Page 123 of Death and Do-Overs

Blood pooled on the floor.

While his chest still rose and fell, Levi’s face was pale.

A cold emptiness spread through my chest. We’d hardly had a chance to spend time together before that time was being ripped away.

It was too soon. We hadn’t had long enough.

I’d never felt so deeply for someone, not in the way I did when I was with him. We deserved a real chance to get to know each other outside of all of this chaos, outside of the death vortex that was Nevermore.

It wasn’t fair.

“Hey, Marshmallow.” His eyes were closed. His voice was weak. “It’s going to be okay.”

“It’s not. You’re bleedinga lot.”

The weight of loss was so heavy that I could scarcely breathe. I needed a chance to go back and try again, like Mar coming to this horrible town after Nie. Every new Marnie was another chance, another do-over. But Levi didn’t have that luxury.

“I need time,” he said.

Time was one of many things we didn’t have. Desperation, I had in spades.

I told Otis, “Heal Levi like he healed me. He did a magic sewing thing when I cut my foot.”

Otis stared at me, eyes wide. He clenched his jaw. He blinked several times, each one slower than the last, as if hoping that the next blink would bring clarity.

I apparently understood as little about the situation as he did.

“What?” I asked, aghast. “Why aren’t you helping me?”

“Levi showed you his healing magic?” Otis’s tone was taut and quiet.

“Why is that important right now?Heal him.”

He rubbed his temples, as if the pressure might somehow force the reality into a shape he could comprehend. “Unless our lives depend on it, our constable isn’t allowed to reveal our nature, or our magic, to anyone but our mates.”

Mates.

I’d heard the word before. Wendy’s bear man used it to describe their bond. According to him, it was a bond beyond anything expressed between humans.

It meant eternal commitment and never-ending love.

There was no such thing as divorce in the shifter realm, no choosing someone else or moving on.

They each found one special person, and that was it.

And Otis was telling me that Levi had chosen me.

There were no words that I could speak that expressed the torrent of emotion terraforming my heart. Levi loved me beyond any measure. Living through holding him while he slipped away from me now, I realized that I loved him too.

It wasn’t like friendship that was born from time shared together, common interest, and a slow build. It wasn’t falling in the way I’d heard people describe infatuation.

It was a fierce pull, a connection that was there right from the start, even if I hadn’t been able to identify it then.

Levi was my person.

I would give anything to save his life.

“Marnie, Leviwillheal,” Otis said. “Trust me.”

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