Page 91 of Sweet Violence
I was a blackened corpse with flaking bits of skin and hair. I was a pool of ashes and melted goop. I was whatever happened to the One Ring after it was lobbed into lava in Mount Doom. I was—oh, I was fine.
I blinked, a furrow working itself between my brows as I sat up, Joseph clinging to my back. "I'm alive? That's weird."
Arkan let out a rough breath and dove forward, framing my face with his hands—a hot contrast to Joseph's icy touch—and resting his forehead against mine.
"You scared the daylights out of me," he groaned.
"Heh. That's funny." When he didn’t laugh, I explained, "Since you're all shadows and skeletons."
He growled and kissed me—hard, quickly. "You're fine?"
"Weirdly, yeah." I tested all my limbs; they were in perfect working order. "Wait, who took all my bruises? I don't even ache anymore."
"A special, one-time benefit of joining our circle," Joseph joked, and my heart skipped to hear humour from my almost-lost mate.
"Okay, so how do we fix X?"
"Put your hands on him; I'll guide you through it. Joseph, you know what to do."
I took a tight breath. I had to rely on that absolute trust again. If Arkan wasn't right about this, X would bleed out. I had no idea how much blood he already lost.
He'd been unconscious for so long, and unlike Joseph's wound, his wasn't remotely close to healing. Which meant he was badly, badly hurt.
"Come on, psycho," I whispered. "Come back to us."
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I'd been one second away from mounting Arkan and fucking him as a last resort to resurrect our incubus when X sat up with a horrible scrape of a gasp.
"Jesus fucking Christ," I rasped, all the breath leaving me.
All three of us shoved him back to the floor so he could heal, the wound in his stomach still leaking blood. I sacrificed my shirt this time, pressing it into his wound until I saw he'd begun to heal. The combined magic Arkan, Joseph, and I pushed into him—thanks to the circle bond—did its job.
I kept a close eye on my incubus as he got to his feet and leaned on Arkan.
Joseph assumed his reaper form, shadowy cloak floating around him and light glinting off the sharp edge of his scythe.
I could still taste their blood, the scents thick in the air, but alongside my worry for X and Joseph, a dark panic drummed against my ribcage. Dev could be dead. Not Taj—we'd have felt it. But Dev? He could be one second away from giving up his life.
"Be careful," I warned X, sensing something in either my mate bond or through the circle—I couldn't tell which was which yet. "You're too weak to give much power."
Because whatever Joseph was about to do would suck power out ofallof us, preferably more from me and Arkan, since we hadn't been mortally wounded. And I wasstillbursting with magic from all the violence, so much that I wasn't sure what to do with it.
Wait, shouldn't Eidolon have siphoned some for himself? Was Dev right that it didn't work in Hell? Or … a truly horrific thought occurred. What if I had the scraps, and Eidolon had a world-ending amount of magic stolen from me?
"Don't panic when you feel the pull," Joseph said, glancing over his shoulder at me. When I nodded in agreement—trusting them absolutely—he swung his scythe.
I blinked, seeing the motion in slow-mo, a strange, hollow tug coming from my ribs. It felt like he tied a string around my rib cage and was trying to pull it out of my body, a vital part I couldn't afford to lose. I gritted my teeth to endure the sensation. Something pinched in my stomach—my core of magic responding. Resisting.
I let out a rough breath, watching the scythe swing excruciatingly slowly towards the invisible veil. Forcing my shoulders to relax, my stomach to stop cramping around the tug on my power, I tried not to fight it, not to panic. This was my circle; this wasJoseph, the man who'd earned my trust and affection first, who was obsessed with making me food and wrapping me in his big arms.
I jolted when the scythe darted forward in a rush of speed, whatever spell had cast the slow-mo broken, and the sharp, curved edge met resistance.
Joseph gripped the handle until his knuckles whitened, a muscle fluttering in his clenched jaw. I could almost see the barrier as he pushed against it, warping and bowing.
A harder tug came on my ribs, and my core responded by flaring with power. Now I'd stopped fighting the pull, more and more magic bubbled up inside me, rushing up to that thread I imagined tied around my ribs.
"Good," Arkan praised—either to me or Joseph or both of us.
