I will, but you’re going with me.

The feeling of rock-solid resolve coming out of her was the last thing he felt right before his heart fluttered, stuttered and then stopped.

Chapter 46

Joseph wasn’t breathing.

Panic engulfed Lyka, making her shake so hard, she was kicking up dust under her paws.

She didn’t know what to do to save his life, but she knew she had to.

She loved him. She couldn’t let him go. Not before she at least had the chance to tell him how she felt.

She’d been an idiot not to see it before. It had been huddled there, cowering inside her, afraid to make itself known. He wasn’t her kind. He wasn’t what she’d wanted for herself.

None of that mattered. Love didn’t care about artificial boundaries. It laughed at the plans of Slayers and Theronai alike. Love did whatever the fuck it wanted, and turned the lives of everyone it touched upside down.

But accepting it . . . that was the sweetest feeling in the world.

If only she’d done so sooner. If only she’d realized how she felt sooner and told Joseph, maybe something would have ended up differently. Maybe he wouldn’t be lying there with a sword sticking out of his heart and blood trickling across his flesh.

A feeling of denial boiled up inside her, burning off everything else.

Screw all the if onlys. Fuck all the maybes. She was going to change reality to suit her, dammit.

Lyka pulled magic from Joseph and used it to reach inside him and squeeze his heart, forcing it to pump. Wherever there was a cut in his veins, she patched it with a tiny force field. He wouldn’t heal anywhere near as fast as Eric, but she’d find a way to keep the magic flowing for as long as it took for his body to do its job.

She was handling a lot of different tasks, and the shield holding the demons at bay began to fizzle out under the stress.

Before it failed, Lyka had to get Joseph out of here.

She needed to keep him as still as possible, so she formed another thin film of power beneath him. His body hovered off the ground a few inches atop the stretcher she’d made.

Still in her tiger form for speed, she grabbed the edge of the barrier with her teeth and shoved him forward. She moved faster and faster as she got the hang of it.

Joseph’s power flickered as he teetered between life and death. She managed to keep the thin film of energy solid beneath him, but that was all. The wall behind her—the one holding back all the demons—fell.

The sound of excited clicks and yelps grew louder as the demons gained on them.

Within minutes, she was past Treszka’s remains and able to smell fresh air. Up ahead, the entrance to the cave was nearly blocked. Only a small hole remained inside a wall of rubble.

Someone had collapsed the entrance.

Lyka shoved Joseph through on his shimmering stretcher. She was right behind him, but her big tiger’s body wouldn’t fit through the hole.

She shifted back to human form and wiggled through just as the first of the horde of demons cleared the corner.

“Plug it!” shouted Eric.

The young scurried to obey, working together to lever a huge rock into place with a sturdy tree branch.

The stone wall wasn’t going to hold them for long. She could already hear them scratching at the rocks on the other side, trying to claw their way free.

A familiar noise beat in the background, but Lyka didn’t pay it any attention. Her complete focus was on Joseph.

She knelt by his side and laid her hands on his chest. Blood was everywhere. There were still hours of night left, and any demons nearby would be headed their way as soon as they smelled it.

“You need to take the young and leave,” Lyka told Eric. “They can’t be near him with all this blood.”

“What about you?”

Joseph was still alive but only barely, and only because she was forcing his heart to beat. The power flowing out of him that was usually as strong as a river was barely a trickle now. She was struggling just to keep in place the tiny shields that were preventing him from bleeding out altogether.

They’d escaped the cave, but she had no idea how she was going to keep him alive long enough to reach help.

Lyka bowed her head over him, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “Please don’t die, Joseph. I need you. I love you.”

A flutter of something flowed through their link, but it was so faint, she couldn’t decipher it.

The noise she’d heard earlier began to get loud. The wind picked up. She covered Joseph’s head with her body as dust and leaves whipped around them.

Eric put his hand on her shoulder. “It’s going to be okay, Sis. The cavalry is here.”

Lyka looked up to see what he meant. A helicopter landed a few yards away in a space barely big enough for the job. Out jumped Nicholas and two other burly Theronai, swords in hand. They made a beeline for the cave entrance, taking up a fighting stance, ready for whatever made it out.

Behind them was a tall, lean man, his dark head bowed against the wash from the rotors.

Ronan.

He lifted his head as he neared Joseph, and a pale silvery light spilled from his eyes. His expression was harsh, his face gaunt. “I’ll need blood if I’m to save him and still find the woman I seek. Lots of blood. And I don’t have the strength to mask the pain.”

“Yes,” she said without hesitation. “As much as you need. Whatever it takes.”

The glow in his eyes brightened. “Deal.”

Ronan grabbed her, bent her head back and bit her neck.

She was so shocked by the sharp sting of his teeth sinking into her skin that her control faltered. The power she’d been channeling to keep Joseph from bleeding to death slipped from her grasp.

She tried to find the strand of energy again, but there was nothing there anymore. The connection was severed.

Lyka was alone.

Without her there to keep Joseph’s heart beating, it stuttered once, then fell silent.

The luceria opened and slipped from her neck. She moved to catch it, but Ronan was in the way. She fought against his hold, using all her strength, but no matter how hard she thrashed around, she couldn’t break free of his grasp.

Sleep, he ordered as he continued to drink from her neck. He shoved the command directly into her mind, leaving her no choice but to obey.

She lasted all of ten seconds before fatigue sucked her in and stole all her strength.

Chapter 47

Vazel found his queen on the dirty cave floor. With her neck twisted at such an odd angle, she was no longer perfect, but she was still beautiful.