Page 96 of Unhinged Magic
Inside the manor, a deafening quiet filled its naked walls, save for the odd creaky floorboard as we filed in. It looked just as it had the last time I was here, nothing amiss until I moved into the living area.
“Skip!”
I ran to her, my knees thumping hard to the ground. Her torso lay deathly still amidst a circle of flickering candles, in a position that suggested she had put herself there. Like she was sleeping.
Footsteps charged toward me, circling us in unspoken respect.
I nudged the side of her cheek. “Skip,” I said, more urgently this time, shaking her.
I took her slim wrist in mine, my own encasing it, the other feeling for her pulse.
Moments dragged into eternity as I waited.
Reid picked up a small amber jar that looked to have fallen from her hand. He sniffed it, screwing up his face in revolt. “It’s empty.”
Ty’s glare slammed into mine, his hand lifting her chin ever so slightly, feeling for her pulse.
“Skye, wake up,” Ty urged, his fingers still searching for evidence of life. He shook his head, looking desperately at me.
“I’ve got nothing,” I croaked, my voice shuddering in a way it hadn’t before.
Morgan’s whimper drew my attention to her. “She must be sleeping. Look at her. She has to be.”
“If my sister dies, it’s on you,” Tyler growled.
His words hit me like a fucking freight train. I swallowed over the lump in my throat. He was right. This was all my fault. Everything.
If Landon hadn’t died, she wouldn’t be here, trying to achieve whateverthiswas.
I wanted Morgan to be right, and the entire scenario implied just that. The way the candles surrounded her, the way her body lay as if she had chosen this. I wanted to believe all of this was something else, something more than the overwhelming lack of pulse suggested.
“I’ve seen these in the apothecary. What’s she taken?” Reid mused.
The group’s attention swung to him, and I swallowed over the heavy lump in my throat. I didn’t understand what this meant.
Whathadshe taken? Andwhy?
Disbelief coursed through me, suffocating my logic. My world turned black one last time, searching for her magic, any sign she was here with us, her scent, a heartbeat, but there was fuckingnothing. “She can’t be gone,” I croaked, running my gaze over her, fighting the sting of tears. “She’s my fucking world.”
Turning to Reid, I pleaded with him. “She said to bring her back. She specifically askedyouto be here,” I demanded.
Reid froze, his shoulders tensing. I had never seen him use his magic, and he barely spoke of it. Like an unwritten rule among the group, we never brought it up unless he did first. If there was any time to break that rule, it was now.
The lack of heartbeat hitting my fingers turned me desperate. “Bring her back. Heal her,” I rasped, hopelessly begging. “Please.”
I had asked nothing of him in my life.
Ty ran a hand up the side of his face and into his hair, his tortured gaze not leaving his sister. He ground out his words like he understood the consequences, every ounce of him ready to break. “I’ll do anything.”
Morgan swiped away tears, drawing her gaze between the two of them and back to Skye. A quiet sob wracked her body. She stifled it with her palm.
Reid stared at Skye’s lifeless body, agony spearing into every part of him and twisting my already wrecked heart even more than I thought possible. He ran a hand down his pants, his fist tightening on the material.
“You don’t know what you’re asking of me,” he ground out like we would never understand the consequences.
None of us knew of Reid’s burdens. The blood mage curse he had only hinted at under the influence of liquor. I hated asking this of him.
We locked eyes and I let him see the pain twisting my insides. “I’ll spend every day of my life in your debt if you bring her back to us. She’s my fucking soulmate. If she dies, my heart goes with her.”
