38. Kellen

Chapter 38

Kellen

When Miya Kilic’s sword plunged into Noella’s back, Kellen’s world crumpled to ash at his feet.

Jarion and Laya were screaming Noella’s name, but he couldn’t hear them over the deafening buzz in his ears. Time came to a standstill, frozen in a perpetual state of anguish. The desperate heave of the wind matched the accelerated pace of his strangled breaths, every movement exaggerated, as if the universe itself was mourning with him. Miya hadn’t even extracted her sword from Noella before Coz lunged, snatching her in his claws, and flung Kellen’s mother’s screaming frame into his mouth, taking great pleasure in the taste of her bones crunching between his teeth, the flavor of her blood one of sweet justice. Coz turned around from where he’d taken the helm of their body to reach a hand towards Kellen, offering him the reins back.

Kellen couldn’t move, his limbs inoperable.

“Kell…” Noella tried to say his name, but what loosed instead was a damp gurgle, accompanied by a river of blood leaking off her tongue as she collapsed in the grass and rested her cheek on a cushion of soil.

“ELLA!” Laya sobbed.

Laya and Jarion crawled down Kellen’s wing to get to Noella. The twins knelt beside her, helping to roll her onto her side, debating whether or not to pull the sword out of her and choosing in the end to leave it.

Jarion shrieked, with a face smeared in tears and blood, “KELLEN! DO SOMETHING!” Kellen couldn’t move.

He screamed at his body to move, to grab Coz’s hand, to take back control, to go to her, but he was paralyzed by horror and heartbreak, the vehemence of his grief suffocating his ability to function.

Now is not the time to shut down, Coz told Kellen urgently. She needs you, Kellen. We ALL need you to go to her. Tell her you love her. It’s her only chance. The last part piqued Kellen’s interest enough for him to lift his head.

Her only chance? he repeated.

Cavale’s only chance, Coz amended, stretching his hand out further. Somehow, Kellen found the strength to take Coz’s hand.

His scales shimmered and twisted, morphing into smooth dark brown skin and sinew. His wings folded in on themselves, his claws retracting into hands and feet, gradually shrinking in size until Kellen was standing upright on two legs. Once back on his feet, Kellen tore through the field to reach Noella, falling to his knees with a gasp. He slid his hands under her skull and placed her head in his lap.

“Get Headmistress Dyer,” he demanded the twins in a voice so unlike his own, so fragile, so dilapidated, the edges unraveling. “Get a mender. Get someone. Now.” Jarion took off running into the clearing.

Laya refused to leave Noella’s side.

“K…Kell…” Noella whimpered, her skin smirched by dripping gashes and ghastly bruises, but fuck, she was still the most beautiful thing he’d ever beheld in all his twenty-eight years in existence.

“I’m here, my love. I’m here.” Her fingers found his in the grass.

“I need you…I need you to promise…” Her breaths grew more labored. “Promise me that you…that you’ll take care of Freya. Please. I know…I know you don’t…like her...but don’t…don’t give her up—“

“I would never,” Kellen swore, then added with a sad smile, “And I don’t hate her.” Noella spluttered a pained laugh.

“You would…pick now on my death bed…to admit that.” Kellen shook his head.

“This isn’t your death bed, Rose. You’re not dying. Jarion is getting help. He’s sending a mender to us. You’re going to be fine. You hear me? You’re going to be FINE.”

“Kell…Kellen.” Her weak hand lifted to his cheek. Tears skidded down the sides of her face. “I wouldn’t…” She mewled through a cough. “I wouldn’t trade this time with you for anything in the world. I would endure all that torture from those first four weeks here over again if it meant I’d get to experience this happiness with you every time. I know in my heart….the reason I was sent here…was to find you. To have this time with you. To become yours, even for a short while.”

“Stop talking to me like you’re saying goodbye.” Kellen’s wheezes injured him. His whole body hurt from ravaged sobs. “You’re not leaving me. You can’t leave me. I can’t live without you, do you understand? You’re not allowed to leave me. You have my whole fucking heart, and if you die right now, you’re taking it with you. You will take me with you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Kellen…” Her eyes began to flutter shut.

