Page 65 of The Bookseller and the Alpha
A shield. Caly had made me a shield.
She had saved my life. I admit, I hadn’t expected a rocket launcher. If that thing had hit me, I’d be dead. And the journal would have been destroyed. Someone had become so focussed on killing me that they’d forgotten the real goal. I reached for the chain around my neck, reassuring myself that the journal was still there.
It seemed as though Caly and I had actually pulled this off. She was free. I had the journal. It was almost too good to be true. From the moment she’d been taken I had expected that my life would be forfeit for hers. But she’d rescued herself. And then she had saved me.
My mate... I needed to feel her body against mine. Possessive desire pulsed through my body. In my bones. She was too far away. But the fireball in front of me made it impossible to get to her. I had to wait. The fire would burn out soon and thenI would grab her. Take her away. Hide her in a place where she and I could be alone. So that I could show her how much I loved her. A feral growl rattled in my chest.
Something is wrong,Beast warned. Caly hurts.
I reached for the bond. I could feel her determination as she concentrated on the shield with ferocious intent. I didn’t want to disturb her focus.
Deeper, insisted Beast.
Caly’s mental shields were down. I’d blasted them earlier. Completely obliterated them in my need to show her everything. To give her everything of myself. So it was easy to dip deeper into her mind. It wasn’t polite. By Shifter standards it was an invasion of her privacy. But her safety and wellbeing were more important than anything. And if Beast said there was a problem, I believed him. He was the intuitive, instinctive, primal side of me, and he had been able to sense her feelings even before Caly had taken my bite.
I let my mind drift gently into her consciousness.
Pain. Overwhelming pain. Red-hot pokers on my skin. Pressure on my heart and lungs, suffocating me.
It wasn’t my pain. It was Caly’s.She was dying. Caly was killing herself for me.
No. She couldn’t. I wouldn’t survive without her. She had to live.
I exploded into action. Faster than I had ever moved before. The final flames died as I moved forward, barely noticing the man who’d fallen to the ground from the force of the explosion. He was nothing. An ant. All that mattered was my mate.
I reached her just as she fell. As her heart stopped. I caught her in my arms as she dropped like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Agony tore at my chest.
No. We would not allow it to happen. She was ours. We were hers.
The golden rope that formed our bond was unravelling, strand by strand, the pieces falling away into darkness. Pain stabbed in my chest so deeply I couldn’t breathe. I was losing her. Eyes shut, tears welling in my eyes, I pressed her body against mine. Her heart no longer beat.
Desperate, Beast grabbed for the final golden thread, wrapping it around his fist.Yes, I told him.Yes. I was hers. She was mine. If she went into the darkness, so would I.
Chapter 83
Calypso
I opened my eyes. Everything was dark except for a single shining gold thread that led upwards. I floated, weightless, bodiless. I was falling, slowly, like a feather in the breeze.
Distantly, I could hear a voice calling my name, echoing in the vastness. “Caly. Come back to me.”
There was a tug on the golden thread. Barely there. A wisp of sensation.
“Caly.”Another tug. A little harder.
The darkness was peaceful. There was no pain. I didn’t respond. I was dying. I understood that. I had pushed too hard. Taken too much. But Luc was safe.
“Caly.” The voice was closer now. “Wait for me.”
Above me, in the darkness, outlined by the glow of the golden thread, I could see a shape, travelling quickly, rappelling down the golden thread. A familiar shape. Luc’s body: broad shoulders, wide thighs. Mismatched eyes. But his skin was shimmering silver, like his Beast. This was who he had become. The two halves of his soul had merged. A phantom pain in my chest made me wince. I didn’t want to leave him.
If this was going to be the last time I saw him, I would look my fill. My mate. Handsome. Strong. He was everything a mate should be. Overbearing. Protective. Caring. If I had to leave him, at least I’d had the chance to save him.
He came closer, his strong arms pulling on that golden thread.
Wait. No, no, no. He wasn’t supposed to be here. He wasn’t supposed to be in the darkness. Falling.
It was that single golden thread, connecting us. The last part of our bond.
