Chapter 29

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

“Lyka! Lyka! Don’t you leave me. I fucking need you. Elise!”

Everett’s voice was loud in my ear. He seemed so close yet so far away.

I tried to move my mouth to formulate a word, but either my brain or lips were not cooperating. I had lost too much blood.

“Open your eyes. Come on, mate. Open those eyes for me.”

Sealed with cement, my eyelids refused to separate. I pulled and pulled, wishing they would open so I could see Everett’s face one last time. I felt large fingers on either side of my eyelids, pulling them apart. The light was harsh against my corneas, and I winced at the discomfort.

My eyes were open, but it seemed as though I was looking through a telescope. Everett’s face was so far away. Using the little energy I had, I lifted my hand to touch his face. He was much closer than my eyesight claimed, and I ended up slapping him on the cheek.

“You still have fight left in you.” I could feel his rough fingers trace my cheek bone. “Don’t waste your energy.”

My vision widened. He was back in his human form, his face covered with blood. As I searched his face with my eyes for the cause of the bleeding, he read my mind. “Not my blood. My father’s.”

I relaxed in his arms, my body ready to let go. Never had I been this close to dying. I wasn’t sure what it would feel like, crossing over, but I didn’t have a choice. I would have to find out. Everett’s face was pained as he looked at my own.

“I didn’t want to have to do it this way.” Everett continued to stroke my cheek. His fingers trailed along my jaw and down my neck to my collarbone. What little breath I had in my lungs left my body as he leaned his face close to mine. The click of his canine teeth popping from his gums made my body jolt. I could see the sharp white bones wet with saliva, Everett’s tongue glossing over them.

He lowered his head to his favorite divot between my shoulder and my neck and inhaled sharply. “I wanted to wait until you were ready, but you have lost too much blood.” His warm tongue coated my skin in a tender spot. He licked the spot, priming it for what was coming.

Feeling his warmth on the opposite side of my neck where his father had sliced me open to bleed out, my body shivered.

Everett’s lips moved against the skin of my neck as he spoke. “This will hurt. I’ll try to make it as quick as possible.”

Pain was no longer something I feared. I had already felt all the blood leave my body. There was just numbness. I doubted I could feel much else.

“I’m sorry, Elise,” he whispered. “I can’t lose you.”

The sound of his teeth puncturing my skin hit my ears before I felt them enter my body. There was a popping sound when his fangs pushed through my skin.

My body constricted, trying to combat the invasion. The pale skin surrounding the teeth screamed as his saliva hit my bloodstream, rushing through the veins and arteries throughout my body. My muscles tensed at the raw power that danced along my nerves.

I felt Everett holding my frame tightly against his, trying to manage the tremors that racked my body. There was pain. There was change.

I accepted it all.