Lucien was as much of a broken person as I was.
And maybe together, we two broken pieces could make a whole.
Chapter 28
The Human Part
My heart was heavy as I watched Lucien holding Anais down by the shoulders, while Remi and Blaise were on each of her sides, restraining her as well. Not that it did anything much—she was thrashing against them, rattling the bed in the process, her sharpened teeth biting air.
Thayer and I stood by Enoch, who was stationed at the end of the bed, his face grim while his eyes took on a chilly look. He stretched out his hands and gently curled them around Anais’s ankles. Then he grew still.
A moment later, I gasped as something flared beneath her skin in violent pulses. It spread all over her body, coloring her veins an eerie, acid-like green. It flickered on and off, and there was a hum in the air, like a soft, barely audible whistling sound, that disappeared when Anais began to scream.
Aside from Enoch, who kept focusing, everyone else flinched at the bloodcurdling, inhuman shrieks coming out of Anais’s elegant throat. I snapped my gaze to Lucien, whose jaw locked tight, his knuckles white due to the force he held down Anais with.
“I see you behind the rising tide, Anais Verdin,” Enoch said suddenly, his voice low, steady, and almost priestlike. “Rise from the deep and come forth.”
The reaction was instant: Her flickering veins caused her body to recoil like something struck. A rippling shock wave rolled under herskin, the luminescence collapsing inward before flaring again, almost as if it was confused. Enraged.
Enoch closed his eyes. When he spoke next, his voice took on an edge of something else. As if something other than Enoch was talking through his throat. “Take back what you have forsaken.”
The screams stopped. Anais froze.
Tension spread through the room, along with something else. Something I couldn’t quite see, smell, or taste, but I could feel. As though another existence was present beyond what the eye could see.
Then, a soft light spilled from Enoch’s hands—not too bright, more like the soft glow of the sun reflected in a lake. It sank into Anais’s skin through her ankles and rapidly crawled up her thighs to her waist, torso, neck, arms, and head, engulfing her entirely, before her body jerked once, sharply, as though shocked by an invisible defibrillator.
Enoch let her go, but the light stayed. The others released her as well when Enoch gave them a confirming nod, his eyes still closed, and we all watched as the light seeped into her skin, melting within it, taking over the hellish green that colored her veins and instead turning them a soft white, like scars all over her body.
Her eyes snapped open, and they were no longer lost and gone. They were soft and terrified.
“Thayer?” she whispered in a voice turned raspy from her screams, as though surfacing from a dream she’d been drowning in. “Enoch?”
Thayer rushed to her side, taking her hand in his, face so pale, it was a wonder he didn’t pass out. “I’m here,” he whispered. “Thayer. I’m here.”
I turned to look at Enoch as he opened his eyes. For a moment, they weren’t the fragile brown of an ordinary man’s. They were silvery, translucent—as if a soul’s light was shining through his pupils from the wrong direction.
Then he blinked and it was gone, and I couldn’t help but think I might’ve imagined that.
Enoch moved toward Anais’s other side and drew her wide-eyed deer-caught-in-the-headlights gaze. “You’ve been afflicted withWildlight,” he said, gentler now, but in a hurry. “I’ve pulled your humanity forward, but it’s a mere thread. I cannot hold it long.”
Her breath steadied. The slight shimmering of her veins beneath her skin calmed, as if tamed by the strange gravity of Enoch’s presence.
Lucien, whose eyes were still on Anais, asked hoarsely, “How long?”
“Five minutes,” Enoch said. “Maybe less. The Wildlight cannot be held at bay for much longer than that.”
Anais swallowed, blinking tears away. Thayer, too, seemed so crushed, I felt myself on the verge of tears again. None of it was fair. Wildlight wasn’t fair. While I didn’t know Anais that well, she did not deserve this. No one did.
“Show me your back, Alpha,” she suddenly said, voice shaking but clear, as she turned to stare at Lucien. “Before I disappear again.”
Lucien hesitated, but Enoch shot him a warning look. He sucked in a breath and took off his shirt, showing Anais his back.
“Scalpel,” Anais ordered, and Remi handed her one from the cabinet near her bed. “I’m sorry, Alpha, but we don’t have time to put you under—”
“Just do it,” Lucien cut her off through gritted teeth. Blaise had brought over a chair, and Lucien propped himself on it, leaning his elbows on its back, facing away from Anais, who, with Thayer’s help, was now sitting. Thayer did not release her, with his hand behind her back, keeping her steady.
Wordlessly, Anais dug the scalpel into Lucien’s back.
