Rahil drew in a weak breath, his eyes pinching in pain.
Alive. Okay.
Then what?
He wanted both to call an ambulance and to run for help, and even more to hold the second love of his life too close for the Grim Reaper to pull from his fingers, to descend into hell to bring him back, but he remembered Rahil’s reassuring hand on his shoulder when he’d found Kat much the same way and—
On impulse, Mercer reached out with his spark.
“William made him swallow something,” Lydia said, crouching on Rahil’s other side.
“Was it silver?” Mercer asked, feeling, feeling—
“Yes, I think.”
There. A tiny bundle of matter that Mercer recognized like his own hand, pulsing with an energy he’d instilled there himself nearly ten years before. As he broadened his senses, he could find the places where the holy silver had begun working itself into Rahil’s cells. If he was any other vampire, he’d already have been dead. Without the burning to eat him alive, though, Mercer could feel there was more going on inside him—something transformative.
But Rahil had not asked for thissomething, and the longer Mercer lingered, the more he could sense a simultaneous destruction—the sun-poison, he thought, though he had no way to be sure. Everywhere the holy silver pressed in, the poison followed, unraveling bonds in its wake. He’d have no chance of recovery so long as it remained.
The metal was inside him, scatteredthroughouthim. There were a thousand things that could go wrong, even when the holy silver was in Mercer’s hands. A thousand ways he could kill Rahil. A thousand ways Rahil could—
Mercer cradled Rahil into his arms, forehead pressed to his lover’s—hisboyfriend’s—he, Mercer Bloncourt, had his firstboyfriend—and fought past the fear into the present. He pressed his spark harder. Gentle as a surgeon, the force in his mind a scalpel, he tugged at the holy silver’s energy, thinking of nothing but the slow and steady reversion of the metal, cutting back all the power he had instilled in it, and guiding its pieces out of Rahil’s body. It seemed to all come forth in a gentle flow, chalky lines of the stuff flaking along Rahil’s skin. The change within was immediate, chaos settling, regular patterns returning, all things Mercer didn’t quite understand but gave him peace nonetheless. And God, did he need peace.
Rahil groaned, his eyes opening to cracks as he muttered, “If I die, it’s not your fault.”
“You’re too late, babe.” Mercer sobbed. “I already saved you.” He buried his face in Rahil’s hair, kissing him everywhere his lips landed: his forehead, his nose, his eyelids, his mouth, finally, soft and perfect.
Rahil laughed, so weak it could have been anything—but Mercer knew. He knew. “I was sure you would.”
“Liar,” Mercer grumbled. In this life, they were sure of nothing. He still wasn’t even sure how to deal with that fact, but perhaps the acceptance was half the battle. “You still look like a corpse.”
Rahil groaned. “I think I might actually sleep, for once.” He looked at Mercer, his eyes bleary and his hair a mess, and Rahil was still the most handsome thing Mercer had ever seen. “Will you be here—”
“You could not be rid of me if you tried,” Mercer replied, thinking of the days he’d walked into his shed to find a beautiful nuisance hanging from the ceiling, and wondering how he’d been so blind as to not recognize his own future. “Sleep, babe.”
“I love you,” Rahil muttered.
“I love you, too,” Mercer said, but he was fairly sure Rahil was already unconscious.
For what felt like an age, all Mercer could do was watch him, reminding himself with each rise and fall of Rahil’s chest that he was, in fact, alive. He was alive. Mercer was alive. Lydia was alive—her hand had appeared on his shoulder at some point, and he was pretty sure she was using it to keep herself upright just as much as she was offering him comfort. He wished she didn’t have to offer him anything at all. He squeezed her hand.
They both flinched as a female vampire limped into the kitchen. Blisters marred parts of her neck and cheek.
Rahil’s friend from the night before—Natalie, was it? She must have been one of the people Rahil lived with; Mercer realized he hadn’t actually asked. There was so much he still didn’t know about Rahil. So much he wanted to learn. Mercer could barely put together the thought in a coherent way in his mind, but his mouth still managed to ask, “Are you hurt?”
“I’m healing.” Natalie grimaced. “That fucking asshole with the holy silver, is he…?”
Oh. Right. A cold chill ran through Mercer. He managed to tip his head toward the backdoor.
Without leaving the shade of the building, Natalie glanced outside. She grimaced again. “For the best.”
Mercer knew she was right. Realistically, logically, so long as their justice system was built to protect certain members of society over others, this was the only way to ensure that William stopped causing harm to Mercer’s family or the vampiric community. But that didn’t mean he liked it. Didn’t make this moral.
And now—fuck.
Natalie watched him with a tight brow, and she must have been thinking further down the path that Mercer was desperately trying to avoid because she nodded toward the backyard. “Collect his holy silver and I’ll help.”
Right. Fuck. But he still had Lydia’s hand in his, her mouth grim and her gaze distant.
