Zev’s body turned bright red, as if his temperature soared and he could no longer control it. His hair grew damp and his body writhed and seized.
His mind retreated from the pain, an agony such as he’d never experienced, his insides forced into regeneration, an unnatural fiery death and rebirth.
“You’re losing him,” Mikhail hissed. “He’s a Dark Blood. Call to that part of him, the warrior in him. Call to the blood line of Tirunul.”
From far away Zev heard the prince speak, but his voice was lost among other voices calling to him from another realm.
He felt the fireball of pure white energy moving through him, burning him clean, cauterizing and cleansing, but that too was becoming distant.
Zev, you have to fight.
That was Fen, demanding. Coaxing.
Come on, bro, this is your time. Don’t let go. You can beat this thing.
He recognized Dimitri’s voice—or thought he did. The fire consumed him, left him with no lungs, no heart, no mind. He was incinerated. Burned alive.
I am with you, Branislava whispered. Wherever you are, I am with you always.
She was alone, her spirit weave still intact with his and no other. She was surrounded by her family, the people who would have aligned their fate with hers, but she had done as he asked, believed in his strength enough to risk her life once again with him.
He held tight to her, even as his mind wandered into another realm. He saw them, shadowy figures, tall warriors with slashing eyes and fierce expressions. Women, beautiful and courageous, whose faces were stamped with the same passionate resolution as their men. All had one thought, one mind. They were joined together for one purpose only—to heal the horrendous wound in his gut.
He felt the first stirring in his mind of something unfamiliar—yet so familiar. His blood heated, boiled, flowed through his veins like hot, molten lava. Dark and strong, his blood refused to be taken by the fire. His blood was liquid already and the fire couldn’t change that. The white-hot energy annihilated everything in its path, forcing his body to either die or rise like a phoenix from the ashes.
His blood moved valiantly through his body, determined to keep him alive, to keep one step ahead of the fireball crashing through him. It pushed into his heart and out again, ran through him like the underground rivers no one ever saw or was aware of, when his heart wanted to falter. His lungs refused to work, to find air, so burned and raw they couldn’t work.
Dark Bloods do not ever give in. They do not give up. They fight with their last breath.
He had no breath. There was no air, only that all-consuming fire raging through his body. He was already in the other realm, surrounding by the ancestors. Here, he could find his grandmother and his mother. Here he could find his great-grandparents, the last of his legendary line.
You are the last of the line. You are kont o sívanak, strong heart. You have the heart of a warrior and you cannot choose to remain in this land of shadows. You are needed.
This time he wasn’t certain who spoke to him. The prince? Gregori? They had faded so far away he had almost let go of them. The ancients then. He felt confused, but he was not a man to ever give up. He wanted life for Branislava and himself. His choice would always be life for her. He wanted that chance to make her happy and experience a lifetime with her.
More, he was a warrior and his people needed him. It really came down to that simplicity. He felt strength rising from somewhere deep inside of him. Determination and purpose. His people—both species—had need of him and he would not fail them. His woman had given him faith he hadn’t yet earned and he would not fail her.
He called to his wolf, knowing as long as he was split, he couldn’t find his way back. He could face the fire, embrace it even, if that’s what it took to be healed and survive for those who needed him. The crisis brewing in him wasn’t about his ability to withstand the power generated by the prince and the healer—his bloodline saw to that—it was the division of his mixed blood. The Carpathian in him rose to do battle with the healer and the prince to fight for his life, but the wolf had no knowledge of such healing and he retreated, snarling and fighting, determined to drag Zev with him to a safe place where the fire couldn’t reach them.
Zev was alpha, his wolf dominant among his kind. It was strong and reactive, a force to be reckoned with, and it refused to give ground once it took a stand. The longer the prince and the healer had to remain locked together, the more intense the fire grew. Time was slipping away. The battle was his to win or lose.
There, in that other realm, surrounded by the dead, his body engulfed in flames, he reached for his Lycan side, embracing his wolf. There was no hesitation or trepidation on his part. His Dark Blood and the blood of his brothers called to the wolf. Lycan and Carpathian blood didn’t blend together so much as there were two separate species in one body with the host able to draw on the strengths of both.