It was a risky plan, contingent on many ifs, but it was a plan and perhaps Viola’s only hope for victory.
Tears threatened to well as she refocused on her foe. Wait. Movement at her left. She whipped to the side, watching as Fluffy zoomed along the corridor. No one else detected him, his body like mist.
“I’ll hear your answer now,” Farrow snapped.
Viola grinned at her. “My answer is no. Here’s why.”
Fluffy dove at the other female, sinking his teeth into her neck. Her scream of shock and pain died as the little darling ripped out her throat. She lost her hold on the whip and collapsed, writhing while trying to breathe.
Midian lunged for Fluffy, attempting to rip him off the female. Viola struck, punching her other guard in the temple. Unfortunately for him, she wore a ring with a spring-loaded hook. That hook ejected into his brain and stayed put. As he screamed and yanked at the jewelry he couldn’t remove, she swung her other arm, unfastening her bracelet and locking the links in place. The blade sliced through his torso, cutting him in half. But he didn’t die. Farrow hadn’t lied about finding a way to remain alive when dead.
No matter. He did not fit back together again when his different pieces plopped to the ground, rendering him unable to reach her. On to the next! Farrow still struggled to breathe, Fluffy’s fangs still deep in the remnants of her throat. Brochan was using his bracelet to cut through her whip.
Viola concentrated on Crimson. The biggest threat to Brochan’s and Fluffy’s lives.
The Forsaken stopped pulling and started punching. Screeching, Viola jumped on him, tossing him down. She straddled his waist. As he fought to buck her off, she held on with her thighs and flattened a palm over his heart. Without ceremony, she pushed her spiritual hand from her flesh one, dipping inside him. An ability she hadn’t lost.
He jerked, his eyes widening with pain. “What are you doing? Stop!”
“I’ll stop…when I’m done.” She sank her claws into his spiritual heart and yanked with all her might. Her hand slipped free of his body, a pulsing ball of light filling her palm. Fading…
Just like that, Crimson went still and silent, staring at nothing. Dead for real. A weakness Farrow hadn’t foreseen.
“Well, well. Now we know. This works as well as fire.” Was he dead for good, though, or would he grow another spiritual heart? Didn’t matter, she supposed. Within the hour, she would burn him, too, and ensure her story had a perfect ending.
“Viola!” Panic laced Brochan’s voice.
She twisted, finding him partially freed from his bonds and—claws whizzed through the air and scraped through her throat, agony searing her. Like Farrow, she lost the ability to breathe and dropped.
The second Forsaken, Harley, had fully recovered without her knowledge and attacked.
Freeing himself the rest of the way, Brochan dove on the male. With savage, merciless fury, he tore into his opponent, rending him into pieces in a nanosecond.
Spotting a healing Farrow behind him, sneaking closer to attack, Viola tried to scramble over, to warn him, but she had no voice or volume, and she was too far away. The Forsaken reached him first, swiped up the armband sword he’d dropped—the very weapon Viola had gifted to him—and swung.
Rage sparked, only to sizzle out, overcome by shock. She watched, incredulous, as the metal sliced through his neck. His head flew across the corridor, banging into a wall of bars.
He was…
He…
Once again, his body did not possess an aura.
No! He wasn’t dead. He wasn’t. He would heal.
“The key,” Farrow grated, stalking toward Viola. “Give it to me.”
The rage returned and consumed her. The hottest rage she’d ever entertained. With a violent shove, Viola exited her body. In spirit form, she entered Farrow in a blink, taking over. Possessing the other female utterly and yanking on her reins of control.
“What’s happening? What…how…? Get out of me, goddess!” Farrow veered from confusion to astonishment to wrath as she attempted to regain control.
Viola grappled for supremacy to the very end—and won. Cold as ice, she forced Farrow to unsheathe the dagger hanging on her waist.
Viola wasn’t the goddess of the Afterlife for nothing.
“Stop this!” The woman struggled to regain the reins of control.
She let the tip of the dagger rest against her carotid and pressed slowly…
“Goddess!”
Did she hear Brochan?
See! He’d lived!
She would speak to him in a moment. She began to saw through flesh, muscle and tendon. Though she and Farrow shared the pain, she did not stop. She kept going until movement became impossible, the head detaching from the body. Then she exited Farrow’s motionless form.
Decapitated, and yet the Forsaken remained alive and conscious, as promised. She spewed curses as Viola crawled toward Brochan…who hadn’t revived, after all. His head remained unattached, his gaze staring at nothing.
N-no matter. She could fix this. She could. She would, she would, she would. Because she wouldn’t give up. Not ever. Panting, wheezing, Viola dragged her male’s beautiful head back to his body, doing her best to fit the pieces of the puzzle together.
“Come on! Heal!” He had before.
Like Crimson, he’d just…stopped.
“I’m so sorry, kitten. You were right. Death came for me.”
Though she cradled his head in her lap, he spoke from behind her. Or rather, his spirit spoke from behind her.
She knew he petted her hair. She felt a chill, all his warmth gone. Hot tears spilled down her cheeks. “I can fix this.”
“You cannot make me a new body, and that is what I need to stay.”
Hair slapped her cheeks as she shook her head. “There has to be another way.”
Instead of trying to convince her otherwise, he said, “Before I met you, I was the living dead. You brought me to life.” His voice cracked at the edges. “I’m not ready to leave you. I’m so sorry,” he repeated.
His heartbreak hastened hers, but she shook her head again. “No. No! You’re healing, and that’s that. I’m the most amazing goddess to ever goddess, and I will not lose my husband.”
She got to work, easing his body to the side, scrambling to her feet and issuing commands. “Lie down inside your body without argument. Now.”
“I won’t let you use one of your lives on me. I can tolerate leaving you only because I know you’re safer this way.”
“I said now!” she screeched, palace walls shaking. The floor shaking. Vines shot up from the ground and coiled around his wrists and ankles, even in his spirit form, forcing him to do as she’d commanded. “Thank you,” she told the world.
“Viola—”
“You are not abandoning me. Not now.”
He pressed his lips together. Had he faded even more?
“I’ll weld you whole again. Every part of you.” She tore off her long-sleeved shirt, revealing the tank top underneath. “I can separate a spirit from a body, so why can’t I repair a body and reconnect the spirit?”
Viola worked for hours. With painstaking care, she used streams of her own immortality to sew the intangible into the tangible and connect tangible with tangible. Giving him what he’d forbidden. One of her lives. At some point, Brochan fell into a deep sleep, the vines no longer needed. And still he faded. Faded right before her very eyes.