Page 102 of Gift from the Tree

Then I watched Draken have his awakening, the happiness it brought him when she complimented his dragon, and it chipped away a small bit of my reservations. I knew then I’d help him handle the fucker who hurt her, if not for retribution for her, then for him. I watched everything that came after as well, never once stepping out of her healing wing room.

A couple of times, I’ve hidden in the shadows as Draken’s pleasured her to the point she can’t speak and the look of unfiltered bliss that crosses her face when she comes is seared into my mind.

More and more pieces of my hardened soul crack open the more I watch her. I see the way Corentin gravitates to her. Her light calling to his. With her, Tillman gets to be the hopeless lover boy he has buried inside. I’ve seen the way she and her Perfecta Anima have truly grown closer as sisters more than just friends, not the monsters I’d wished for. The way the old man seems to be aging backward every day with her around.

I’ve let my own trust issues blind me to her. The last girl I trusted landed me in the same situation I’m in now and it’ll take a lot for me to just trust her blindly, even if she wasn’t the one to cause those issues.

“I couldn’t stay behind. I knew something was wrong,” she says as she rubs her chest.

“Go back to my brothers and tell them where I am. You need to get somewhere safe,” I order, praying she just listens to me.

“I can’t do that. Corentin’s blinding people with his light and Draken’s breathing fucking fire upstairs right now. I got separated from them and snuck down here.”

Fuck, they’re probably losing their minds not knowing where she is.

A violent cough tears through my throat, coating the space between us in blood. Gaster’s vials helped a little, but I have some internal damage that’s wreaking havoc on my body. It’s growing harder and harder to get air in my lungs, and my head’s so dizzy, I’m seeing two of her. I don’t have much longer.

She watches the blood drip from my mouth, pushing another vial between my lips as tears fill her eyes. “What can I do? Tell me what to do to help,” she chokes out.

“There’s nothing you can do until they find us. The Star gems around the room are keeping the darkness away, so my gift is locked in my chest, cutting off some of my natural healing and a way for me to get out of here.” I try to explain to her as simply as I can.

“How do I cut them off? I’ll cut them off and your power will work, right?” she asks so hopeful like that’ll fix it all.

“Only the one who activated them will be able to cut them off, unless they’re completely destroyed, and you don’t have a fire element to burn them out.”

“Caspian,” she says my name like a prayer on her lips, making my chest tighten, and I squeeze my eyes shut before looking at her.

“I need to tell you something, Willow.” If I’m going to die here, she needs to know the truth. She’ll still blame my brothers, but I can take the blame that’s rightfully mine and maybe she’ll forgive them faster when I’m gone.

“It can wait. Save your energy. Corentin will be here soon.” She lifts her hand to my cheek and when her skin touches mine, the flash of light that I’ve told myself I’d avoid for the entirety of my life steals my sight and I’m thrown into a vision of her.

“What did she name her?” a man, being handed a crying baby, asks as he looks down at it with disdain and disgust.

“Willow,” another man answers him.

“If she does not show potential for what we need, we will breed her and get rid of her like her useless mother.” He hands baby Willow off to a woman in what looks like a house staff’s uniform and walks out of the room.

Elementra must have wanted to punish me because I have to watch, relive, every time she’s been harmed throughout her life. Starting from a young child until the night she showed up at our mansion, I witness her being beaten and tortured by her father, then again, beaten, tortured, and raped, by another man, the man her father sold her off to. Every time one of them laid a hand on her, I see it, I feel it. I see her fall into panic after panic. I watch her get trapped in her mind nightly with the terrors that are always waiting for her. Over and over, I watch as she got beat down, only to get back up each time a little stronger.

Finally, it shows me her smiling, standing in an embrace between me and my brothers, and I hear a voice like no other in the realm, its power vibrating through my mind, my body shivering from it.

Elementra.

“She isn’t your demise. She will be your salvation.”

Blinking out of the vision, I watch as tears flow down her cheeks, knowing that Elementra probably showed her the secrets I’ve kept close to my chest, only allowing my brothers to know their true extent.

“Caspian. Why do I keep seeing things like this?” she chokes out.

“Elementra shows us meaningful times. Times that’ve already happened, times that are happening, and times to come. We see what she wants to show us and when she wants to show us,” I tell her, knowing what I’m about to say next will hurt her.

“But why?”

“Because you’re our true Primary. You’re the piece that will complete them. My brothers, our Nexus,” I tell her, holding her eyes as they flare with denial before shattering with the truth.

“Your true Primary? When did you all know? Since the first time it happened with Corentin?” she asks, hurt clear in her voice.

“Since the moment you arrived. When you locked eyes with Tillman, you called him ‘mine’ before you passed out. Corentin was just your first awakening,” I admit the truth. It’s what she deserves.

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