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I turned, burying my face in the chest I was cradled against. Everyone was so angry and stressed, and it was making my head hurt. Wasn't death supposed to be peaceful?
"Shit," X breathed. "Corpses."
Taj whistled so loudly that I flinched, my eyes slitting open and—woah, I could open my eyes? That was weird.
Bright lights flashed above us, the funfair swirling dizzyingly in my blurry vision. Dev's brutal red face hovered above me, all sharp angles and rage, and X and Arkan leaned over me, watching intently.
A sudden riot of barking and growls made me flinch in Dev's arms, and without warning we were surrounded by giant, monstrous golden retrievers.
"You caught me," I mumbled, staring up at my devil. "I trusted you."
His eyes met mine; I squirmed at the fire and fury in their dark depths. Okay, he was a little mad. "You should have stopped when I told you to."
"Hey, I actuallystopped.Do you know how much personal growth that shows?"
"Your body is a wreck," he growled, black fire bleeding from his red eyes.
"Stop arguing," Taj muttered, and elbowed X out of the way so he could see me. There was no concealing the blind panic on his stony face, or the obsessive way he scanned my face and brushed tentatively against my soul through the bond. He flinched from what he found. Yeah, I was kind of a mess.
"Here," he grunted, and grabbed my hand, pressing something cold and sphere-ish into it. "Put some of the magic into this. Now," he rumbled when I hesitated.
"We're running out of time," Joseph warned, his anxiety like a spike down the mate bond. I sucked in a sharp breath as it tangled with the pain already rampaging through my body like an escaped rhino.
I curled my fingers around the sphere in my hand, feeling like a true idiot when I saw it was the orb. Of course it was. What else could it have been? Power burned through me, seeking an outlet, scorching me from the inside. I gripped the orb tight and tried to send a stream of power into it.
"Don't eat that, Blue!" Taj barked, somewhere between murderous and exasperated.
Blue whined.
"No," he said firmly.
I gasped when magic rebounded off the orb, and the glass in my hand shattered. "Um," I breathed, looking up at my mates with wide eyes. "What happens if we break the orb?"
"Shit," X hissed, fear tightening his eyes. "Shit,shit,what do we do? What do we do?"
"Calm," Dev rumbled. "Avieisthe orb now."
Wait, what…?
"We can be a counterbalance through the circle bond," he went on, jerking suddenly left so fast my head spun.
My mouth hung open. I stared as the grass where we'djustbeen standing exploded.
"What the hell is happening?" I demanded, finally grasping that I wasn't dead, and death would have to wait a little longer for our rendezvous. "X? Ark?"
They didn't reply. A scream started inside my head, like the shriek of a boiling tea kettle.
I threw the shattered orb into the grass and didn’t dare look at my burned fingers. I’d already seen them in my peripheral and I did not need a close up of that roasty toasty mess.
"Put me down," I told Dev in a detached voice. Magic roared through me, piercing my organs, roiling inside my veins until I wanted to roar.
He set me on my feet and grasped my cheeks in his big hands, brushing hair out of my face. "I'll anchor you, babygirl. I won't let the magic take you."
I blinked, and knew my eyes were full of flames. They bled down my cheeks, burning everywhere they touched. Dev sucked in a sharp breath.
"I've got you," he promised. "I'm right here."
I glanced down at my hand. Not the open one I'd shattered the orb with, but the fingers that had locked around the charm I'd ripped from Eidolon's neck. I uncurled my blackened fingers and relief shuddered through me when I saw the miniature crown in my hand.
