“Your prince mate with the bad attitude and never-ending sarcastic quips that remind me of you. Except it’s not hot when he says them,” he softly jokes.
“Severi?” I’m a bit confused as he sits on the bed. The moment his hand touches mine, everything seems just better. I relax a little, knowing that I’m not dead and not imagining this. If I was imagining things, I know my imagination could do betterthan this. We could be on a beach where clothes are banned and the wine never ends.
“It doesn’t matter right now. You need to tell me you’re okay.” He squeezes my hand. “You’ve been?—”
“It doesn’t matter right now? I spent six months thinking you were dead, Onyx. I spent six months hating myself for not being able to save you. For watching him pull your heart out of your chest. I felt our mate bond just die. I felt it dying before this collar was snapped on my neck, and it drained me of everything and cut my Nexus off. Even now she’s weak and tired, but she doesn’t believe you’re here and you’re real.” I look in his eyes and see the concern, the shadows. “I’m fine, I’m always fine?—”
“Fine? Fine is not good enough, Gwen. You’ve pretended to be fine for so fucking long, and it’s not enough. You need to be happy, free, and not scared.” Onyx stops me, his shoulders tense. “When I met you, I promised to protect you no matter what, and I failed you. I should have been killed for that mistake. What is a mate if not a protector?”
“Someone real and flawed, who tries everything they can to save the one they love. I failed trying to save you too,” I whisper, feeling hot tears slip from my eyes.
“I’m real too, and you never failed me, love.” He lifts my hand and presses it against his cheek. He feels cold to the touch. Colder than he has ever been. “Things are a bit different, and I will tell you anything you want to know.” He pulls his shirt off, showing me stitches in the shape of anXacross his heart, and puts my hand against it. I don’t feel anything. No pulse. No beat. “My heart definitely left my chest, and it never came back. It’s rotting somewhere in Starlight City.”
“Then how are you alive?” I shake my head in denial.
“That would be my excellent talents, Tulip.” Severi walks in, with all the normal arrogance and stride that he carries. “I saved him.”
Severi. His eyes meet mine, and everything passes in that look. It takes me a second to even process what he said. “You saved Onyx? How? You weren’t even there.”
“I was late, but running to you.” He closes the space between us and sits on the end of the bed, his hand falling to my thigh. “But first, I need you to know that Georgina gave me this.” He shows me a necklace—a vial. “It has her blood in it. While I carry it, my mind can never be invaded. I’m safe with you right now, as long as this is on or my father loses his head.” He pretends to weigh the two choices for just a second before adding, “I’d prefer the second option.”
I don’t understand. Georgina helped Severi? She saved one of my mates from the king she loves? I don’t get it. In all the months we have been together, she has been nothing but cruel and hateful to me. “Why would she help?”
“I don’t know. She also made it possible for me to save Hollis’s offspring.” He pauses, narrowing his eyes. “The annoying kid that’s downstairs and eats all the cereal before I can get to it. Oh, and the dog. I knew you’d be happy about the dog at least.”
“Happy about both of them.” I manage something close to a smile. Nibbles is okay. “Wait, how is Feyre? What happened…I am used to that life, but Feyre was not.”
The look Severi and Onyx share is enough of an answer. Onyx clears his throat. “She is recovering, but mentally…it is difficult for her. I expect it is difficult for you too, even if you’re saying you are okay right now. Finn is with her and comes in to check on you every two hours. Alek and Hollis are with Dante—the man in the mask who came for you and is preparing for us to leave here when you are both recovered. Rhodes…well, I’ll let him explain when you’re ready, but he comes to check in a few times a day. Gwen…how are you?”
How am I? “I’m the monster I always feared I’d become. I’ve killed so many…the world must hate me. My parents were so scared of this happening to me, and they were right. I was powerless, even with all this power. I was controlled and used, beaten and tortured. The king…that bastard has been waiting for me to come back to use because my Nexus never loved him last time she was born. She chose her mates, and of course, I did the same. I am not okay. I don’t know when I ever will be, but I felt my Nexus’s pain. She watched all her mates die and then she was killed herself. She was a monster…but she loved. It is possible to be both, and that is exactly what I am. I will be okay when the king is finally dead.”
My Nexus purrs in my mind in agreement.
“Revenge is good…” Severi watches me. “And the world doesn’t know the truth; they believe a lie. My father has told them you’re a Nexus weapon and that the Nexus race are the ones attacking. It’s a mess out there for the Nexus people and your aunt. Well, we will go to her soon. When you and Feyre can travel.”
“The truth doesn’t matter in the face of so much death,” I mutter.
“If I show you what happened with Onyx, you tell us everything that happened to you these last six months,” Severi barters. “I need to know what happened to you.”
“I don’t think she wants to know the details just yet. Gwen just woke up,” Onyx warns him.
I touch his hand. I know Onyx wants me to rest, but I won’t until I know what happened to him. He sighs and nods, linking our fingers. Severi stands up and walks around the bed to my other side, sitting next to me. “I can literally show you, beautiful. One of my powers is to project memories into another person’s mind. If you’ll let me touch you and open your mind. I’ll pull inOnyx too, and if it’s too much, you can say my name, and I’ll stop. You’re in control here.”
I nod and turn to him. The moment his hands touch my head, his memories slam into my mind and mix until I am Severi, looking through his eyes and feeling his emotions. I am watching, but also I’m there somehow.
Gwen is near; I can feel her. I must find her before my father does, and by the looks of it, the army has found her mates. She isn’t with them though; she is in the opposite direction to the battle. I run through the streets of Starlight City, hoping I’m not too fucking late. The smell of smoke is suffocating, and Georgina’s necklace bangs against my chest as I run as fast as I can through the alleyways and streets of the dead Starlight City.
Gwen’s scream cuts through the air, and I nearly stop. No. I can’t be too late. I feel for my bond to Gwenieve, and I’m relieved to feel she isn’t far now, and she is alive. My footsteps smack on the stone as I push faster, my shoes skidding on the ground as I come around the corner.
Just to see a portal closing shut with a slam, the bright light of it fading as I smell the blood.
Onyx.
He’s dead, blood pouring out around him, and his heart is out of his chest, flat on the ground near his leg. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I run my hand through my hair, looking around frantically for anything. Anything I could do to make this better, but finding nothing. I can’t heal the dead. I walk over to Onyx, looking into his unseeing eyes and knowing how much this fucker’s death will crush my mate. He can’t die, not because I like him, but because she loves him.
A young man runs out onto the street—curly red hair, breathless. “What happened to Onyx? Did you kill him? Whereis Gwen? I’ve come to tell her everyone is loaded into the helicopters, and one has remained to get us out…” He has no common sense. If he thought I killed Onyx, a very powerful Nexus, then why is he still talking and not running away screaming? “I could turn time back, just a little. My power, it’s?—”