Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 112398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 562(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 562(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
And it became a grief I could not bear when I kept moving, in slow motion, as I turned all the way around to where Pax should have stood.
But instead, he was on the ground, those pale, pale eyes wide and unseeing, a deep gouge in his chest where he’d been struck by a Ghorl.
Chapter Forty-Six
Aria
“Pax!” His name cleaved from my mouth on a plea, and I dropped to my knees at his side.
“Pax. No, no, no,” I begged. My hands shook uncontrollably as they fluttered out to touch him. To feel him. To find him.
He couldn’t leave me.
Please, don’t leave me. Don’t.
“Pax. Please.” It was garbled. Incoherent.
I managed to get my trembling fingers to his neck, and I fumbled as I searched for a pulse. A frenzy grew inside me when I couldn’t find one, and I pressed harder.
Searching.
Desperate.
A thousand pounds weighed down on my chest. The pain so brutal I couldn’t breathe. I wheezed, the air jerking in and out of my failing lungs as I searched the other side, begging and begging, “Pax, please, look at me. You have to look at me. Please.”
Dani was suddenly there, on her knees on the other side of him. “Oh God, Aria,” she choked.
I pleaded, desperation scraping up my ravaged throat, “Pax, please, look at me!”
Her pink hair got in my line of sight as she leaned over him, and she tipped it so her ear was to his chest, watching and listening for anything.
For any movement.
For a breath.
For a heartbeat.
She remained there for too long.
Doing nothing.
“Dani, hurry, we have to help him.”
She sat back on her heels. Anguish pulsed through her features, and she slowly shook her head. “I’m so sorry, Aria.”
I shook mine back.
Frantically.
Refusing what she was trying to say.
“No. No, Dani. No!” I screamed, and I pressed my hands to his chest.
Feeling.
Feeling.
Feeling.
No heartbeat.
No movement.
But I could feel him.
I could feel his spirit, which had always lived inside me.
That intuition—that awareness—that had thrummed between us. No matter the miles or distance or spheres that had separated us.
Our connection, which would bond us forever.
Tears blurred my eyes as I leaned over him, touching him everywhere as the frenzy of words poured from my mouth. “Pax, come back to me. You can’t leave me. Not now. We did it. We did it. Together. Together. The way we were supposed to. Listen to my voice, to my heart.”
I took his hand and placed his palm flat to that thunder that battered at my aching chest.
“You promised you would always find me. You promised. You have to. You have to find me. Wherever you are, you have to find me. You’re my partner. My husband. My Nol. I need you.”
The cries raked out of me.
Misery.
Anguish.
“Oh, fuck. No, man.” From behind Dani, Timothy gripped his head with bloodied hands, the gore of the battle we’d just fought written all over him, before he dropped to his knees.
He nudged Dani aside. “Let me see.”
He cut me an agonized glance as he unzipped Pax’s jacket. He peeled it back, revealing Pax’s shirt, which was ripped from the burn he’d sustained.
The fabric was completely saturated with blood. The wound was right on the center of Pax’s chest, so deep that I feared I would be able to see his stilled, lifeless heart. A hole that was at least five inches wide.
Carefully, Timothy set both hands on Pax’s sternum, just below the wound.
He began to pump. To pump blood through Pax’s veins for him when he couldn’t do it himself.
A frenzy lit inside me. Hope that bloomed in the middle of the torment.
Pax and Dani had saved me. They’d saved me when that healing had been impossible. When I should no longer be breathing. Because they were there. Because they’d poured their power into me.
I had to believe.
I had to.
Tremors rocked through my hands when I pressed my palms right over the wound.
Dani seemed to realize it at the exact moment, too, and she scrambled around so she could place her hands on each side of his head.
And we breathed our belief into him.
Our life.
Our love.
Over and over, I begged him to stay.
“Pax, I’m right here. Find me. Find me the way you always have.”
Timothy pumped and pumped. Exertion strained his arms, but he refused to give up as Dani and I called him back.
As we begged and prayed that the energy we poured into him was weaving something inside.
A healing we couldn’t see.
We refused to falter or give.
Our breaths were harsh and ragged as we gave him everything we had.
And I knew it when I saw the stirring of his eyes.
The slight fluttering of his lashes.
“Pax, Pax! You hear me. I know you hear me.” Tears gushed down my face as the words rushed from my mouth.
“Come back to me. I’m waiting. I’m right here.”
His chest suddenly arched off the ground as he sucked in a jagged breath.