Page 35 of Gift from the Nexus

Nodding, not trusting my voice to speak, I turn back to focus on what’s happening around us. I can barely see through the shadows covering the ground as my god of darkness continues to lay waste to anyone he can get his hands on. As I scan the remaining Mastery members, a familiar streak of silver hair running in the opposite direction catches my attention, and I instinctively try to step forward.

“What is it?” Tillman asks, halting me.

“Franklin, he’s getting away. He can’t, Tillman.”

“Who?”

“My father.”

I internally start to panic as I watch him limply run closer and closer to the tree line, and I know if he escapes now, it’s going to be damn near impossible to catch him.

“Draken!”

A resounding roar travels through the air, and Draken’s dragon turns on a dime, flying back toward me at the speed of light, and I could laugh, cry, scream with joy, knowing he heard me.

“On the east side of the structure, a man with silver hair is making a run for it. I need you to stop him. Don’t kill him. We need him alive, but don’t let him escape.”

Another responding roar pierces my ears, and I stare mesmerized as he flips his body over midflight, changing directions. With two beats of his wings, he’s swooping down, snatching Franklin off the ground with his claws and flying back to me.

“How did he—”

“We have a mind connection too.”

Almost as if this signs the end of this battle, when Draken drops Franklin from about fifteen feet in the air, right in front of me, the battlefield goes silent. Everyone glances around for a moment, checking on each other before the E.F. teams erupt in victory.

I want more than anything to celebrate with them as well. I’m safe. I’m in the arms of one of my men, and the other three are hastily making their way toward me, but I can’t shake this feeling of being watched. Tillman feels my apprehension and nervousness, and he coils his arms around me tighter as we both scan the tree line.

“No,” I whisper, my body shaking with angry tremors.

Standing tall with their eyes trained on me, Donald, Bryce, Gish, and his Nexus stare at me with deranged smiles, like they’re pleased I finally showed my true hand.Their appearances prove they didn’t skirt through this fight unscathed, but they’re still alive nonetheless.

Just before they transport themselves away, they each give me a mocking wave and a smile that promises this is far from over.

Six

Willow

“Little wanderer,” Draken breathes as he, Caspian, and Corentin finally approach me, boxing me in the middle of the four of them.

I try but fail to hide the small hiss that whistles through my teeth as Draken softly traces his fingers over the puncture wounds on my neck, but they all hear it and immediately tense up. Stepping back and removing their hands from me doesnothing but make my bond whither and send out a pulse of longing.

“Hold on, Will, we’ll get you fixed up. Jamie,” Tillman calls out, strained.

Corentin and Draken step farther away, making room as Jamie hustles forward, his eyes widening more and more the closer he draws to me. His gaze bounces all over me, searching out every wound, the streaks of blood, before finally settling on my face. The look reflected at me has my stomach rolling.

“Let me get a sense of everything going on, okay?” he asks softly, holding his palm out for me to lay mine in.

With a trembling nod, I lift my shaking hand and place it in his. The comforting touch of his magic washes over me, and my body begs for it to seep everywhere, soak up all the pain, but the gruesome sight of my wrist on clear display for everyone around to see makes me want to jerk it back and hide the evidence of what I went through from them.

“Oh, Willow,” he says softly.

“Oh, Willow, what?” Caspian asks darkly.

“You’re almost completely drained,” Jamie says, holding my gaze rather than Caspian’s. The indescribable mixture of noises that leaves my men has me confused and admittedly, I don’t know why it matters.

“I…I know. The spell took everything, then Dyce gave me a healing vial, but I used what little I had left in me on using my flame. What does that mean?”

“If I heal you all at once, it’ll drain you completely and slow down your magic’s natural ability to charge back up. It’s the give and take relationship. I give to you, you take, but you have nothing to give back to Elementra right now. Typically, anyone who’s gotten this dangerously close to being completely drained, we’d put into a medical coma and let their body do what it needsto do. It could be a couple days, sometimes weeks, depending on the individual.”

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