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Beside her, Rona’s passive face had dried, her emotionless eyes staring into space. The ground before them lay pristine, no trace of what’d just befallen the Elemental monarch who now lay under the earth’s surface.
The water Elemental, Tyee, had started singing softly, the hum of his native language gentle in the quiet air. Flanking them were dozens of sober-faced immortals, each standing in reverent quiet.
As his head cleared in the aftermath, Isaiah realized that someone needed to inform Nina of what’d happened. Reaching out with his telepathy, he mentally pinged the other sovereign’s mind in preparation.
Her response was immediate and unfriendly.What, Isaiah?
Nina, Gideon has been gravely injured and the Elementals are uncertain he will recover. The Citizens drew him out and shot him.
Beside him, the air fissured in a signal of her arrival. Immediately, the female sovereign went to Rona and crouched beside her. Tenderly pulling the unmoving woman into her arms, Nina began whispering to her softly, unintelligibly, while gently stroking her hair.
Rona’s face pinched seconds later, the woman waking suddenly as if from a dream. But instead of sobbing, the Polynesian vampire turned her head into Nina’s chest, clutching at the other woman in the depths of her despair.
The pale blue of Nina’s eyes jumped to his.What happened, Isaiah?
A dam cracked in Arizona, the Elementals went to repair it.Isaiah responded telepathically, solemn.Torrin Scayde arrived when Gideon was separated from us, took vengeance for Victor’s death. The Elemental is beneath the earth now.
Nina closed her eyes as she processed the news. Behind them, Drake moved closer while his wife, Toni, wept openly against his chest.
The immortals that had gathered around them in a loose circle began to break off to give them their privacy, but Isaiah couldn’t bring himself to leave Rukia.
Beneath the façade of impenetrable ice that he’d built around his heart, he felt only gut-wrenching sorrow for the woman who’d just lost one of her closest friends. Instead of leaving, Isaiah knelt behind her and simply placed a hand on her trembling shoulder to remind her that she wasn’t alone.
To his surprise, she didn’t shrug him off.
Rukia’s hand reached up to grip his with a desperation that belied her inherent strength. When she turned and launched herself into his arms, he reacted instinctively. Enveloping her in the comfort of his embrace, Isaiah simply held her as she cried.
And he’d never felt more helpless.
There were whispers of movement as the space cleared around them, much of the assembled crowd returning to the hall to give them a reprieve in the hush of night. Those who stayed were the Elementals and their mates, each as despondent as the next.
Nina’s melodic voice pierced the silence. “Rona, what do you need?”
Her face was still buried in Nina’s chest, her wails muffled. “He can’t be gone. This—this has to work.”
Quiet for a moment, Nina rested her cheek against Rona’s hair and held the vampire tight against her. Meeting Drake’s eyes in the hush that followed, she beckoned him forward. “Drake will take you home. Be brave.”
Nina stood with the distraught woman cradled against her breast, the suddenly meek vampire wobbling on her feet. Drake moved forward to take her, and Toni embraced Lucy fiercely in their grief.
Beside them stood Aidan, solemn-faced and silent, his tea green eyes locked on the unblemished ground where Gideon had disappeared. The heavy weight of his anguish shadowed the other man’s features, and his broad shoulders were slumped uncharacteristically.
All at once, Isaiah realized that Aidan and Gideon had grown to be good friends in the brief period of time the werewolf had lived in Paracel.
Without speaking, Tyee and Jeremiah rose in unison from the ground to stand alongside Rona and Drake. Both men’s faces were drawn in anguish, their eyes fathomless in despair.
His expression pinching as he looked at Rona, Tyee’s hand came to gently rest on her shoulder. His voice was soft as he spoke into the night. “Let me accompany you home, Rona.”
Nodding at him, Drake swung the petite vampire into his arms and held her close to his chest, Toni and Tyee turning to walk alongside him. Jeremiah’s eyes traced them away as they departed, but he made no move to follow. Instead, the summer blue of his gaze landed on Rukia.
Emotionless, the red-haired man simply seemed to have lost his spirit.
Against his chest, Rukia stirred and lifted her head. Her eyes, smudged with wet mascara, looked at Jeremiah, but seemed to struggle for words as she pushed past her grief.
“We—we need to make sure that the Citizens aren’t here. That they didn’t come here to kick us when we’re down.” She swallowed and looked at Aidan. “Can your alphas run the perimeter, confirm we’re safe?”
A jerky nod before Aidan’s hand caught a still distraught Lucy around her waist, and the mated pair moved back toward the compound.
Slowly, Isaiah stood, helping Rukia up with him. Her hands had coiled around the lapels of his suit, her knuckles white in the darkness of the night that surrounded them.
