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The elder breathes slowly, so slowly that it feels like any breath could be his last breath, and I find myself taking deep even breaths to get him to match my own. My hands clench, and I wish I was more than a brute. More than a shadow beast. That I could help my woman right now, because being helpless isn’t exactly something I’m used to.
Her teeth clench together so hard I hear the sound, and my heart aches for my beautiful mate. She reminds me of someone trying to lift a very heavy object, an object that they’ll never be able to lift, but they try. With every ounce of their being.
I just hope our Ann is strong enough for this.
Her hands move back to his chest, and she leans over so far that I think for a second she might fall, but her hands glow a little brighter. I swear in that moment I can feel her power like the sunlight on my skin. At any other time, I’d smile. I’d close my eyes and lose myself in that feeling, but I don’t. I’m too focused on the elder as his chest seems to stop moving.
As he seems to stop breathing.
“Fuck, breathe!” Rayne murmurs under his breath, almost like he can hear my thoughts.
Suddenly, Elder Auero chest expands and contracts slowly, and I feel a rush of relief. He starts to breathe more evenly, and with each puff of air, seems to gains a small burst of visual strength.
“Incredible,” Rayne whispers, and I have to agree.
For a guy I hated just a short time ago, he’s certainly grown on me. But maybe that has less to do with his personality changing than the fact that I’m no longer worried about him taking Ann from us. Now we’re on the same team, and it feels good, even now, to have that extra support.
Elder Auero opens his eyes.
I lean closer. “Elder?”
But he doesn’t respond. He doesn’t do anything, and Ann just keeps working, without pause. Trying to fix things in the old man that the rest of us can’t. Even Rayne. He might technically be a light fae, or at least he was before his ghost took the body of a shadow beast, but even he can’t do what she can.
Ann’s body jerks a little, then her hands move to his head.
“Prince,” he whispers, his gaze going to me. And nothing has ever made me so grateful as the sound of his voice. As this moment where he seems to be improving. It’s a moment of hope in a time when I believed all hope was lost.
The old man begins to shake so noticeably that I want to reach out and hold him. To stop him from hurting, even though I logically know it doesn’t work that way.
But it’s not me that reaches out, it’s him. He snags Ann’s wrist. “Enough.”
“But–” She looks confused, and exhausted.
“I can’t be saved… but I need to tell you, tell you what the shadows said.”
Ann looks at me.
Slowly, I nod. One of the man powers of the elders is the ability to hear the shadows, to hear the whispers of the spirits who guide us. The spirits are everywhere, in the trees, the streams, and the air. But the most powerful ones are in the shadows, where we are born.
If the elder is saying this, I have to believe him.
But Ann doesn’t stop. If anything, she looks more determined.
The elder’s hand has fallen back down, so I lightly touch the top of her hand. “Enough. It’s his choice. And he knows more than we do. Please listen to him.”
Those big blue eyes of hers are begging me to do something different, but I don’t waiver.
“Ann,” Rayne whispers. “He deserves this respect at least.”
And something about his words breaks her. The golden glow fades from her hand, and she drops it into her lap, tears in her eyes.
Later, I’ll hold her. Later, I’ll help her through this loss. But right now? Right now, we need to hear the message from the shadows. We need to see how they can guide us from here, when hope seems lost. Because if we don’t, whatever the hell this man has been through, it’ll be for nothing.
“Prince Dusk,” he manages this time, and I hold my breath, waiting for what he’ll say next. But instead of saying more, I watch as his skin grows even paler, and his wounds begin to flow with blood once more.
Fuck. Fucking hell. He’s not going to make it.
We can’t lose more people. We can’t lose our last elder.
