A Strange Hymn by Laura Thalassa

Chapter 54

Desmond Flynn

She’s not going to die.

She can’t.

She might.

Just like my mother.

This is what happens to brave women. Strong women. If you’re worthy enough, they’ll bleed for you.

They’ll die for you.

I feel my throat working.

Please, not again. Never again.

And not her. My mate.

Life was bleak enough without my mother. But with Callie, with Callie everything changed. Life was a thousand times sweeter than I could’ve imagined.

If she dies … there will be no surviving this.

I stroke her cool, clammy cheek, desperate to coax life back into her. She stares up at me, and there’s such brutal truth in her expression.

She knows what’s happening to her.

I feel my heart crushing. I almost can’t breathe through the pain. So much worse than my injuries.

This is not how I thought it would all end. But everything Callie is, everything that makes up her essence, is fading.

I run my hand over her bracelet.

Her bracelet! While she lives, she’s still bound by her vows.

I’m not above exploiting them.

“You will not die,” I command.

My magic flows out of me, and one bead begins to fade … then another and another. She draws in a shuddering gasp.

“Des, what are you doing?” she asks, breathless.

“Saving you.”

And by the gods, it’s working.

Row after row of beads disappear.

Take them all, just bring her back to me.

The beads start to vanish slower and slower until finally, they stop disappearing altogether.

Only a little over a row remains.

Her breathing is still as shallow as ever, and her wound hasn’t stopped bleeding.

I’m no healer, but if the magic took, then something should improve.

But it doesn’t.

And then, with a whoosh, the whole thing reverses.

The magic slams back into my body, rocking me backwards, and the beads begin to reform one by one.

Nooooo!

Can’t complete the spell.

Beyond my control.

Callie’s eyes widen, like she felt the balances tip as well.

I gather her body closer to me, rocking her in my arms, my head bowed over hers.

I’ve never fallen apart in front of Callie. Not even when she was at the mercy of Karnon. But now I begin to.

Because this is the real thing.

“Till darkness dies, love,” she says, her voice faint.

“No.” I’m shaking my head. “Even then, no.” The night could end, and she’d still be mine.

Always mine.

Her eyes slip shut.

“No.” I say more emphatically.

I glance up, blindly looking around. This is the moment I’ve dreaded since I met my mate. The moment I lose her.

I’d rather do something unforgiveable to keep her alive than let her slip quietly into death.

Something unforgiveable …

“Mara, where is the wine? The—the lilac wine.”

The Flora queen looks up from her own dead mate, her eyes dull. “The royal cellar,” she mumbles, as if in a trance. And then her attention returns to the Green Man.

The royal cellar. I’ve actually been there several times over the centuries.

It takes an instant to leave Callie’s side and materialize there, then several precious seconds to locate the tell-tale purple glass bottles.

Grabbing one, I disappear, returning to my mate’s side.

With a swift jerk I snap the narrow neck of the bottle clean off. Already I catch faint, telltale whiffs of the wine.

I promised my mate that I’d protect her from this side of myself, the selfish, immoral side.

I lied.

The thing is, I’m both a fairy and the son of a tyrant king; I’ve descended, undoubtedly, from demons. Wickedness is in my blood.

For once I will give into the depraved thoughts that revolve around my mate.

Callie’s face is ashen, her skin already cold. Her pulse is a weak, fluttery thing.

I’ll take my mate’s mortality from her just as I have always imagined.

Bringing the bottle to her lips, I tip the lilac wine into her unresponsive mouth. Using a little of my magic, I force her throat to swallow it.

I pour it all down, every last drop, my hand never once wavering.

And then I wait.

I comb her hair back, then stroke her iridescent wings.

Never should have brought her here. Never should have rekindled what we had. Never should’ve entered her life in the first place.

It’s a peculiar kind of agony, knowing that the love of your life would be alive if not for you. Loving her enough to want that life for her even if it means erasing all that you had together. Because then, at least, she’d still be alive.

Movement draws my attention to her wrist. Where a minute ago, my black beads had re-appeared, row after row of them now vanish once more.

Only death or repayment can fulfill a bargain. Death or repayment.

Death.

Fear—true, heart-crushing, sweat-inducing fear flows through me.

She really is leaving me.

A chasm inside me opens, and it’s being filled with all my pain, all my dread, all the suffering I’ve borne throughout these long centuries.

I let out a choked cry and run my hand down the side of Callie’s face, her skin damp from where the lilac wine spilled.

My skin begins to tingle, itching right over my chest. My magic gathers there, the pressure from it building to such intensity that it’s almost painful.

Out of nowhere, it blasts out of me. I groan, my back bowing at the sensation.

And then … and then I feel my power fuse. Fuse with another’s.

I lean over Callie’s body, drawing in several ragged breaths.

I search her features. I’ve been around archaic magic long enough to know when it’s at work—as it is now.

Seconds later Callie’s chest rises then falls, rises then falls.

It worked.

Gods’ hands, it worked.

Callie’s alive.

Her body arches, her lungs heaving in breath after breath. Before my very eyes her wound stitches itself up.

I look to the heavens above me and laugh once, a wild, manic sound. The night, in all its infinite chaos, moves around me and through me.

She’s alive, and she’s mine. Really, truly, entirely mine.

I rub my chest, right where my heart cradles our completed connection.

My broken wings fan wide with my triumph, and I don’t even register the pain through my elation.

She’s not mortal, not any longer, but everlasting.

Her magic and mine sing together through our bond.

Nothing—nothing—has ever felt this good.

I made her one of us. True, she’ll never be a fairy in the most honest sense of the term—her rounded ears are still proof of that—but she’s immortal like us, strong like us, and her magic is now compatible with mine.

I glance at Callie’s now bare wrist, her beads all used up.

Only death or repayment can fulfill a bargain. Death or repayment. My demand that Callie live, the lilac wine I hand poured into her mouth—it fulfilled her end of the bargain.

“You gave her the wine,” Mara murmurs from where she crouches.

I nod, not bothering to glance away from my mate.

“Any regrets?” she asks.

“I would do it again a thousand times over.”

Wrongs can be forgiven. It’s death that one cannot return from.

Mara’s final words linger in the air between us—

“Let’s hope she feels the same way.”