Chapter 45: Chapter 45

Z A I R A

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Demons. They were everywhere, hovering in mid-air as we rappeled down the bottom of the gallery using the plant strands and looked out for him. There was no trace of the prisoners, only the sounds of fighting from the bottom floor revealed to me that the last fighting soldiers must be on the bottom floor and held their ground against Echinda's troops.

We parried one floor at a time while all the other healer werewolves flexed their powers and blasted the demons with their light, causing them to dissipate with screams. Once we found Aramis, we had to be quick, because I was sure the prisoners wouldn't miss that screeching for long.

We had just reached the seventeenth floor when I saw him. He lay there all alone, on the cold, damp stone floor, soaked in his own blood.

I wanted to instruct my companion, who was holding me close, where to take us, but he nodded to me silently, gave terse orders to all the other Gis and we all swung over the steel railings into the surrounding corridor, the one cell equipped after the other.

As soon as my feet hit the hard ground, I ran towards him. "Aramis!" My hands were covered with blood as I placed them on his body. I examined him all over his body and only found the deep wound on his throat. He had lost so much blood - too much. But the carotid artery was not affected.

"All right darling, I'll get you back now." Then I placed my palms directly over his gaping injury, closed my eyes and dove deep into the energy cords. We healer werewolves all had a different way of recognizing the life energies of living beings. Some smelled them, others felt or heard them. I in turn saw her clearly in front of me. Arami's energy had always been dark blue, a dangerously calm shimmering blue that could turn to cold fire at any moment. But now there was almost none of his usual intensity or life. His strand was so weak that I almost missed him.

I breathed the words over our golden band that he had said to me before: “Come back to me.”

No emotion.

Biting back the tears, I pressed my hands harder into the wound and pushed all my strength to close it. At the same time, I conveyed all of my own life essence through our bond with him. “Come on. “

I could hear the demons screaming behind my back, but I wasn't worried about that, I had a whole squad of people she could take down. My only worry was ahead of me.

He looked so serene, as if he were asleep and ready to open his eyes and stare at me out of his glowing green diamonds. A wicked smile on his mouth and strong arms that pulled me to him. He meant everything to me. He was my mate, my family. I couldn't lose him.

"Come on, damn it! Fight!” When he still didn't open his eyes, I lay across him, my chest over his, my forehead against his. I didn't care how much blood was on my dress and skin. I wanted him back, wanted him to fucking open his eyes and assure me he was fine. Healthy and alive!

The cut was gradually closing, though I still didn't feel it. The tape grew weaker with every passing second. Heavy sobs erupted in my throat. "You keep saying you're a fucking demigod, so prove it!" The glow from my palm spread to cover my entire body, and every part of my skin that touched it glowed with a bright light.

“You know as well as I do I'll prove it to you every night baby.”

His voice was in my head first, then the tape glowed with such intensity that I would have flew back had I not clung to him until finally he opened his eyes.

I let out a relieved sound, half moan, half whimper, before also clutching his cheeks. "Well finally."

He stared at me. Green fire blazing in his eyes as he studied every corner of my face. I saw the quiet fear that rested within him and knew exactly why, because I knew his feelings as well as my own. He wasn't afraid of dying, didn't fear for his life. But the fruit of losing us, leaving us, was deeper in his bones than anything else.

I wanted to cover every millimeter of his face with kisses, hugging him so hard I even believed he was back when he suddenly grabbed something behind me and knocked us over with a swipe so that he was now lying on top of me.

As soon as I hit the ground, I saw what was troubling him. Demons that shot out over the parapet one after the other and swooped down on us. The Gis and Healer Werewolves were doing well, but it looked close.

Aramis snarled, sending out wave after wave of power, knocking back dozens of demons.

"What the hell are you doing here?" He was leaning over me, arms propped on either side of me. "I told you not to follow me."

I saw his wolf sit on the surface, saw how much he feared for me and the urge to protect me came before anything else. But I didn't care about his slight anger, which was more concern than anything else, and I smiled at him while tears streamed from my eyes. I had been afraid for him, so afraid. "I saved you, I think you owe me, don't you, darling?"

He cursed, gently wiping away my tears, then his mouth was on mine. Wild, raw and passionate, he captured my lips, wedged his tongue between them and invited me to kiss him back with the same fire as he did.

My hands gripped his hair of their own accord, pulling him even closer to me until I thought I was drowning inside him. My wolf purred, craving for more. Wanted to feel his bare skin against mine, wanted everything from him.

I broke away from him breathlessly, staring up at him. "Don't ever do that to me again, do you hear?" I traced his features with shaky fingers and my voice broke. "Don't ever do that to me again."

