter, wanting to feel none of it.
Normally, he would go away, leaving me alone and allowing me space to heal. But this time, my heartbreak is too much. He gently pulls me off the couch and into his arms. My muscles scream in protest, but I say nothing. I just sit there stiffly, refusing to be comforted.
“Please,” is all Kyol says, tightening his embrace. My back is against his chest. He presses his cheek against mine, then whispers again, “Please.”
My resistance shatters. He needs this as much as I do.
The emotions rush through me. The devastation and the loss. Aren. Trev. Sosch—
Remembering the snap of the kimki’s spine and his terrible, dying chirp-whimper does me in. It’s all too much. The tears come, and I can do nothing to stop them.
• • •
I cry myself to sleep. When I wake up, Kyol’s still here, a strong, comforting presence at my back. His arms are still around me, but he’s pulled the blanket off the couch, draping it over me and thus, shielding me from the touch of his edarratae.
He senses that I’m awake.
“I can’t make this better,” he says softly, and a soul-crushing sense of failure moves through him.
I shake my head, turn slightly in his arms. I hate how he carries the world on his shoulders. He shouldn’t feel this way. He should be angry at the false-blood and at me for nearly getting him—us—killed. If he hadn’t recovered so quickly from the drugs we gave him . . .
“I understand why you did what you did,” he says. “I don’t agree with the decision, but I understand it.”
“Stop reading my mind,” I tell him, attempting to make my tone light.
I feel him smile. “I can’t do that, kaesha.”
No, he can only read my emotions and draw upon our ten-year history together. It would be so easy to fall into that past. He wants it. I want it.
But everything has changed, and I want Aren back more.
“I couldn’t save him,” I choke out.
“Hison had half a dozen swordsmen guarding him. It was impossible—”
“No.” I shake my head. “I made it to him. We got out of Hison’s office, but the false-blood . . .” I swallow. “I left Aren behind.” My chin quivers. “I couldn’t carry him and Lena, and I knew . . . I knew what I had to do, what you would do and . . . I left him.”
I fight back tears again because my anguish is killing Kyol. He takes my face between his palms, holds firmly, and looks me in the eyes. “Never second-guess what you’ve done, McKenzie. Never.”
His edarratae heat dual paths down my neck.
“I’m sorry,” I say, closing my eyes briefly, trying to focus. “I’m sorry I was so angry before. I know you didn’t want him to die, but I was just . . .” I draw in a breath. “I shouldn’t have attacked you like I did. I shouldn’t have drugged you. I respect you too much for that.”
Those words hurt him more than they help. He wants more than my respect. He wants me.
“Kyol, I can’t—”
“I understand, McKenzie,” he says quickly, using his words as a shield. “You don’t have to say anything. I understand. I lost any chance I might have had with you when I forced you into the life-bond.”
No, he lost his chance with me when I fell in love with Aren. I don’t correct him, though, because on some level, he’s right. Even with Aren out of the picture, I can’t be with Kyol. The life-bond changes everything. I don’t know how much of what I feel for him is real and how much is based on magic.