Born By Moonlight by Krista Street

Chapter 22

~ WYATT ~

Avery felt as light as a feather in my arms, as if death was not only claiming her life but her very essence, as though stealing the matter that made her whole.

She didn’t wake when I dressed her, and it wasn’t until I was standing back in the hall, Nicholas ready with a portal key in hand, that her eyes drifted open.

“Wyatt?” she said sleepily, sluggishly. A dull glaze coated her eyes.

“Yes, my love. We’re going to the fae lands. The alignment is tonight. We think it might save you.” My throat tightened. I knew the alignment wasn’t a guarantee. I knew it may not save her, but it was the only clue we had, and time was running out.

Her eyelids fluttered closed again, her long dark lashes creating shadows on her cheeks, and her body grew still.

So still.

“We must go now!” I yelled.

Nicholas blurred forward with the portal key. He placed one hand on me, the other on Avery.

I bit back a growl when he touched her, but at least he was only touching her hand.

“Should we tell her parents what we’re doing?” the vampire asked.

“No time. We go now.”

The vampire whispered the words to initiate the transfer, and a void closed around us. Portal winds rushed through my hair, creating a deafening roar in my ears. It felt as though the world dropped out from under us as we fell through time and space, twisting, bending, and crunching until we were neither here nor there.

I tightened my hold on Avery, trying to shield her from the worst of it, but she lay like death in my arms, not seeming cognizant of what was happening around her.

It was the same when I’d whisked her through the portal following her cataclysmic reaction to the Safrinite comet.

The portal transfer’s jarring sensation came to an abrupt end, and we stood in a vast field in the fae lands, near the same spot where the comet had attacked Avery.

As before, a city of supernaturals had camped out on the field outside of the capital. Everyone was stretched out on blankets or hovering on enchanted carpets which floated inches from the grassy field that bloomed with an abundance of wildflowers.

Energy buzzed through the air. The crowd was ripe with anticipation for the impending alignment. Distant music rose from the capital, the parties already started as torches lit the city in a splendor of fire and light.

Overhead a firework burst, the number ‘10’ appearing.

“Ten minutes until the alignment fully occurs. We didn’t miss it,” I breathed. “Thank the gods.”

“Indeed,” Nicholas agreed.

In the sky, the planets were already coming together, their circular forms moving toward one another in a slow progression until they would form a perfect alignment, at which point they would blaze brighter than the earth’s moon.

I hugged Avery closer to me, trying to transfer my warmth to her, but she still felt so very cold. “Let’s find a quieter place.”

I turned into a blur, Nicholas following, as I sought a less crowded location in the field.

Avery didn’t make a sound, not even when I came to a sudden halt that would have stolen the breath from other supernaturals not used to werewolf speed.

I kissed my mate tenderly on her forehead and then her cheeks. “Avery? My love, we’re here. Just hold on.”

She didn’t respond.

I’d stopped us near the forest, yet still close enough to the capital that I could easily access medical help if she jolted back to life and needed more care, but we were far enough away that we’d avoid prying eyes and curious onlookers. The last thing I wanted was my mate being made a spectacle of morbid curiosity.

“She’s still breathing,” Nicholas said. “But barely.”

My heart stopped when I looked down. In the moonlight of the impending alignment, it was even more apparent how much Avery’s skin had changed in the time since I’d dressed her. An ashen hue coated her cheeks, her breaths now few and far between.

“Fuck,” I whispered. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

Panic rose in my chest, threatening to cut off my thoughts and unleash my wolf. No. Stay calm. Don’t lose it now.

I took a deep breath and kneeled in the tall grass. Floral scents from the wildflowers filled the air, similar to how flowers smelled on earth, yet different—sharper and more pungent.

“She was lying on the ground when the comet affected her the first time. Maybe she needs to be lying on the ground now, too, when the alignment hits.”

“It’s possible,” Nicholas replied.

Another firework erupted in the sky. The number ‘5’ glowed in silvery sparks. In the distance, a boisterous cheer rose from the spectators.

I whipped my shirt off so Avery wouldn’t lay directly on the crunching stalks and dry dirt, and then gently laid her down.

She didn’t stir.

I kneeled at her side, my heart thundering in my ears. That panicked feeling again rose inside my chest. I could barely breathe. Barely think. My mate was still dying.

She was still dying.

I felt her pulse, my stomach bottoming out.

“Her pulse is only thirty-seven.”

Nicholas kneeled, too, but once on the ground, he didn’t move. He grew deathly still.

Another moment passed, and he said, “She’s barely breathing. I only saw her chest rise a few times in the past minute.”

“I know,” I whispered.

I took her hand in mine, my own trembling. That thick feeling closed my throat again. If it grew any tighter, I wouldn’t be able to breathe because my mate was dying.

Dying.

And even a trip here to the fae lands wasn’t stopping it.

“Why isn’t she getting better?”

Nicholas’s expression was still blank, still guarded. “Maybe she won’t until the alignment fully occurs.”

