“I’ve got this!” Tate rushes forward and blasts the shield with his onyx power. Silver and black twine and slam into the blue over and over like a battering ram. Dillon joins him, raising his hands and sweeping them up. A sheet of water rises in the air, pressing to the shield and exerting pressure.
Together they’ll bring the fucker down. I feel it.
Inside the arcane circle Quinn sits on the ground. Her hands and feet are bound and her chin rests on her chest. She looks small and broken, like a discarded marionette with its strings all tangled.
“Quinn! Quinn, can you hear me?” Orina shouts.
“Quinn!” Jax circles the perimeter, pacing like a caged animal.
Emmit stands, head tucked in, ready to charge as soon as the barrier comes down.
Quinn lifts her head slightly, then raises her bound hands. The ropes glow gold before falling away, as do the ones on her ankles. She rubs her wrists, then stands slowly, palms out, as if worried she’ll lose her balance.
My chest tightens, my breath coming faster because…No. Please no. “Quinn?”
She looks straight at me and smiles. “Hello, Bryce, it’s been quite some time, hasn’t it?”
My stomach drops. “Taint.”
“Not anymore.”
“Let her go. Let her go now,” Nyx demands.
The taint ignores her demands, attention remaining on me.
“Your first mate was a temporary host; she stuck around in the back of her mind. We never fully melded, you know. But she’s free now.” She points at a pile of ash on the grass. “But Quinn is the perfect match for me.”
“Where is she?” Jax demands.
She gives him a wide-eyed look, affecting innocence. “Inside. She’s alive, of course. Safe. She’ll stay that way as long as you protect her.” She smiles, one of Quinn’s sweet smiles, and if Quinn hadn’t shown us, if she hadn’t told us the taint’s truth, we might have believed her, even if just because we needed to.
But we know the truth.
We know the woman we love is gone.
Her hand goes to her chest and a look of wonder crosses her face. “I have a heart.” She rubs her breastbone and beams at me. “It’s beating. I’m truly alive.” She turns this way and that, looking down at Quinn’s legs, caressing Quinn’s arms. Claiming my mate’s body.
She looks at me with Quinn’s face, but she isn’t Quinn.
Quinn, my beautiful, courageous mate, is gone.
I close my eyes and summon her in my mind: her laughter, her smile, her gentle caress, and her final words. Her final, desperate plea.
I won’t let her down.
I can’t.
“Now!” Dillon bellows.
The blue shield on the arcane symbol drops. I charge, and Jax and Emmit charge with me.
The taint is momentarily stunned. Her hands fly up, maybe in reflex, maybe to throw out power, but my jaws find her shoulder before she can do anything. My heart fractures beneath the weight of what we’re about to do. I feel Jax’s and Emmit’s pain as my own, the split second of doubt followed by steely resolve. This isn’t just to save the world. This is to save Quinn, to set her free, and in that moment that’s all that matters to us.
We bite down hard and inject our unique venom into the body we love.
QUINN
I was small. Nothing. Fading.
The taint promised me a place in the back of her mind, but I wouldn’t take it. Instead, I sat outside the doorway to my fake reality and waited to be gone.
I felt her beside me.
“What did you do?” she asked, her voice vibrating with rage.
I didn’t have the energy to look at her.
“They love you. So why are they killing you?” she demanded.
Relief ripped through me, bringing a sob with it.
“What is this? How can they do this?” She yelled the words at me. “They can’t love you as much as you thought they did.”
I looked at her this time, smiling through my tears. “They love me more than I thought they did.” I leaned toward her inky face. “Don’t you see? They’re setting me free.”
Her face froze, her eyes flinched, and then she opened her mouth and let out a wail that blasted against my skin and rang between my ears.
“No.” She grabbed my shoulders. “You’re mine. You were always mine. Mine to hold. To protect. To…” She frowned, her mouth opening and closing without a sound.
I was tired. So very tired, but I located the word she was looking for. “Love?”
Her eyes brightened. “Mine.”
“You don’t hurt the people you love. You don’t take away their choices, their lives. You just…don’t.”
I sagged against her. Weaker now. Dying.
“But they’re killing you,” she said, confused. “They love you and they’re killing you.”
“They know I’m already dead. They love me enough to let me go.”
“We are dying,” she said softly.
I took a shuddering breath. “That’s right.”
Slowly, achingly, her arms came up to wrap around me. Confusion gripped my mind. I raised my head to look up at her. She blinked slowly, and skin rose to replace the inky stuff until I was looking at the face of the only mother I’d ever known.
She scanned my features, a slight frown marring hers. “I wanted to live,” she said softly. “To be free…Was that too much to ask? Was it too much to want to feel. To have a heart that beat independently of the collective?”
“You slaughtered worlds.”
“Yes. That was who I was. Not who I wanted to be. I wanted life. A world of my own. I wanted…love…” She canted her head, studying me. “But…I had that, didn’t I? I had it with you…”
I wanted to hate her. To truly hate her, but I couldn’t deny the pain in my chest and the tightness in my throat. I was dying, and I didn’t have the energy to lie to myself or to her.
My final act would be one of complete honesty. “You did have it with me. I loved you. I loved you, Mum.”
The edges of my vision dimmed so all I saw was her smile and her nod as she accepted my words.
I felt the touch of her hand on my cheek. “You were mine. Mine to nurture. Mine to protect. Mine to love.” The touch of her fingers went away, and nothingness began to eat away at her face. “You are my legacy. Something to be left behind. Something to be set free.”
“What?”
She crumpled before me, particles disintegrating to nothing.
My chest expanded on a breath, and energy slowly returned to my limbs. The door vanished and the darkness began to lighten.
What was happening?
Fire circled my wrists and seared my shoulder, bringing a joyous revelation.
Maybe it wasn’t time to die.
TATE
Dillon, Bryce, Jax, and Emmit gather around me as I hold Quinn in my lap, rocking her limp body. Blood cakes her shoulder and her wrists where the Faoladh bit her.
The taint is gone. Sucked out of her body and turned to ash.
We saved the world, but we lost her.
Oh, God. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe without her. My heart is shattering. Darkness fills my soul.