“I didn’t mean to.” He bowed his head. “Once I cut the power, I thought everything was fine, but afterward, I felt a few of them tied tighter to me than ever before. They couldn’t leave the pack or do anything without my say so.”
“Oh Caelan.” What a terrible burden to bear.
“All of them decided to go out on their own terms.” He swallowed hard. “There was nothing I could do. The mages couldn’t reverse it. No one could help me. I—I don’t blame them.”
“If I see those bonds, what do you want me to do?”
Caelan said nothing for a long moment. “If they are close to death, let them go.”
“Do you want me to try to save them if I can?”
Hope flared bright in his eyes. “I—yes. If you think you can. If they won’t be bound to me, do everything you can. I will be in your debt.”
“There are no debts between friends.”
The guilt on his face broke my heart. Caelan would have a lot of soul searching to do when this was over, but we were finally walking on the right path.
“Anything else?”
He shook his head. I closed my eyes once more and dove back into the web of golden threads.
Danu lurked close, so I decided to claim the land and cast her out first. Easy enough to do. I circled Caelan’s massive territory with a thin band of my power, claiming only the first few feet of his property.
Danu barely had time to shriek her fury before she was sucked out of the place like I’d put the top of a vacuum right over her head. I chuckled under my breath and kept working. The wards shuddered seconds later, Danu trying to take them down.
She might succeed with the wards, but Caelan’s land was officially off limits. Ha. Interpersonal skills and communication for the win!
I never thought Caelan and I would be sitting here together healing our issues, and yet, here we were, trapped in a cage once again.
Every strand of gold led back to Caelan, a shining thread of magic leading to a corresponding wound on his body. His insides looked worse than his outside.
I sucked in a sympathetic gasp and reached out blindly. My hand pressed against his lower abdomen where the worst of the internal bleeding was.
“Don’t move,” I whispered.
Caelan chuckled. “A few inches lower and it’s going to be a party.”
“Ass.” I had to laugh. “If you have any around that area, you’re going to have to ask Rowan to kiss it and make it better.”
Caelan let out a bark of laughter. “I’ve missed you, Evie.”
“Shh. I’m working here.”
I focused on mending the internal bleeding first. Caelan’s sigh of relief and the gold vein disappearing told me I was on the right path. The creak of growing vines and the heavy scent of blooms was the only outward sign of how much magic I was using.
I moved next to a deep cut on his chest, and so on and so forth until every vein but the thicker ones were gone. If Caelan hadn’t said anything, I might not have noticed. A few had that slightly thicker, brighter thread linking them to their Lord.
“I’m not sure what you might feel, but don’t break our contact.”
“Understood,” Caelan rumbled. “How many?”
I counted the threads. “Eight.”
Caelan let out a string of curse words. “Can you unentangle them?”
“I’m not sure. I’ll try. Just make sure we’re in contact no matter what happens.”
“The chance to keep touching you for the last time?” Caelan rumbled. “Count me in.”
