"Chris! Look out!"
He turned at the sound of Zach's voice. Davis Godwin, Cole's father, held the blackened wand of his son in his hands. Green fire began pouring forth. He barely moved in time to keep Lana from taking the brunt of the spell. Weakened already by Cole's previous blast, he fell, dragging her down with him, the pain boring into his side in unending, icy agony.
"You killed my son!" Davis stood over Christopher, ignoring the battle still raging behind him. He tried to finish the job Cole had started. His face was set in a rictus of hate.
Suddenly Zach was there, a glow around him Christopher had never seen before. The green fire met that glow and bounced back on Davis, striking the wand. With a shriek of rage, he dropped it just before it exploded.
Zach pointed his finger at Davis. "Back the fuck off, warlock." He flicked his finger, and the man flew backwards, landing with a hard thud against the side of the building. He fell in a graceless heap and didn't get back up.
Zach bent over Christopher, the glow still surrounding him. "You okay, bro?"
Christopher tried to stand but found he couldn't. He hissed in pain, his side protesting the movement viciously. He was just too injured. "No."
Lana pushed him over, ignoring his indrawn scream. She bent and examined his new wound. "It's bad, Zach."
Christopher looked down and saw the blackened flesh, the blisters already broken and wet. He could feel the taint under his skin and knew that this time the Godwins had won.
Christopher didn't hear his brother's response. All he saw was Lana bending over him, tears in those pretty eyes of hers. "Hey."
She sniffled. "Hey yourself, wolfman."
He could feel the darkness tugging at him. "Don't go."
She sobbed. "Not going anywhere. You hear me? Chris?"
His world turned black, his last sight the one he had hoped to see when he lay down in the dark forever.
*
"Chris?" She watched his golden eyes close, his breathing shallow and uneven. They needed to get him some help, more than she could provide. Blood was beginning to puddle beneath him. If he bled too much more it would take a miracle to save him. "Help me." She looked up to find Zach holding out his hand. His other pressed into the wound in Chris's side. Tears filled his eyes. "One hand in mine, one on the ground. Please, Lana. Trust me.
Complete the circle."
Complete the … Oh. Oh! This was what Zach had worked so hard on in the kitchen the day before.
He'd done something to that protection amulet, something she barely grasped. She took out the amulet and held it in her hand, placing it between Zach's palm and her own. She slapped the other against the earth and opened herself up to Zach's magic and Chris's life force. The mark of the wolf throbbed on her neck in response, pulsing in time to Chris's weakening heartbeat. Her instincts told her that what Zach had planned was going to hurt like hell, but if it worked, it would be more than worth it. She focused on Chris's face and waited for the pain to hit, knowing that the amulet would block at least some of it.
Zach closed his eyes and began to chant, the words lilting and strange. Agony seared through her, more than she'd thought a person could endure and live. She couldn't hear the words Zach spoke.
After a more few minutes, she couldn't even hear her own screams.
Chapter Thirteen
Chris faced off with his brother Zach, fury pounding in his veins. "I should kill you."
Zach rubbed one of his hands wearily over his face. The other was swathed in bandages. Zach refused to allow him to see it without them. "She's alive, Chris. So are you." He shrugged. "If I hadn't done what I did, you would have been lost."
"But she would be alive."
"She still is alive, bro. Believe it or not, she'll be fine."
Chris growled. He was holding his wolf back with everything in him, but it was close. Zach had put his mate in mortal danger to save him, and Chris was furious. Somehow Zach had taken the hellish wounds from him, grounding the evil power through Lana, cleansing it before allowing it to return to the earth. Because of Zach, Lana had suffered horror before finally blacking out. She'd been unconscious ever since.
Zach deserved at least a beating for putting Lana through that. "If you hadn't done what you did, she wouldn't be lying half dead in my bed right now."
Zach glared at him, power sparkling in his eyes. "If I hadn't done what I did, you would be dead.
Lana would be alone. Fuck, Chris! Some of the Godwins are still fucking out there. What did you expect me to do? Let you die?"
And that was the only reason he'd been able to keep himself from attacking Zach. He could almost understand what had driven Zach to torture his mate. He wasn't quite certain he wouldn't have tried to do something similar if it had been Zach lying on the ground like that. Not that he understood exactly what Zach had done. None of them did. The scariest part was the fear Annabelle tried to hide when she looked at her new protégé.
Still … "If Lana had died, you would have lost me anyway."
Zach growled. "Lana was not going to die."
"She might have."
That weird glow was back around his baby brother, and it was beginning to scare the shit out of him. "I wouldn't have allowed it." Zach took a deep breath, and the glow died down. "Trust me, Chris." Zach turned away and headed for his room. "For once in our lives just … believe in me."
Chris watched his brother walk up the stairs, his heart hurting at the defeat in his brother's face but unable to give up his anger. He would, given time. Zach was right; Lana was still alive, and that was what he needed to focus on.
* * * *
"I won't kill him, but I'm still going to fucking kick his ass." Lana felt the darkness receding, Chris's voice rolling over her in a furious wave. Uh-oh. Wonder who pissed Chris off. Her head pounded, and her mouth felt like she hadn't had anything to drink in days.
Gareth's voice was low and soothing. "You can't kick his ass if he's in Cleveland, Christopher."
Who's going to Cleveland? She tried to turn her head, but the pain was too intense. What the hell had she been drinking? This was the worst hangover in the history of drunkenness!
"I don't care. I'll figure out a way to do it. How dare he use her like that?" It sounded like Chris was pacing. But Chris never paces. She frowned. Wait. Who used me? And for what?
"It saved your life, Chris."
"So?"
"She volunteered."
"She shouldn't have had to go through that!"
"Christopher." She could hear Gareth's frustrated sigh and wondered how long they'd been fighting.
"Grounding it through you wasn't an option. You know that."
It was starting to come back to her. Chris had been lying on the ground, bleeding badly. Cole's body had been close by, eerily still. The Godwins had been fighting the Becketts while the Arbiter tried to stop it all and failed miserably.
"He could have asked someone else."
"We were all dealing with the Godwins. Damn it, Chris! Zach had seconds to act. If he'd waited for one of us, you'd be dead."
Oh. Zach. That picture was probably going to stick with her forever. Zach kneeling over Chris's body, glowing and holding out his hand, begging for her help. At the thought of the new witch, Lana winced. The spell he'd used, forcing the toxins from the wound through her, purifying them before grounding them, had been excruciating. But with no time to come up with an alternative way it had been the only way to save Chris from the wound that was rapidly killing him. Cleansing the taint before releasing it into the ground meant no one else would suffer ill effects from the demonic power. Otherwise the clean earth of the dueling circle would have been twisted and perverted, unable to sustain the spells of the wizards who used it.
The power Cole Godwin had held was apparently nothing compared to what Davis Godwin had.
The second wound had been more horrific than the first. Thank the Lord and Lady the wand was destroyed. She'd hate to think what would happen if an object of such evil was ever placed in the hands of someone even stronger than Davis Godwin.
She shifted her leg, hoping in some weird way that it would alleviate the pain in her head. That's when she realized it wasn't just her head that hurt. Her whole body did.
"I think she's waking up." A hand gently picked up hers, even that soft touch painful. "Sweetheart?"
"Ow." She hoped he'd heard her, because the barely there whisper was the best she could do.
"Get Annabelle. Now."