I left the blade, turned and ran for the window. I would climb down; Rylee would never know it was me. She couldn’t.
Because Liam was wrong. If she ever found out I’d been the one to kill him, she would never forgive me. I would no longer be family.
Erik fought beside me as I demolished the demons in my path. The only thing I could think of was Liam. The feel of his threads fading inside my head as I desperately Tracked him. I tried to give him my strength, lend him what I had and he fucking well refused it. My crossbow twanged over and over again pinning demons to the burning walls around us until there were no bolts left and I jerked my two blades out.
The trapped demons were easy pickings, and even though I was afraid, terrified of what was happening to Liam, I managed to send them back. Because under all that fear, my heart was beating for a single person.
Liam.
Finally, I found what would have been the hallway, but it was demolished. “Blaz!”
Out of my way.
He landed beside me, awkwardly balanced on the rubble that was still burning in places. With a swipe of his claw he cleared the path for me.
Rylee, it is bad.
Not what I wanted to hear.
The floor was slick under my feet, and my brain was trying to tell me Blaz was right. Tried to tell me what the liquid was, that it was so much worse than just bad, that I didn’t want to see. Not Liam. I would give up anyone but him.
He tried to open his eyes, but even with them closed he knew she was close. So close. Yet even that, he knew it wouldn’t be enough. This was the moment….
“Liam.” I choked on his name as I fell to the floor beside him, the heat of the flames around us ignored, barely felt around the burning of my soul. “Liam.”
Her voice called to him, and he fought the fog that dragged at him, tugged his body into the darkness. “For a little while. Only a little while, you have to trust me.”
I gripped his hand, curled my body around his, my lips touching his, tasting his blood, trembling as I tried to think of a way to bring him back. Knowing it wasn’t possible. My mind screamed, unable to even process this pain, unable to conceive a world without him, without Liam. Hands dragged at me, tried to draw me away from him, my fingers interlocked with his, the feel of his lips still on mine. “NOOOOO!”
“A little while. I’ll come for you. Always. Protect them, do what you must. This isn’t about you and me, or even the world anymore.” The words whispered out of him, as he unclasped his fingers from hers and his hand settled on her belly. “I love you both more than anything.”
What was he saying? My own hand trembled as it covered his and he gave me a slow nod. Everything I’d been feeling the last few months came rushing back to me. The fatigue, the emotions, Alex saying my heartbeat sounded funny, Orion wanting what I had … I opened my mouth and he shook his head. “Don’t say it out loud.”
I curled against him, his hand spanning my belly and the life inside of it. “Not now, Liam, you can’t leave me, us, now.”
A gasp of air escaped with a final promise.
“Love always wins.” His body convulsed and he didn’t fight the inevitable, as much as he wanted to stay with her, with them. This was his path now, and for a while, it was without her. Just a little while. There was no doubt in him they would be together again. Love like this didn’t happen only to be snuffed out.
Everything around us burned, but all I saw was Liam, a dark shape in the flames. The only one who’d ever truly held my heart, the only one who’d understood me. Tears streamed, drying before they reached my chin in the suffocating air. Someone picked me up, threw me over their shoulder, the pain of my wounds crushed under the pain inside. I didn’t fight them because I knew.
Not Liam.
Anyone but him.
Please, spare my love. Just this once. Give me this. I didn’t know to whom I prayed, only that I prayed with all I had in me.
Someone took her away; that was good. It wasn’t her time. She had too much to do. Too much to give the world—a child to save. He smiled, knowing she would understand why he sacrificed himself. To buy her time. To give them all a chance. They would prove the darkness wrong.
He put his hand over his heart, a single tear slipping down his cheek as the darkness swamped him. “Love … always … wins.”
I knew the moment he died, before the flames consumed him. A howl ripped through the air, the sound of hearts breaking all around. Only it wasn’t any wolf who let out a howl.
It was only me.
Chapter 21
THE WORLD BLACKED out for me, there was nothing in me but a dark and painful emptiness that could never be filled. People wandered in and out of my hearing range, and Alex stayed close to me, but I could feel nothing but the exquisite loss of Liam.