“ELLA!” Laya yelled as she grabbed Noella’s arm and dug her fingers into her soft, human flesh.

“NOELLA!” He shook her with desperation until she reopened her eyes back into the land of the living. “Don’t you dare close your fucking eyes. Stay with me, baby. You can’t leave me. You can’t. I…”

The words finally came. How it had taken him this long to say them would forever haunt him.

“I love you.” Noella choked on a mixture of a sob, a gasp, and a squeal, the tears flowing from her eyes at a faster pace. “I love you.” The words grew comfortable on his tongue. He found the flavor of them satisfying. He kept saying them, over and over, began screaming them, scratching his throat. “I love you. I’m in love with you. I’m so in love with you. I’ve been in love with you forever. I love you with everything I am, Noella Rose, so you can’t leave me, because I won’t live without you. I won’t.”

“Kellen.” Noella pulled his face down, brushing her lips against his, and whispered into their kiss, “I love you so much.”

The moment those words left her tongue, a surge of energy began coursing through Kellen’s veins, walloping him in the chest and knocking the wind out of him, the potent force igniting a wildfire within his soul that made breathing nearly impossible with no space in his lungs for oxygen. His muscles contracted, responding to an unseen command as the power within him swelled and grew, filling every fiber of his being with pulsating strength. A piece of his heart snapped back into a place, a piece that had been dangling off the side, waiting to be reunited with his soul. Golden light splashed over his brown flesh, radiating out from his core to illuminate the earth around them. He watched that same light wash over Noella, their still interlaced fingers melting into one another through the inundation of light, becoming one being rather than two separate entities.

“What’s happening?” Laya squeaked. “What is that light?”

“It’s our mating bond,” Kellen replied, then began laughing hysterically, unable to stop the flow of cackles, smiling amidst the downpour of tears. Every suspicion he’d had about their mind connection was confirmed through that light, through the power binding their souls together.

This stunning, courageous human who’d fought for his kingdom and school, for his sister and brother, and fucking won, was not just the love of his life and the proprietor of his being. She was his destined complement, the other half of his soul, not just symbolically anymore, but literally.

Noella Rose.

His love.

His mate.

His Cavalisha.

Kellen couldn’t rejoice at this feeling flooding through him because the very thing fueling his body, the very thing that would forever connect him to the woman he loved, was the very thing killing her now, the force of the bond settling into place too much for her to bear. Where Kellen laughed at the extreme influx of power, Noella screamed, thrashing in the grass, clawing at her weak chest in an effort to tunnel through her skin and reach inside her to yank this feeling out, her body vibrating.

Not just gilded light emitted from Noella’s pores.

An outlandish outpouring of silver, frothing energy discharged from her open mouth, tangling with her screams, creating spirals of glittering mist in the ether that hung all around them like festooned ornaments. Kellen didn’t understand where that power was coming from and why it was channeling through her, its configuration unrecognizable, beyond anything he’d ever seen before.

Noella vomited a river of that silver fog, clouding the atmosphere in sultry vapor that made his knees buckle. If Kellen was standing, he would have felt inclined to bow to that mist, something undeniably regal and demanding about the power, the feel of it in the air ancient and reeking of authority.

As the sky blackened and clouds swirled, a brilliant light shattered through the darkness overhead, bathing the destruction below in resplendent warmth. From the heart of the light emerged a figure, shimmering with unearthly splendor. Cascading waves of blonde hair caught the dimming sunlight, vacuuming the light into the soft tendrils and reflecting it back onto the earth despite the shadows congregating in ominous clusters around them. The figure descended from the heavens with imperial grace, each step leaving a trail of iridescent stardust in their wake. As the figure drew nearer to the ground, their features began sharpening, becoming more distinguishable—chiseled jawline, high cheekbones, eyes a piercing, ocher yellow, all fused together to create a commanding presence exuding regality, the universe drowning in their aura. Their skin glowed a golden hue, crafted from the light of the sun itself, and effervescent, divine energy gathered around their shoulders like a coronet of power, spilling down their back to create a seething cape.

