Flamebound A Lone Star Witch No(90)

I want nothing more than to curl into a ball and pretend none of this is happening, but I can’t look away from Declan. I won’t. He’s doing this for me, sacrificing himself so that my sister and I can live. There’s no way I will give in to my weakness, not when he is so filled with strength.

I force myself to watch as Declan falls to his knees in front of me. He’s still burning, the fire somehow even more ravenous than when we first entered this hellish journey. His eyes lock with mine and he reaches a hand out, presses it right up to mine on the other side of the barrier he’s thrown up between us.

“I love you,” I mouth to him, refusing to look away.

At that moment, all the magic that’s been bouncing around in me explodes outward. I feel it slam through me, out of me, and right through the wall and into Declan.

The flames around him falter for just a moment and I push against the barrier, determined to reach him. Determined to help him.

The barrier holds against me, but I feel more magic slipping through it. I have no idea what I’m doing, but I reach deep inside myself, harness whatever power I have left and shoot it straight at the wall. Straight at Declan.

It connects—I know it does because his whole body bows up at the sudden influx of power. I watch as he staggers to his feet. Spreads his arms wide, just as he did before, and begins once again to compress the flames into a fiery arc.

Long seconds pass—the longest of my life as I continue to funnel my power into him—but even through the tears and smoke clouding my vision I can see that it’s working. The fire is narrowing, compressing, under the weight of Declan’s will and our combined power. Growing smaller, weaker, all the flames in the room flowing into that arc of fire even as Declan pushes his hands closer and closer together. Pushes the fire into a smaller, tighter area until finally all the flames are gone, pressed into a spinning ball of flames that Declan hurls to the ground at his feet.

The flames dissolve into nothingness.

The barrier between us dissipates at the same moment Declan collapses onto the ground. I fall forward, barely able to catch myself before I plummet onto his raw, blistered skin.





Twenty-seven





“Declan. Oh my God, Declan.” I swallow back the sobs that are ripping at the back of my throat. Try to concentrate on what needs to be done to help him. He’s in bad shape—though not nearly as bad as he’d be if he weren’t a Hekan warlock and a fire element. His skin is red and blistered, and though there are a few deeply raw and open places, most of what I can see looks like second-degree burns. Blistered, raw, even charred in places. But still treatable.

I don’t know how that’s possible—I saw him burning—but I’m not going to question it. Neither, it seems, are the firemen and paramedics who rush to his aid. Then again, maybe they’ve seen this before. For all I know, this is what happens to a fire element when the beast gets loose. In which case, I’ve never been more grateful for Declan’s powers.

Trying to keep my head, I direct some of the firemen down the hallway to Rachael’s room, but the majority of them stay with us. As they start to work on Declan in the middle of the hallway, I get shuffled out of the way. It’s hard for me to step aside, especially when every instinct I have is screaming at me to get him out of the house and as far away from this nightmare as possible. I know that’s just my fear talking—with the fire obliterated, thanks to Declan’s magic, we’re actually pretty safe for the moment. Provided the floor beneath our feet doesn’t decide to cave in.

The paramedics must be a little worried about that, too, because they mutter a few spells to reinforce the buckled wood. I try to give them room as they put in an IV—I want them to do whatever’s necessary to help Declan—but it’s a physical pain deep inside for me to be separated from him even by a few feet. The newness of sharing my magic with him is still a raw space inside me.

I wonder if he feels the same way, hope he doesn’t, but when he turns his head, his eyes tracking me, I know he’s suffering at our separation just as I am. When he finds me, he struggles up into a sitting position. Reaches for me.

“We need you to lie back down, sir,” one of the paramedics says, but Declan ignores him.

“Xandra,” he rasps out, his hand connecting with mine and squeezing tight.

I wince at the contact. Not for me but for him. Blisters are already starting to form on his fingertips and I know touching me must be making the pain worse. “I’m here, baby. Let the paramedics do their work.”

“No pain medicine,” he tells them with a glare as one starts to inject something into his IV.