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“How long?”
“I don’t know,” Rory said. “It could be months.”
Months?!
“It could be weeks,” she added softly.
The sound that left Colter’s throat was like that of a wounded animal.
My fingers started trembling, and my ears burned. Adrenaline pumped through my body, and a wash of emotions threatened to take over.
Colter couldn’t be this sick. He couldn’t be dying. I didn’t find him now, just to lose him again in a couple of months, at best. This wasn’t how our story was supposed to end.
“No,” I said firmly. “This isn’t right.” My body shook more and more.
“Liv…” Rory started.
I hated that I was falling apart when I should have been strong for Colter.
“No!” I shouted.
It felt like I was unraveling. Magic started to dance on my skin. When I looked down at my hands, my skin glowed.
Rory and Colter both stared at me.
“What…?” Rory couldn’t find the words.
The magic grew stronger and stronger inside of me, until I felt like I was being pulled apart at the seams. I was made of light, everything that made me human fading away, and the office around us fell away.
I couldn’t see anything in the blinding light, except Colter.
He stared at me, and in him I saw darkness and pain. I saw the disorder, the death that was so prominent, just waiting to drag him under.
I reached for him, grabbing his hands, and I yanked him closer so that our bodies were pressed up against each other.
When the vile darkness in his body touched me, I cried out, screaming in pain.
The light in me responded, washing over Colter, enveloping him. I held on as tightly as I could. He started to tremble and shake, too, and the light magic that poured out of me fought the darkness and death that lived in him. It was slow-going at first, and the pain that racked my body was excruciating. I felt every battle, every cell fighting back before it died, every part of the hell that wanted to consume him clawed and scratched before it was chased away.
Slowly, the more my magic took over, the more the light shone, the better it became. Finally, after what felt like a blink of an eye and an eternity all in one, the darkness had withdrawn. The death had crawled away, and only Colter remained, a shifter, a man, with magic in his veins and blood that belonged to him and him alone.
I fell back into the present moment in the office and sucked in air as if I hadn’t breathed all this time. My knees buckled, and Colter grabbed me before I sagged to the ground.
Rory stepped around her desk and pushed a chair under me so that I sat down.
“What just happened?” Colter asked.
Rory stared at me before she stared at him.
“Colter,” she said in a breathy voice. “I think we should run those tests again.”
EPILOGUE
COLTER
The doors opened, and everyone stood. The music started playing, and I had to laugh.
I didn’t do anything traditionally. I was all about breaking the rules, about doing shit differently, but not with this.
