“What did you say?” I cut the boy off.
“My power. I can turn back time for a few minutes. Maybe that would be enough for you to change this and put his heart back. You seem upset, so I’m guessing you didn’t kill him. I’m Howard,” he offers, walking over. Time jumping is a very rare gift, one my father has been looking for. The Nexus with it has been hidden for centuries and for good reason. A Vian king who could time-walk? Unstoppable.
“Howard, every second counts right now for Onyx. I’m powerful, and with your gift, I would be able to push time back. I have a feeling you couldn’t do it alone. How attached are you to your power?” I question.
He looks at Onyx, gulping once, and to my surprise, he does not hesitate to offer me a hand. “Gwen never looked at me like I was weak, never once doubted me, and she never turned down my friendship because I don’t look the part of a ranger. She taught me to be brave, to fight for the ones who need defending. Onyx trained me in the academy, and he never treated me differently. We have no leaders left, no one to help this world, and the Vian king wants all Nexus dead. If Onyx is dead, there is no chance he will be alpha of Starlight City one day, and there is no chance of Gwen holding onto the goodness in her heart. I know her Nexus is…different. I always knew and chose to be her friend anyway. We need someone good and different. The Vian king won’t be able to stop her. Take my power and bring him back. Just one warning.” Howard looks at Onyx’s dead body. “My family warned of this power, of how if you turnback time to bring back the dead, there is a cost. The dead must want to come back too, or they might just pull you into the dead realm with them. A drowning man will only drag others down with him.”
“Then I’ll drown for her.” I take the boy’s hand and drain his power, feeling it slip into my soul and meld with my other powers. Howard screams in shock and pain until he collapses in a huddle on the ground. He is alive but powerless now. Fire flickers embers into the sky as I kneel next to Onyx and frown at the motherfucker. “You are so lucky my mate wants you alive. I don’t do things for other people, but for her, I will test the boundaries of death. You’d best want to come back, fucker, or I’m going to be the worst roommate in hell for you.”
I hover my hands over him, closing my eyes and feeling for the power. It stirs slowly, vibrating in my chest and, fuck, it hurts to access it. Like some part of me knows it is wrong to use this much power, to bend time itself. But fuck it, time is going to bend for me today. Slowly I begin to feel the air change, time itself rewriting almost softly, like reading music backwards. Eventually I see Onyx’s soul hovering in front of me, an orb of glowing black light. He doesn’t go back into his body. “You cannot fucking die. Remember Gwenieve? Our snarky, brilliant, and beautiful mate? You want her? Then come back. She has been through way too much. I’m not letting one of her mates leave this world—not without her being the one to end your life for failing to be the best example of what a mate should be. Come back, Onyx.”
Relief pours through me as Onyx’s soul begins to drop back towards his broken body.
Then the world stops. Every breath, every echo. I pull on the power and it twists back on me, freezing me in place. I can’t move, do anything but breathe. The world goes dark, actual darkness smothering every light until there is just Onyx, theorb of his soul, and me in the darkness. The darkness feels…masculine, and wrong. Dangerous. We are not alone. “Who are you?”
“Many call me the God of death, master of the underworld, and king of the eternal darkness. This world has all but forgotten me…yet your father hasn’t. I have waited for a long time for his soul to be mine.” The voice is ancient, his accent unknown to me. “If you wish to undo this death, to do something unholy with my blessing, you have to give me something in return. Every great act and sacrifice of one of my claimed souls comes at a price, Prince Severi. What will your price be?”
“He is her mate,” I tell this God. “Name the price.”
I almost feel his amusement. “Oh, how the prince who cared for no one but himself has fallen for a woman. Love, how much it taints the best of us.”
Taint? No. Fix? Yes. “I guess you never found someone to love, then?”
