Dillon’s had returned to the earth because his soul no longer needed it.
I could feel him out there...somewhere.
But I couldn’t feel Whisper.
“Look.” I waved at the oasis surrounding us—the fact that we’d caused life to sprout. “Remember when we combined our blood? How we seem to reincarnate and rejuvenate when we blend our lifeforce together?” Words tumbled free. “We destroyed the riverbank that night, but we were able to make everything sprout and flower again. We just did it again without any thought.”
Hope flared in his eyes, knowing where I was going with this, but he gritted his teeth as if fighting against it. “But he’s been gone for centuries. His body will be rotten. There’s no way we can bring him back...not after so long.”
“His body will heal if we make it, and...I can’t hear his soul.” I strained to hear the other world layered over this one. Still nothing. “I would be able to hear him if he was free. Just like I can hear Dillon...faintly but I know he’s out there.”
Lucien trembled. “Are we breaking some kind of balance by tampering with things we shouldn’t? What if I lose you again? What if—”
“You won’t lose me.” I grabbed his hand and squeezed. “I think we’ve proven that, haven’t we? We died, Lucien. We’ve been dead and gone for hundreds and hundreds of years. Yet...here weare. We woke together. Found each other. And Whisper is here too. Let me try...”
He stared at me so long, I feared he’d say no. But then he bent over, grabbed a sharp rock from the ground, turned my palm up, and sliced my skin open.
I expected to see blood. To see strange silver liquid—or at least it had been before it’d turned black. Instead, light seeped free. A ribbon of iridescent moonlight, pooling in the centre of my hand.
Without a word, Lucien cut his palm and freed a spool of golden light. It waited like shimmering mist, pulsing with energy. Whatever stuff flowed inside us was no longer human and it would take a millennium to come to terms with that fact.
Tears stung my eyes as I looked at Whisper again.
I gasped as Lucien pressed our palms together, then ducked to place them over Whisper’s heart.
A punch of power barrelled down my arm, pouring into Whisper like silver moonlight. Lucien grunted as if he felt the same tugging deep inside. Leaning against me, he kept his eyes locked on the panther as sunlight soaked from his fingers.
We didn’t move, transferring a combined synergy of power into the third member of our little family. We had no idea what we were doing or if it was right or wrong, but...we tried.
And slowly...Whisper began to change.
The silver around his muzzle and eyebrows returned to jet black. His body warmed; his muscles filled in. The gaunt fragility of age slowly reversed, returning vitality to a long-dead corpse.
My heart quickened as his joints realigned with wet cracks. His whiskers twitched. His chest swelled with a heavy breath.
Tears tumbled down my cheeks as the cloudless sky flashed with a bolt of lightning as if we’d ripped his soul back from the ether and stitched it back into his body.
The panther jerked, bumping Lucien and me off him and ceasing the flow of our energy.
We stared at each other in hope and shock, hovering in disbelief and a fair amount of fear at the enormity of what we’d done, but then...he lurched upright.
His eyes snapped open in confusion, stumbling on newly living legs. He went down again, shaking his head before springing back up. Digging his claws into the grass-covered rock, he shook himself violently as if casting off the last dregs of death. Droplets and pieces of still-melting ice scattered like glitter.
Yawning, his fangs glinted before his golden gaze locked onus.
For one stunned second, the three of us simply stared at each other.
Then he whimpered, roared, and launched himself at us.
Tackling us to the ground, he licked every inch of our faces, chuffing and purring, trembling with ecstatic affection.
“Fuck.” Lucien cursed, his voice thick with tears. “It really is you.”
Whisper snarled dramatically and headbutted us, demanding bear hugs and kisses.
“Ugh, you’re still the same, you stupid beast.” Lucien laughed, his fingers buried deep in Whisper’s thick ruff. “Still determined to turn me into a pincushion.”
Whisper purred like an earthquake as Lucien found his favourite spot under his jaw. “Fuck, I missed you.”
