Page 107 of Of Blood and Roses

She wrapped her arms tighter around Killian, letting his strong body take more of her weight.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured, lulling her anxieties.

Elyse closed her eyes and focused on the rise and fall of his chest. Even through his tunic, she could feel the scar beneath. Jaime was pacing, his boots crunching violently against the rocky creek bottom, until he stopped suddenly.

Elyse barely paid him any mind. She wished it was just her and Killian at that moment. She wished the two of them could run away and pretend none of this had happened.

“Look at me,” Killian said, his fingers grazing Elyse’s chin to lift her face toward his. “This isn’t over. We’ll go to Privya’s and meet with the others and—”

He stopped abruptly, his mouth hanging open, his next words lost on his tongue. His body trembled, and Elyse trembled with him, unsure what was happening.

“Killian?” she asked, barely above a whisper.

He dropped to his knees, crashing into the water. He fell against her, practically knocking her into the creek, and she grasped at him as a sickly fear tore through her body.

“Killian!” She could barely say his name, her throat rough with terror. They collapsed together, plunging into the frigid waters as Elyse grappled at Killian’s shirt.

She saw it then—the blood spilling into the water. “Killian,” she cried again. Her eyes landed on the knife protruding from his back, the blood surrounding it. Without a second thought, she reached for the knife and tore it free. Blood cascaded from the wound, but Elyse plunged her hands atop the gash, pouring her magic into it.

“Stay with me, Killian,” she begged. His breathing was ragged and shallow.

“Don’t bother,” came Jaime’s voice, low and sadistic.

Elyse’s head snapped toward him, confusion clouding her thoughts. His face was contorted with hatred as he stared down at Killian. She looked between him and the knife in her hand, stunned by the revelation. “You did this?”

Terror and denial blinded her as she heaved every ounce of her magic into healing Killian, but the blood was endless.

“You can’t save him, Elyse,” Jaime drawled.

She ignored him, refusing to accept his taunting. For now, she had to save Killian—but her damned magic wasn’t working.

A horrid realization filled Elyse. She felt as if she were being dragged down into the creek, drowning in the icy waters.

She couldn’t heal Killian.

She couldn’t heal him because Jaime had used poison—the poison they’d stolen from the Bastards’ lair.

“No. No, no, no, no, no.” She said the word again and again, commanding her magic to save him. She couldn’t see for the tears that spilled endlessly, couldn’t think for the agony that ravaged her. She was barely aware of Killian’s hand cupping her cheek.

“Elyse,” he rasped, stealing her attention. Those two syllables on his lips were her undoing as her heart exploded. She forced herself to look at him, despite the inevitability she would find there.

His eyes were heavy, as if it took the last of his waning energy to keep them open. But he stared at her, his lips a tight, pained line. When they parted, blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. A morbid clarity shone in his eyes.

“It is not the end.”

A sob tore through her as his words shredded her heart. There was a haunting acceptance in his voice—acceptance that his life would soon be over. Even through his dying breaths, he was consoling her, insisting that she had a future, though he did not. She blinked away her tears, needing desperately to bear witness to Killian in his last moments.

“I love you,” she said, the words pouring from her lips as more blood spilled from Killian’s. She needed to tell him. She needed him to know that she loved him more deeply than she’d ever loved anyone, that he had brought her out of her despair and loneliness.

But Killian just stroked her cheek, a soft smile on his lips as if they were in her bed, whispering to one another across the pillows. “Bonded souls have a way of finding each other.”

He said it with finality, a decision that this would be his parting gift to her. And it was a gift, perhaps. A splinter of hope. But as he took his last, rasping breath, and his eyes glazed over, it felt more like a cruel mockery than a promise.

She held him, letting the waters of the creek dispel around them, numb to everything but Killian’s weight in her arms. Guttural, incoherent sounds quivered from her throat, a cacophony of the agony and anger she felt.

He could not leave her.

He could not leave her when she needed him most.

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