Something that we’d done had set this off. Maybe even being around her had done it. Or maybe it was always going to end like this.
But if she died tonight, I would follow her. I wouldn’t have time for thought or regret or revenge.
I was her True Mate. I didn’t doubt that anymore. I didn’t wonder if I deserved her because that didn’t matter anymore.
Once bonded, when one passed from this realm, the other followed.
There was some comfort in that.
At least we’d always be together. In this realm or the next.
Chapter Twenty-Five
DASTIEN
It didn’t take long for the witches to set up the spell. Minutes really. The last time I was inside a salt circle, I told myself I’d never again participate in another spell. But here I was, about to be inside another.
I turned my back on all of this when I walked away from them last time. I walked away on the new council, on my friends, on my responsibilities. I walked away from everything except the pain and loss I was feeling.
And now I was back here, asking them to help me again. As if I hadn’t abandoned them.
I knew they understood why I’d walked away, but as I watched them rushing around to set it up after dropping whatever it was they were doing to come here, I knew I owed everyone an apology.
That would come. After I had Tessa safe.
I still had Tessa draped across my lap. Samantha sat beside us, watching Tessa in case something changed. The candles around us were already lit. Now Claudia was walking around us with a jar of salt, surrounding us in a circle of white crystals while whispering the beginning of her spell. Just before she completed the full salt circle, Samantha stepped out.
“I’ll be watching,” she said, and she went to sit beside Axel.
The rest of them surrounded us. When Claudia was done, she nodded to the rest.
They knelt as one around us, and each slashed their palms with a tiny dagger.
Blood dripped down the daggers as they stabbed them into the salt circle.
With a slap of flesh against flesh, they joined hands. Their mouths moved together, saying the words. Magic filled the circle like too much static.
The candles, the moon, the stars were all the light we had to see by, but it was more than enough. The moon wasn’t full, but we would need more than the power of the moon if we were going to break the magic on Tessa.
The static feeling grew until it felt like tiny needles zapping along my skin.
I watched Tessa, but there was no change in her. One look at Samantha told me that she didn’t see anything different either.
This wasn’t going to work.
My skin grew cold as I realized that we needed something more. Something bigger. We needed a magical intervention from God or at least an archon.
“We need Eli,” I said.
“We tried calling for him,” Cosette said. “And he hasn’t shown up.”
“You can’t trust an archon,” Samantha said. “I know he’s helped you before, but you can’t rely on any of the archons.”
“No, you really can’t,” Cosette said.
Tessa was cradled in my arms, and I pressed my forehead to hers, willing her to wake up. “She was fine. She was eating. I don’t understand what happened. Did I do something to—”
“No. Being with you made her stronger. She’s fighting the magic,” Van said. “Or more accurately, I believe her wolf is fighting the magic, but it’s taking everything from her. There must be a seed inside Helen’s magic that kills the wolf or makes the wolf submit. We need that gone. She can’t survive without her wolf anymore.”