AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He remembered how, while infused with magic, Sorin had woken up in a panic.
And how Everard’s nose had instantly begun to bleed.
The same could happen to him. In fact, it seemed likely it would. He did not know if Sorin had any ill will toward him, but there was a chance—however small—that he would be reviving an enemy. It could mean his life should he go forward with the healing process, but his heart forbade him from doing nothing.
His mate was hurt.
Whether that mate still loved him meant nothing to him, for he would love Sorin until the day he died, no matter if that day was upon him now, or in another thousand years.
“I don’t know if you can hear me,” he said as he zeroed his magic in on what damage remained, “but if you can, love, know that I’m the only one here with you, and with me, you are safe. The healing process may be uncomfortable, but I am not trying to hurt you. I am only trying to make you well. Please, stay calm and contain your magic. Kill me later if you must, but not just yet. You must hear what I’ve learned about your magic first.”
As he spoke, he funneled his magic into Sorin, focusing his attention on the hairline fracture and keeping it there as the bone began to stitch itself shut. At first all was well, but as the procedure went on, Sorin’s brow furrowed, and he let out a low, pained moan.
Blood, warm and wet, trickled down Bertram’s lip—a warning he ought to stop—but he did no such thing.
“Not yet,” he said through gritted teeth. The injury was close to being healed, but with Sorin still mostly unconscious, something else had to be going on. Whatever it was, he needed to fix it, and he would not stop until he did. Until he knew Sorin was safe.
Knowing he didn’t have much time left, Bertram let loose with his magic, pushing it into Sorin with urgency in the hopes it would heal him the rest of the way and snap him out of his confusion.
“It’s me, Sorin,” he ground out, voice strained by his efforts. “It’s Bertram. Your mate. You are safe. Please, come back to me.”
Sorin made a garbled noise that drove pain like a pickax through Bertram’s skull. Blood gushed from Bertram’s nose, pouring freely down his face and dripping from his chin, and worse, began to seep from his eyes, staining the world red. He tasted copper in his mouth and felt a thick, alien stickiness on his tongue.
It was too much.
He was fading and he knew it, his arms becoming increasingly heavy and his body a burden to keep upright. But even as he began to lose focus, he did not stop.
Sorin needed him, and he would not fail him again.
“If I am to die,” Bertram murmured, his eyelids starting to droop as dizziness set in, “you must run. Leave this place. Take my gold and use it to hide yourself away somewhere outside of the council’s jurisdiction. If you stay here, they will come for you, and they will kill you, and then all of this will have been for nothing. Please, don’t let that happen. Find Piers and let him tell you what I couldn’t about your magic. He will help you. But please, please don’t let this be the end. I will give my life for you, Sorin, but you must promise to keep living for me in return.”
Sorin’s face contorted in panic, then agony. He shrieked and thrashed, and the pain in Bertram’s head exploded with the same force and finality as a dying star.
The world wobbled.
His mouth filled with blood.
Distantly, he heard a thunk! and realized as an afterthought that it had been the sound of his body hitting the floor.
Above him, the ceiling blurred. He stared at it, too weak to move, and wondered if he had done enough. Would Sorin recover? Would he escape the council? He might never know, but he took comfort in knowing he’d done his best—that even though it had cost him everything, he had been there for his mate.
As his body grew heavy, he found the bond inside himself connecting his soul to Sorin’s and filled it with as much love and comfort as he could. His eyelids drooped, then shut, but still he focused on the bond, hoping that through it, Sorin could hear the truth of his heart.
I love you, he thought as death crept closer, and I’m sorry.
There seemed to be a sound from somewhere—the rustling of sheets. Bertram tried to open his eyes, but they would not budge. Death had too tight a grip on him, and it would not let him go. But in the few moments he had before it took him over completely, Bertram heard one last thing—the voice of the man he loved calling his name.
15
Sorin
“Bertram?!” Sorin, still dazed from having just come to, scrambled off the bed, but his legs weren’t quite ready to support his weight. They buckled under him, sending him tumbling to the ground, where he landed in a graceless heap. It stung. He’d skinned his palms and bruised his hip, but the pain didn’t keep him down for long. Almost as soon as he hit the ground, he popped up onto his knees and looked down in a panic upon Bertram.
He was drenched in blood.
It gushed thickly out of his nose and had made a mess of the lower half of his face and neck. A small amount of it had pooled on the floor beneath him, where it soaked into his hair and had begun to seep into his suit jacket. Twin trails of it streaked down the sides of his face, marking where bloody tears had once been, and while Sorin didn’t immediately see evidence that he was bleeding elsewhere, he feared it was only a matter of time before that changed.
If he didn’t find a way to stop it, Bertram was as good as dead.
