Page 109 of A Fate of Blood and Magic
“Bring your friend to me, and I’ll see how I can help him,”she said.
I pointed toward the clearing she landed on.
“Nalari can help,” I told them. “She said to bring Donnie to her.”
Nate struggled to pick Donnie up, but eventually, he was able to hoist him over his shoulder. Donnie’s body was listless, his breathing labored.
When Nate set Donnie beside Nalari with his back against the dragon, I dropped to my knees again.
“Tell me what to do,”I asked, my voice desperate and scared.“How can I help him?”
Nalari was quiet for a long time.“I think . . .”
From somewhere behind us, a spray of bullets sounded. Nate threw himself on top of Ryenne while I covered Donnie with my body, knocking him to the side.
Just then, Elias appeared with Leah at his side. Elias dropped to the ground, falling hard on his knees as more bullets sounded around us. Angling his head up, he fisted the snow beneath him.
“I heard you trying to call for Leah.” He said each word slowly as he looked at Donnie’s unconscious body.
Nate shifted so that Leah could touch Donnie’s shoulder. Just like the rest of us, her magic was exhausted. Leah looked at her palms in bewilderment.
“I don’t know how to help him,” she said, her tone regretful. “I’m sorry, I don’t . . .”
“I think I can pull what remains of your magic, Teddy, and send mine to Leah. I think it could be enough to heal him,”Nalari said.
“Take it,” I told her.
“Do you understand you could lose your magic?”Nalari asked.
“I don’t care.” I wiped at a tear that fell down my cheek. “Take it. Please, Nalari, he can’t die.”
Elias rested a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Take mine too.”
I expected Nalari to argue with him. Instead, I felt her tug against the threads of magic that remained. Something inside me struggled against it, and I tried to force it to still. Beside me, Elias stiffened.
He trailed a hand down my arm to cup my hand in his.“We’re going to lose our soulmate bond,”he said in my head.
I jolted at his words.
“Leah needs every bit of our magic to heal him,”he said, his eyes lingering across my face.“I can live with losing our bond as long as I don’t lose you.”
Something in my chest wrenched at his words. It twisted and stabbed in such a way I wouldn’t have been surprised if I started to bleed.
“I love you.”I said the only words I could think of, but they didn’t feel like enough.
Before he said anything else, I felt the tattoo Eiran had gifted me on the back of my shoulder start to tingle.
“I think Eiran wants me to see him,” I said aloud.
“Go, then,”Nalari said.
My tattoo tingled again, this time with an uncomfortable sting that bolted down my arm to Elias’s and my joined hand.
“Did you feel that?” I asked.
“I think he wants both of us to go,” he answered.
The moment the words left his lips, I felt my body grow weightless. While my physical body fell to the ground, Isoared upward and landed on my feet on the shimmering ground I recognized as the astral realm.