When the figure landed on the earth a few feet away, Kellen found his body folding over in a curtsy against his will, his own power responding to the luster of theirs. Coz stirred in his chest, shrinking in response to the strong influence. Only one name registered in Kellen’s head and heart.

Aros Cavalian.

The Sireres and Dissidents still left standing immediately disengaged from battling the Primordials and retreated from the campus at Aros’s arrival. Aros refused to grant them escape and sent his power sweeping across the field to latch onto the insurgents, cremating them into ash the moment the gilded light smothered their limbs. Once every Sireres and Dissident crumpled in the grass and all that remained were the Primordials, Aros’s eyes passed over the boneyard of deceased children, his shoulders shaking from the fervor of his wrath. His gaze eventually landed on Noella and stayed with her. The oxygen in his lungs coughed out in a horrified gasp at the sight of her withered on the ground, her head lolling in Kellen’s lap, chin sopping blood.

Noella turned her head to the side, her eyes squinting before she spluttered out in a weak voice, “Dad?”

“DAD?” Kellen gasped, whipping his head to Aros.

Seeing their similarities, the honey-golden hair, the bone structure, suddenly everything about Noella that hadn’t made sense to Kellen clicked into place in his head, completing the strange puzzle. Her ethereal beauty. How easily she’d mastered fighting techniques. Her ability to keep up with the Primordials and land blows that were equal to their own vigor. Why Aros had even allowed her into his kingdom when he’d been so adamant for a thousand years that humans weren’t welcome in Cavale.

Because the woman in Kellen’s lap, to whom his heart was forever tied, wasn’t human at all.

Aros smiled down at Noella, then said, in a voice that sounded like velvet, “Hello, my beauty. It’s been a long time. Thank you for freeing me.” His eyes then dropped to the sword still speared through her chest. He looked murderously at Kellen, as though it was he who’d plunged that sword into her and not his mother. “Whose idea was it to leave that blade inside my daughter?”

“If we pull it out, it will kill her,” Kellen growled, his love for his Cavalisha outweighing his devotion to his king, decorum lost to the wind of his grief.

“Take it out of her right now before I decide I don’t care that you’re her mate and I incinerate you too.”

Kellen grabbed the hilt of the sword and slid it out of her chest. Noella’s body spasmed, blood spewing off her tongue and snarling with a baying moan. Aros knelt on the grass on the other side of her, then cupped his hand over the open wound, hampering the flow of crimson liquid from leaking out of her chest. As her frail form trembled, he closed his eyes and began to focus the power residing within him on Noella, funneling it into her. Warm, golden light radiated from his hands, enveloping Noella in a tender embrace. Aros’s light eddied around her, tracing gilded patterns on her flesh that sought out the source of her pain and worked to restore what had been broken, her chest heaving upward with the mending of her shattered ribs. When the light intensified, Noella’s features relaxed, resigning to Aros’s powers and soaking up the healing energy, her wounds beginning to suture shut. The suffering slowly melted away under the gentle touch of her father’s power.

“Take it all, my beauty,” Aros cooed to her. “I give you everything I have and more, Noella Rose Cavalian.” Kellen gasped at hearing his mate’s name—her true name—pierce the universe.

Laya sagged against Kellen and wept into his shoulder. Kellen squeezed her hand, unable to take his eyes off his Cavalisha and the warm flush being refurbished in her cheeks. Aros’ light began to fade, his hands sliding off her chest and falling to his sides. Noella’s body drooped against Kellen.

“Noella?” Kellen croaked, shaking her. She wouldn’t open her eyes. “Noella?! Why isn’t she opening her eyes?!”

“She’s asleep,” Aros told him, raising a hand both with reassurance and also as a silent signal for Kellen to simmer down. “Her body isn’t used to being brimmed with power. It’s been suppressed for so long. She needs to rest now.”

