Page 91 of Reign of the Beast

Her magic erupted around us and I felt the pull of teleportation.

Good. She was leaving the Guardian Compound.

Relief coursed through me.

It was the last thing I felt before the world slipped away.

19

~Jaxon~

“Hold him steady, Jaxon!”

“Easier said than done,” I told Lucian. “I use too much force and he’s dead anyway.”

Mia blew back into the room. “Nobody’s dying today.”

Lucian and I exchanged a look. She was more than a little optimistic, given the situation.

It probably helped that she couldn’t sense shit on the level that me and the old bloodsucker could.

When she’d teleported back into the safehouse in a blinding flash of blue light with Ryker slumped in a groaning heap at her feet, I’d felt his lifeforce hanging on by a thread. His pulse had been so weak, I’d barely been able to make it out. And those fucking black veins all over his hands and face, any part of his skin visible in his jeans and leather jacket getup, had been a hell of a giveaway too.

Mia came up beside Lucian and Ryker’s bed, where the Ancient had his wrist held over Ryker’s mouth, which he was having to force open because he was now out cold.Lucian was frantically feeding him his powerful blood from a deep, dripping wound he’d gouged into his wrist.

It was the only thing keeping Ryker alive right now.

But it wouldn’t last much longer.

Lucian didn’t have a limitless supply of his own blood and magic users could only ingest so much anyway. His body would start resisting soon enough.

“Claws,” Mia called to me, gesturing at Ryker’s jacket and t-shirt.

I shifted onto the bed, using my knees in place of my hands to hold Ryker down while he seized violently.

Then I let my claws drop and I swiftly shredded Ryker’s clothes until his chest was bare, his clothes hanging in tatters about his arms.

Lucian cursed, tears springing to his eyes, as he took it what we all were.

The black veins had spread everywhere, just a couple of inches out from crawling their way toward Ryker’s heart. Given the rapid spread we’d witnessed over the last twenty minutes since the two of them had teleported back here, simple math pointed to it being mere seconds before Ryker fully succumbed.

“My beloved,” Lucian rasped, tears spilling down his cheeks.

Seeing somebody as formidable and as hardass as Lucian Black breaking down was several levels beyond intense. In that moment, I really saw just how deep his love ran for Ryker.

Also a known hardass, I saw the cracks in Mia too. She was struggling to hold on and focus on doing whatever the hell she thought she could do to save his life.

I saw her fumbling and cursing under her breath as she fiddled with a syringe that she’d run to get from the infirmary earlier.

She hastily shook off her coat, baring her blue blouse underneath. Fucking lace. My weakness. She didn’t leave it at that, shoving her right sleeve up past her elbow. And then she moved to jab herself with the syringe.

I started in surprise when it didn’t penetrate her skin.

“Dammit,” she muttered. “The dark power I invoked, it’s protecting me. It won’t wear down for a few hours.” She winced at the state of Ryker. “He doesn’t have that long.”

“Dark power? Are you fucking serious?” After all her struggle with it, after taking off for three goddamn months and now she’d just let it out, risking so much in the process.

“Calm down,” she snapped.

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