AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You three should take shifts and get showers,” Fox pointed out.
Nico and I were still in our armor and covered in grime. The healers had removed Jax’s armor to check every inch of him for wounds while he’d been unconscious, but he was just as dirt- and soot-covered as the rest of us.
Eli nodded and then lowered their voice. “You can help Mel by topping up your reservoir, so her vampiric healing kicks in. Go get some rest.”
Then they tossed their sandwich wrapper in the trash and went back to work.
The food helped. I could feel our magic reservoir slowly refilling, but Eli was right — it would refill faster if we slept, too.
“Jax, maybe you should be the first to go back to rest,” I suggested. “We’ll take shifts, just like Fox suggested.”
“We can give you a ride,” Lan said to Jax.
My brother sighed but nodded. Then he came over to Nico, and the Wildes coven gave them space.
“I won’t ask you to come with me,” Jax whispered, and my vampiric hearing easily overheard. “Mel’s injured and I know—”
Nico cut him off with a kiss. “If Mel were awake, and you were in that bed, I’d be right by your bedside the whole night. You know that.”
“I do.” I could hear the truth of it in my brother’s voice, and a wave of relief washed over me. Nico and Jax had finally figured things out.
Now all we needed was for Mel to wake up… so we could decide what our future together would look like.
“I’ll be back in a few hours,” Jax promised, looking at me before he headed out with the Wildes coven.
“We’ll let all of you know as soon as anything changes,” I said.
After one last lingering look at Mel, Nimue left with her men. Nico dropped into the chair on the other side of the bed from Mel, and we both reached for her hands once again. I hated feeling how unresponsive they were.
For a few minutes, Nico and I remained in silence surrounded by the beeping, dripping, and whooshing sounds of machinery, along with quiet voices of healers talking to other patients.
“I’m glad your brother is okay,” Nico broke the silence, shocking me.
Normally, I had to provoke him into words, but now it was my turn to figure out what to say. Starting with the obvious. “Me too.” Then I added, “Thanks for being the one to teleport us all out of there.”
“Anytime.” The ghost of a smile flashed on his face. “But next time, it’s up to Jax.”
I shook my head. “No more next times. We figured out how to close it — or at least shrink the damn thing. Other demon hunters can take it from here and deal with the devils in their own cities.”
“Ready to retire?” Nico sounded surprised.
I shrugged. “Ready for something different. We’ll see what Mel thinks.”
Forcing confidence into my words, I hoped that would be soon. No doubt the feisty new vampire would have plenty of opinions once we saw how things played out here with vampire rights.
Jax and I had come here to help other vampires gain the freedom and safety we had out West. We’d never expected all the rest of this to happen… to end up on a team with both our exes, to go into the infernal realm, to watch the ones we loved go into a bloodcrazed frenzy, to nearly die…
I turned toward Nico, taking in his tense shoulders, his pursed lips, his deep magenta eyes locked on Mel’s face as if he could will her to wake up.
“You didn’t go into another frenzy.” The words escaped before I could form my thoughts more coherently.
Nico’s sharp gaze snapped over to me.
“Jax and Mel were both unconscious on the battlefield, but you maintained control and fought alongside the other demon hunters.”
“Part of me wanted to,” Nico admitted. “The sense of single-minded purpose. The loss of… awareness, or of responsibility. It would’ve been nice right then.”
“But you didn’t.”
