Page 114 of Bound in Blood

Salem.

The wraith shrieks and shrinks back from us, retreating behind one of the stones.

Alexandros stares down at me, his dark eyes glistening with tears. “Did you think I would leave you to face the wraith without me, agápi mou? I would move all the heavens and every rock of the netherworld before I left you to face him alone.”

I throw my arms around his neck but continue scanning the clearing and the sacred ruins for a sign of the wraith. He’s stillhere. I feel the darkness and despair that seeps from him. “How did you know his name?”

“I was not sure it was his name until just now, but Lucian told me of a warlock named Salem that Giorgios took powers from. They were never stolen. Salem offered them in return for his lifelong service.”

I step back from him, a spark of hope igniting inside me. “So now we can kill him.”

He shakes his head. “Ophelia, without a holy relic we have no hope of killing him. We need to leave here. Now.”

Oh, my dear Alexandros. I know how much this is going to hurt him, but perhaps one day we will meet again. Nothing is impossible, right? “We’ve had the ultimate holy relic all this time, my love.”

He blinks, confused, but before I can explain what I mean, the wraith reappears, his shadowy tendrils curling through the air and heading straight for us. I use the last of my limited power to conjure a force field, but it’s weak, and he’s already bleeding through its cracks.

“Nazeel!” I shout her name, knowing that if she’s alive, she’ll be listening, even if she cannot be here. “Please tell him. Make him understand what needs to be done.”

Ophelia is the relic, Alexandros.I hear her voice in his head as clearly as if it were in my own.

“No!” He grips my shoulders tightly. “You are not, Ophelia.”

I hold out my hands to strengthen the force field, but it is weakening along with my body. I’m bleeding out from the wound on my side, and with every second, the wraith comes closer to reaching us through the failing barrier. Ignoring for a moment the fate that awaits me, I give Alexandros a smile full of love and gratitude. In only a few short months, he and his sireds showed me an eternity of love and happiness. I am ready.

The wraith can be killed with a holy relic, and any relic is holy if it is truly believed in. “You believe in me, don’t you?”

His eyes bore into mine, and they’re filled with pain and so much love, it makes my heart physically ache at the thought of leaving him. Of leaving them. “More than anything, Ophelia. But I would take the wraith to the netherworld myself before I allowed you to make this sacrifice.”

“I am the relic,” I repeat. “And I think you already know that. I think you know what being the Chosen One means, and that’s why you’ve been so resistant to the prophecy.”

He bares his teeth, although his eyes shine with unshed tears. “You think I would use you as a weapon? I would rather let this entire fucking world burn to nothing.”

The wraith’s shrieks get louder, and the air grows thick with despair and vitriol. “Know I am ready to leave this place truly understanding that I am loved beyond all measure. You do not have to use me as a weapon, my love.” I lower my hands and place them on his face. The force field falls, and the wraith’s icy fingers dust over the back of my neck. “I only need to be touching you.”

Alexandros screams my name and tries to wrench my hands from his face, but it’s too late.

I close my eyes and focus on my light. It grows brighter. Dazzling and sparking like the sun. It gets fiercer and hotter until I no longer feel the coldness of the wraith’s embrace. Still, Alexandros’s pained cries ring in my ears, and they are joined by Xavier’s, Axl’s, and Malachi’s. Unable to bear the sounds of their heartbreak, I shut them out and channel everything into my light, willing it to burn brighter and more intensely than ever before.

The wraith grows closer still, sucking me into his shadows, and when my soul is about to join his, right as it is slipping intohis darkness, I say his name before Lucifer has to whisper it to me.Salem.

There is a dazzling burst of light, like what I imagine must happen when a star explodes. A blast of intense, bone-shattering energy that seems to vibrate through every living thing in the universe and then come back to me. Salem’s long-lost soul returns to his body and is immediately dragged to the netherworld by Lucifer himself. I have never considered the notion that the devil is real, and perhaps it is merely my imagination, but his voice is much gentler than I expected it would be.Your debt is paid, Ophelia Hart. The veil is closed.

The veil is closed. Alexandros and the boys are safe. The world is safe.

The light goes out.

I can finally rest.

Chapter

Fifty-Nine

ALEXANDROS

“Ophelia, no!” I roar, but she cannot hear me. Even if she could, she would pay me no heed, for this is who she is. Who she was always going to be. The one who sacrificed herself to save the world—a world that will never even know her name.

She falls forward, and I drop to my knees with her, cradling her in my arms. Then I hear his voice in her head, and it sends a chill down my spine. Instinctively, I know who it is, although I have never heard him speak before—so very few have. The first fallen angel tells her that her debt is paid.

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