I rocked back and forth on my haunches as the simmering need to do something nearly tore me apart.

“We have another option,” Nicholas said softly. “I could turn her.”

My jaw dropped. “Make her a vamp?”

“It may save her. It may not, but I’m willing to try.”

“As her maker she would be forever tied to you.”

“Correct.”

“And we don’t even know if that would save her.”

“Also true.”

My mind buzzed, moving at a dizzying speed as I tried to fathom all of the consequences turning Avery would evoke. “No. I won’t let you. That’s not a decision I’ll make for her. The alignment will save her. It has to.”

My heart screamed inside me. I had no idea if I was making the right choice. My mate’s life rested on the gamble we’d taken that answers lay here in the fae lands and the impending alignment could somehow miraculously save her.

But what if I’d chosen wrong?

What if at this exact moment, the gargoyles had discovered something else in their searches that revealed what we should have done, and I’d just made the most consequential decision of my life?

“Dammit!” Blood pulsed through my ears, creating a deafening roar in my head.

What if . . .

What if . . .

What if . . .

Another firework exploded in the sky, ‘4’.

I rocked closer to Avery, placing soft kisses on her closed eyes, her forehead, her cheeks. “Please, Little Flower. Please stay with me. I’ve only just found you again. I can’t lose you, Avery. I can’t live without you.”

A blazing eruption shot overhead. ‘3’.

The hope flaring in Nicholas’s eyes dimmed as another minute ticked by without improvement in Avery’s state.

My heart cracked, and as I sat beside her, gently holding her while whispering all of the ways that I loved her, I felt her slipping further and further away.

I wrapped my fingers around her cool, limp hand. “Avery?” I said quietly. “Can you hear me? Do you remember when I first saw you? At the ice cream shop? And the moment we met again, in the SF garage, when I could barely breathe since you took my breath away? And do you remember tonight? When I made love to you and claimed you as mine. You wanted that, my love. You wanted me. You wanted us. Please don’t leave me. Please don’t leave us. Please. I can’t live without you.”

She didn’t stir, not even a whisper.

Her body lay alarmingly still, her chest not rising, her heart barely beating.

I closed my eyes and felt inside me for our bond. It hummed quietly, faintly, still there, our threaded connection as fragile as a wisp of silk.

I prodded along it, feeling for her life force, and tried to connect to her feelings and emotions.

But all that lay on the other side was nothing.

Not one single thread of life or existence.

Not one breath of emotion or love.

My breath hitched. No, no, no.

“Avery!” I said gruffly, achingly. “Please, my love. Please stay with me.”

Another firework exploded. ‘2’.

Nicholas’s expression didn’t falter, but I felt his gaze skittering over us, and a sense of sadness emanated from the vampire.

He closed his eyes. “This may be the end,” he said quietly. “The alignment may not save her. You should say your goodbyes.”

“NO!” I yelled, but then immediately regretted my outburst even though it didn’t elicit a response from my mate. Not even a flutter of her eyelashes occurred at my vicious sound. “She can’t die. She can’t!” My voice broke, and I rocked forward, touching her hair, her lips, her eyes, her arms.

“Don’t leave me, don’t leave me,” I whispered over and over. An aching void opened up inside me. “Don’t leave me, Avery.”

A faint breath rattled her chest.

Hope flared inside me as brightly as the sun. I shot upright, my eyes wide as my gaze raked over her features. “Avery?”

But just as quickly as her breath occurred, it ended, and with an agonizing awareness, I realized it was the only time she’d breathed in the last minute.

Another firework exploded. A shining blue ‘1’ appeared above us.

I gripped her hand harder. Aching nausea roiled within me. We were close. So close to the impending alignment.

The planets were nearly a perfect circle now, so bright and huge they resembled the earth’s moon.

Only one more minute. One minute. “Please, my love. Please hold on! We’re almost there.”

But she didn’t respond.

I felt for her pulse again, searching in a panic for the beat of her heart. At least twenty seconds passed before I felt a very faint single beat lift her skin.

“Less than thirty seconds,” Nicholas whispered. “It’s not enough time to turn her now. Her fate is sealed.”

I felt for another beat, another thrum of life.

But it didn’t come.

Avery’s pulse stopped.

Her chest didn’t rise.

My eyes widened. “Avery!” I roared, my hands coming to her shoulders. I shook her, yelled at her, tried to infuse life into her. “AVERY!”

Her limp body stayed still. Deathly still.

I collapsed toward her chest, my ear going to her heart.

Silence.

Vast echoing silence.

And that’s when I felt it. The bond. Our connection.

It snapped like a tethered thread on the wind. As if silent shears had snipped her life away, cutting her from this realm as she floated into nothingness.

A cavern of pain cracked open inside me, and burning fire roared through my body, the flames eating me alive from within.

I roared over and over as agony ripped through me.

Our bond was gone.

The threaded connection had broken.

And that could only happen if my mate was dead.