“Are you going to tell us what the fuck is going on?” Kellen regretted phrasing the question that way when Aros’s eyes became sharp slits, reminiscent of the pointed edge of a blade.

“Try that again,” Aros hissed. Kellen gulped.

“Are you going to explain how all of this is possible?” Aros bobbed his head in acceptance of that rewording.

“Not here.” The King of the Gods stretched over Noella and grabbed Kellen’s arm, then looked over at Laya. “Mind if I borrow your brother for a little?”

Aros didn’t wait for Laya to respond before his power encircled Kellen and they vanished from Delmarth.

Pain soaked Ella’s dream.

It started as a dull ache, a subtle throbbing in her core where Miya’s sword had impaled her, gradually gaining strength. With every breath that tried to pass into her lungs and expel out of her mouth, the pain flared up like a rupture of fire, shooting through her nerves the way lightning bolts fissure the sky. Between the pain, she was aware of something augmenting inside her, something large and warm and teeming with energy, hidden within the chambers of her heart and breaking free from restraints, swamping her veins in that formidable deluge. Her muscles protested at the intense invasion, screaming for reprieve, but the energy refused to relinquish its hold on her, nestling beneath her bones and crafting a permanent home for itself there. It felt like her body was betraying her, every ache and twinge a cruel reminder of its fragility, hissing at her that her human container had been a feeble host.

The pain told her that the overwhelming infiltration was punishment for years of keeping this power hindered inside her.

None of it made sense. She’d have a thought, develop a theory about what this feeling could be, and lose it amidst another undulation of agony. She thought she saw stars. She thought she saw her father.

She ached for Kellen.

Her mate. Her Cavalisha. That much, she’d been able to comprehend through the jumbled fog clouding her ability to form coherent thoughts and keep them. She felt her heart bind to his, could feel his power etching his name into her soul now, even through the pain, claiming possession of the rest of her life.

Noella, that older female voice she’d heard time and time again whispered inside the fog. Wake up.

I don’t want to, she groaned, beckoning sleep to return to her. Everything hurts.

Your Cavalisha is waiting for you, the female responded. It’s time, sweet girl. No more hiding. Rise.

Ella’s eyes fluttered open on command.

She discovered herself lying in a bed in an opulent bedroom. Crimson and gold adorned the rich, ornate wallpaper, replicating the warm ruddiness of the crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling, tossing the soft, lambent light across the room. She looked down to see herself splayed out on top of a plush, velvet canopy bed, dominating the center of the room, its towering pillars draped in layers of silk and satin, stained hues of deep purple and red. The bedding was a masterwork of embroidery and delicate lace, the cloud-like embrace it offered impossible not to sink into. Gold-plated mirrors lined the walls, and a marble fireplace crackled and popped in the corner, bathing everything in its close vicinity in glorious heat. The rest of the furniture was a mixture of antiquated and modern pieces, with a mahogany writing desk, decked in a collection of silver inkwells and quill pens, and a scarlet chaise lounging beside it, its cushions plump and inviting.

Her eyes fell down to her body. The leather jumpsuit that had garbed her in battle was replaced now by an indigo robe, lined with gold string and padded on the inside with fur. Her flesh had been scrubbed clean of any splotches of blood and appeared unmarked, sluiced of scrapes and bruises, no trace of battle lingering on her skin. Her braids were undone, crimped blonde hair pouring down her chest.

Ella turned her head—a great achievement with how heavy it felt—and found Kellen drowsing beside her, half seated in a chair he’d dragged next to the bed and half lying on the bed with her, her hand trapped between his with his cheek slumbering on top of their stacked fingers. The black tunic he wore, delineated in swirls of gold similar to the needlework on her robe, clung to his burly figure.

The moment her eyes found him, everything that happened at Delmarth came crashing down on her shoulders.

