“You’re welcome,” she said. “If you decide to take it, you have to inject the entire thing into your muscle either here or here.” She tapped the very top of my arm and then the outer edge of my butt. “It’s a hormone shot. It lasts three months for humans, but the healers think it might last closer to a year for you since your reproductive system works slower.”
“Thank you,” I said again, not sure what to make of it.
She nodded once before leaving.
I walked back to the tent clutching the injection like a lifeline. Tezya was standing when I arrived. His eyes flicked to the vial, then up at me. He didn’t say anything. I knew he wouldn’t. He’d heard everything Savannah said, and he was letting me decide.
Pylemo could curse me for taking it—
I took a steadying breath, then uncapped the needle and put the tip into my upper arm like she said. My finger was on the plunger, but I paused.
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t push the liquid in.
Tezya was purposely trying to keep his face blank, but it felt like he had ten thousand emotions coursing through him as he watched me.
I withdrew the needle and tossed it before I second guessed myself.
If he didn’t survive, if I got pregnant and his baby was all I had—
No. I wasn’t going there. Goddess, please let there be anafter the warwith him. Please, please, please, let Tezya live. Tears pricked my eyes. I’d been trying so hard not to think about it, even though my brain recited Dovelyn’s chant so many times, I had longed since memorized it.
“Are you okay?” Tezya asked cautiously.
I shook my head. Please, please, let him live. He has to live because now that I let my mind think about it, I wanted it. I wanted kids with him. I wanted a future. But I neededhimto be with me for it.
Tezya didn’t ask me what was wrong. He didn’t need to. He pulled me into a hug and it just felt so right, so perfect. Nothing had ever been this perfect before. Nothing ever would again if he died…
No.
He’d live. He’d live. He’d live.
He had to live.
I recited my own chant over and over in my head, desperately trying to fight off Dovelyn’s voice and the three words that haunted me.
He will die.
That night, we didn’t have sex. We didn’t do anything.
I wasn’t aware of when he guided me to the bed, but at some point he had, and I’d spent the entire night wrapped in his arms, reciting my own chant until I started to believe it, but sleep never found me.
SIXTY-ONE
TEZYA
Kallon was panting,her yellow eyes wide, as she burst into my tent.
“What’s wrong?”
“Scottie, she—” My heart stopped at those two words. Everything stilled. “—she’s okay,” Kallon added quickly. “She was showering in the communal showers, and well… she saw herself for the first time… since Rainer…”
I started running toward the bath house, not bothering to hear what else Kal was going to say. I’d heard enough.
I knew Scotlind hadn’t looked at herself since she came back. She was afraid and had been purposely avoiding it. Hell, I fucking hated looking at her scars. I forced my expression to not change as my hands ran over her stomach, as I felt the raised ridges from where Kole had his hands on her. I forced myself not to show that it was destroying me.
Not that she didn’t look Goddess damn beautiful with her scars. Not that I didn’t love her any less because of it. It took absolutely nothing away from her.Nothing.She was still the most breathtaking fucking person I ever saw. And she always would be no matter what happened.
I hated her new scars for entirely different reasons. I hated them because I felt guilty. Because it was my fault she had them. My fault she went through that pain. Her screams still echoed in my head every single day. I could still feel the agony that rippled through her as his power collided into her flesh. I still saw her body convulsing on the grass. And every night afterward, every time she cried herself to sleep, I felt responsible.