"Hey." He kissed me softly on my eyelids, mouth, nose and forehead. "I'm fine, okay? You don't have to worry about me.” A tender and equally slightly disbelieving gleam came into his eyes, as if he still couldn't quite get over how much I loved him.

I gasped in tears and punched him lightly in the chest. "You're doing well? Are you kidding me? Are you serious when you say that! You were almost dead!'

"“Aee”, the focus is on “fast”." But even his cheerful voice was hoarse, and as he lifted me slightly to him and buried my head on his neck, I couldn't help but cling to him.

I inhaled his scent deeply and kissed the back of his neck over and over again. "I love you, I love you, I love you."

He planted a firm, long kiss on the top of my head. Then he said, "We have to get out of here."

'They're already here! Echinda people there!'

Aramis growled, then rose. 'That bitch. Does she always have to order them to terrorize us at the dumbest moment?”

I struggled to my feet as well, trying not to let my exhaustion show, but I'd used up too much of my strength to stay on my feet without my vision wavering and grabbing the cell bars to my right must.

Aramis noticed immediately and raised his eyebrows in concern. "Go into one of the cells and close the door behind you."

I scraped together all my last strength. My hands glowed golden. "No, I will fight with you."

He growled. "Over my corpse. You can barely stand, let alone fight demons. You held nothing back.”

He was addressing a promise once made that I had broken the moment I sent all my life force unfiltered to him. I shook my head and met his burning, angry stare. "That doesn't count, it was about “you”."

He had crossed the gap between us and was now standing in front of me. Then he grabbed my chin and ran his thumb hard across my lower lips. Wild flames in his eyes. "I'll show you how I feel about you giving up everything for me."

Though the words had a menacing undertone, I knew he understood me; he would do the same for me. I quickly parted my lips and gently bit his thumb. A small, hot promise. "I hope so."

"If anything happens to you..." His eyes darkened enough to suggest he was under Echinda's influence. Briefly he bent down to me and whispered: “I smell that other hands had been on your skin. Who dared touch you?”

I rubbed my nose against his. "Just make sure “a” smell sticks to me later."

"You have my word on that, baby." A promising smile, but it didn't reach either of our eyes, too much of the smell of death was still in the air. "Now go to the cell."

"I will not let you fight alone."

“No one will fight, we all go into the cage.”

I widened my eyes in astonishment when he turned around and called out: "Everybody to the cell, there are too many who will come."

A few seconds later I was crouched on the ground, my back against the rough rock face while Aramis sat in front of me, his broad shoulders shielding me from the cell wall and the prisoners behind. Using sheer mental strength, he kept the cell door closed.

"Where's Koray?"

"He's safe in the bunker," I whispered to him, my heart skipping a beat at the thought of not being with him. What if something happened to him?

But then I remembered the fierce faces of the werewolves when I handed Koray over to them. "The pack would die before anything happened to the children."

Aramis nodded, and I could see the same anxiety raging in him as she did in me when we didn't know our child was safe.

"Why don't we just draw the runes on them?"

'If they had been in cells, yes, they would have been spread out and we might have had a chance of breaking Echinda's bond one by one. Like this?” He shook his head. "As soon as we freed one, he would be forced to drink blood like everyone else, and we'd be back at the beginning."

That made sense. I sighed and immediately pressed myself against the wall a little tighter as the cage bars vibrated under the constant shaking of the prisoners.

Aramis put his hand on the back of my neck and ran his thumb over my pulse, right next to the mark - calming my wolf, who was whimpering with fear deep inside me.

"Arya came with you?" he asked, but it was more of a statement than a question. So I just nodded.

"Good. She will get to Xenos and take Echinda with him.”

I didn't dare ask what would happen if they didn't make it, but he must have read the doubt on my face anyway because he kissed the tip of my nose lightly. "I'll get you out of here in one piece."

"No." I took his hand resolutely and looked at him steadily. "I stay with you."

He was already growling and his teeth flashed as he bared them, but I wasn't intimidated and stood my ground, the shock of a few minutes ago still pounding deep inside me. My throat tightened as I replied, "I almost lost you today."

A dark voice, sharp as a blade. “I will always come back to you. Nothing can stop me."

“Arrogant as always”. I punched him in his chest. "You can't promise that," I whispered through my tears.

"Yes." Then, in a flash, he leaned toward me, pinning me hard against the wall as he kissed me urgently, as if to prove to me that he could use sheer willpower to choose when and how he would die.

Hoping he was right, I grabbed the collar of his leather suit and pulled him as close to me as I could. Tears mixed into our kiss and I bit his bottom lip. "You're mine, darling, don't you dare disappear like that."

He looked at me, growling. "I won't." Then he bit the mark, over and over again, until my tears dried and the fear in my cells subsided.

He was here with me. That was all that mattered.

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