Sword Hunt. Daniel attacking her. Kellen killing Daniel. Connor’s death. The many faces of the now-deceased kids flashing before her eyes. Ella slitting the throat of that Sireres. Jarion lunging on her. Ella’s sword plunging through Ciaran’s back. Miya’s sword goring through her chest.

It was too much. All of it was too much.

She couldn’t hold the memories inside her. The space they took up in her head stung. Her eyes felt scorched by grief.

“Kellen?” Ella moaned, flexing her fingers between his hands. Kellen jolted awake at the sound of her voice and the subtle movement, grabbing her arm as though he needed to feel her to believe she was really awake.

“Noella!” he sobbed, his fingers crawling up her arms to trace her face, sweeping over her lips, which carved the shape of a kiss under his touch. “Fuck, I missed you so much. Don’t ever fucking do that to me again.”

“I’ll try not to,” she quipped, tears rolling down her cheeks. “How long have I been out for?”

“Only a couple of hours. I think. Time runs slower here. We could’ve been here for days and I wouldn’t know.”

Ella frowned. “Where are we?” Kellen swallowed.

“We’re in Avatia. In Aros Cavalian’s home.” Ella’s jaw fell open.

“ What?” She had so many questions swimming through her mind, now that her mind seemed to be functioning again, but didn’t know where to start, didn’t know what was most important to focus on first.

“Does your head hurt?” Kellen asked when he noticed her forehead crease.

“A little,” she admitted. He splayed his hand across her forehead and focused on sending wisps of his power into her skin, spreading a pleasant warmth across the aching membrane of her mind.

“Better?” he drawled with a smile when she hummed and sunk into the mattress.

“Much better.” Her eyes returned to Kellen, taking in the exhaustion rippling through the wilted skin beneath his eyes and the swollen red rims surrounding the green hue, suggesting he’d spent hours by her bedside crying. She couldn’t stomach the thought of him in pain. The bond inside her flamed wildly at the mere thought, rampant with rage at considering how her actions might have caused harm to the other half of their soul. She said the only thing she thought might alleviate that pain, giving life to their connection. “Hello, my mate.” Kellen dissolved into tears instantly.

“Hello, my beautiful Cavalisha.” He leaned over her to peck her lips gently, undertaking her fragile state despite how much she craved for him to bruise her lips with a kiss. “How’re you feeling?”

“I feel…” She didn’t know how to put it into words. She knew she was awake, but her body felt like it was still submerged in slumber. “My body feels strange. My blood, it feels…like it’s—”

“Buzzing?” Kellen interrupted, supplying the word she couldn’t quite locate.

“Yes. And my skin…” Ella pinched the flesh on her arm, then her cheek. “My skin….it feels—”

“Rubbery?” he offered again.

“ Yes! Like it might peel off.” Ella’s heartbeat pounded in her ears. “Kellen, what’s going on?”

Kellen exhaled a heavy sigh. “What do you remember from before you passed out?”

“Your mother stabbed me. I almost died. Or, maybe I did die. I thought…it’s going to sound crazy, but I think I saw…my father.” Kellen stiffened. She watched his throat wobble along with his gulp.

“You did see your father,” he confirmed, bringing her hand to his lips and kissing her knuckles. Against the back of her hand, he said gently, “Your father is Aros Cavalian, King of the Cavalian Gods.”

Ella blinked.

All she could remember how to do was blink. “No,” she refuted. “My father’s name is Alecsandar Rose.”

“That was the name he went by on the Earthly Plane, but no. Your father is Aros Cavalian.”

“That…that’s…” Ella spat out a panicked, hysterical laugh. “You’re fucking nuts, Kilic. You’re nuts! No! No fucking way! My father is Alec Rose! My father is a human! ”

“Your father is not human, Noella, and neither are you.” Ella’s breath depleted from her chest.

“What did you just say?” Kellen spoke his next words with careful consideration of her current state.

“You are not a human, Noella Rose Cavalian.” Her heartbeat spiked at hearing Cavalian tacked on to the end of her name. “You never were. You’re a Primordial.”

To be continued…