His laugh is empty. “Never. I will fall for no mortal, God, or soul. Your price is simple—you will never take the throne, and neither will your mate. You are not destined to be rulers of the Vian. Queens and kings are not titles for you. There is another who should be crowned. You know exactly who that is in your soul, and that future is the only secure one I see for what I wish to happen.”
“Why does who rules mortals matter to a God?” I question him. “Why ask this? You must be able to see into my mind and know I do not want to be a ruler?”
“Ah, but does your mate? With what will happen to her, will she choose to let the world she destroyed be taken by another? Will she be content not to rule when her Nexus was a Goddess, a queen and created to be a ruler? The Morrigan might not be so…willing to part with the throne.” Gwen never wanted to bea queen, and even if it is what her Nexus wants, it is something we can fix. Onyx? I cannot help her fix him outside of this choice. “The other Gods say the time is coming for change in this world. One world will fall, and another will crash into this one. I am waiting. Do we have a deal?”
“Yes. For his life, I vow it. I will never take the throne, and I will do everything in my power to make sure Gwenieve never does either.” I feel like I’m cursed the second the words leave my mouth, but I do not regret them. This is what Gwenieve would choose. I’ve seen her protect her mates from the second she rejected them at fifteen, and she never stopped. She would choose to protect him. She never wanted the throne, money, or any of the shit most people want. She wants love, acceptance, and her mates.
“Then it is done. He will live, bonded to your life and your soul. If you die, so shall he. But while you live, so immortal shall he be.”
The shadow flies into Onyx’s body, pulling the orb of Onyx’s soul with him, and seconds later, Onyx gasps in a deep breath of air.
The memory fades as Severi lowers his hands from my head. For a moment, I’m speechless, staring at Severi. Onyx cheated death with Severi’s help and Howard’s sacrifice too. Howard, I need to thank him so much. But Severi? The prince who never much liked Nexus or my mates…saving Onyx? I lean forward and throw my arms around his shoulders, hugging him tightly as he grips me right back. “Thank you. I felt what that cost you and just…thank you. Gods, thank you.”
“Don’t get used to me helping your other mates. The idiots are annoying.” I lean back and laugh, which seems to light up his whole face. I can’t remember when I smiled last, let alone laughed.
Onyx is smiling as I face him. “You came back from death for me. Literally.”
“It felt like a choice, like the peace I felt in death was the choice or you. It was always you.” Onyx leans over, kissing my cheek.
I clear my throat. “So you two are bound now?”
“Annoyingly, in more ways than one,” Severi mutters.
Onyx’s cheeks go red. “What does that mean?”
“We can explain it all later. But essentially, I feel what he feels. Our lives are bound, and if he dies, so do I. I’m training him because I don’t want to fucking die. I also worry that if anything were to happen to that necklace, the king could easily invade Onyx’s mind too. We need to be careful.” Severi quickly rushes over the fact he feels what Onyx does, and I suspect vice versa. Interesting.
“You’re awake.” I look over at the doorframe, seeing the massive man in it. Finnegan. My psychopathic, handsome and fierce mate. His brown hair is longer than ever, and he has a beard now. He looks a mess, and I want to hold him. Despite it all, he walks to me with nothing but love in his eyes. Finnegan kisses me, wasting no time, and his beard tickles my cheek when he pulls back from the swift kiss. “I’m sorry, I…I haven’t been in human form much. I was using my bear to look for you.”
I don’t get to question him more on that as Alek follows in after Finnegan. He looks equally as messy; his shirt is crinkled and ripped, there is a new scar on his jawline, and his black hair is cut short. “Six months,” Alek breathes out in a rasp, stroking his hand over my hair. “I thought we’d never find you. We all have left bodies from here in Mexico to England to Australia and all over America in every place the king ever went to find you.”
“The king will die for what he did to us all,” Finnegan growls, touching my leg and staring at me. They all stare, but I don’t know how to tell them that the king’s death will not be enough tofix me. Nothing will make it easier to swallow the guilt burying my heart in my chest.
Chapter