Page 170 of A Courage of the Chosen

Rach’s eyes shift behind her lids, and she begins twitching with signs of life. Callahan’s arm tenses around me as I use his warmth to ground me.

Brodie brushes his fingers over her cheeks. “Baby, can you hear me?”

Rachel’s eyes flicker open.

There’s no darkness encompassing the gray.

Her gaze finds his, and she smiles.

“Brodie?” The word is a rasp, but it’s one hundred percent Rachel Knox.

Reyne lets out a quiet sob, Callahan stops breathing altogether, and Brodie descends on Rach gently, wrapping a hand behind her neck and lowering his forehead to touch hers. “I’m here. I’ve got you.”

“You did it,” Callahan exhales in hushed wonder as he presses a kiss to my temple.

I only have the energy to nod weakly.

And the movement costs me.

Wicked sharp pain lances through me like needles made of ice, scraping underneath my skin. I gasp at the same time Rach does, and we both grab our chests where our Seelie magic lives.

Brodie snaps upright, his worry bouncing between me and the love of his life on the bed.

Callahan holds me to him. “What is it? Talk to me.”

My tongue is tar in my mouth.

A void that has no beginning or end looms at the edge of my consciousness, growing as the life within me drains away.

Callahan’s stricken gaze is branded onto my heart as my eyes stutter shut and I drift far away from him.

“I love you.” I throw those three words down our bond, sending out everything he means to me in a blind panic, as the connection between us becomes a silent abyss.

Then, everything about who I was, evaporates.

I am nothing and no one.

A lost soul, free-falling through oblivion, ready to meet her judgement.

But I am not alone.

Alongside me, another is journeying to the end of all endings.

Chapter 50

Tavish

War.

That’s been my singular focus for the last four days, since Dhia herself interfered with mine and Elsie’s souls becoming one.

Her words still ring in my ears. “You will not take any more from her.”

I laugh bitterly.

Like Elsie hasn’t taken anything. She dangled herself in front of me, only to turn and walk away when she found out the truth. Holds onto her rage and says she’s different. She killed my father, after all, yet I’m still the bad guy?

Elsie obliterated the part of me that might’ve had any empathy for her when she told me she was in love with my cousin.