Page 68 of Lost and Bound
Dying had to count as an abnormal circumstance—or at least it ought to, in someone else’s life. Fuck mine, anyway.
And we already knew my blood had the right kind of magic in it.
That treacherous hope flared again, my head going light and fuzzy. I could save him. I could save his life, and even if it took mine…I loved him, and I didn’t fucking care. In our cell, I’d have died to help him escape because I didn’t have much hope left. My life hadn’t been worth anything to me or to anyone else.
But now I’d die willingly, if it saved him, because my life was worth everything, and so was he.
I let go of my grip on the other side of his body, shifting my knees to keep him from tumbling to the floor, and held up my arm. “It’s not as efficient as the neck, but it’ll work,” I said.
Calder blinked up at me, slowly, his eyes almost not opening again. “No.” His tone held complete finality.
“Yes,” I insisted, getting frantic. “Fuck, yes, come on—” I pushed my wrist against his mouth, and he turned his head away, his eyes sliding closed. “Drink it, fuck, Calder! You can heal, you just need more strength—”
His eyes opened again, blazing up at me with the faintest trace of that glowing silver. “Never. Again,” he gritted out. “I love you, Jared the werewolf.”
His voice trailed into a whisper, and his eyes closed again. He went still. I shook him, hard, hard enough to rattle his teeth.
He didn’t move.
I shoved him down onto the floor, pulling my other arm out from under his head.
Something echoed in my ears: my own voice, little whimpers, hitched breaths, the sounds of panic.
No. No no no. I’d lost enough. I’d lost years of my life. I’d nearly died again, and I would die if I lost him…and I could still feel the bond, fading, winking out like the last gasp of a dying firefly.
My wrist had healed a little too much to allow enough blood to flow, so I put it to my mouth and tore into it savagely, mangling it with my too-blunt human teeth, digging deep to open the veins. Blood gushed out, and I pinched his jaw with my other hand to hold it open and shoved my wrist against his lips.
For an endless, agonizing moment, my blood flowed into his mouth and over his lips, half of it running out again.
And then his throat worked, and his mouth clamped over my arm, and hedrank.
He wasn’t conscious—thank gods, or he wouldn’t have done it. But his body wanted to live, and I felt the pull of his mouth’s suction all along my veins, the blood rushing out of me and into him. The bond pulsed brightly, as crimson and silver as my blood and his eyes. I went dizzy as I lost more blood than I could handle. I hadn’t eaten, I hadn’t drunk. I’d hung in those chains for at least a day.
But it didn’t matter if I passed out, I thought muzzily as I sank down onto Calder’s chest. It didn’t matter. I lay so that my arm wouldn’t move, so that gravity would keep it in place. He might still die.
But if he did, I’d die with him, knowing I loved him. Knowing I’d made my life worth something after all.
And it was more than I’d ever expected to have.
Chapter 19
A Lucky Man
Oh my God, they’re both dead!A deep voice. Panicked. Familiar. Floating through my head, and then fading away again.
No, they aren’t. I can still see their bond.Lighter. Also panicked. Also familiar.
Shouts, and thumps, and curses. More voices, the same two and two others. Arguing about magic, on and on. Something about a door.
The barrier. There’d been a barrier.
Movement. The voices sounding closer, relieved, but still frantic. Pain and lightness, because I couldn’t feel my head. Had I lost it? I’d lost my spleen.
As if someone had read my mind:You know, the irony is, his spleen would be really fucking useful right about now. It’s part of the circulatory—
Please shut the fuck up.That was the lighter voice again.
Everything went away again.
