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Luna turned her attention to where Nina stood. “He trusts you most, but I understand your situation. With your fluctuating power levels, it would be unwise to attempt to pull his consciousness back to the surface.”
The red-haired Raeth healer slanted her gaze to regard Kaien. “Remmus trusts you just as implicitly, but the last time he came to you for help, he felt like an outsider in his own clan. He refrained from asking for assistance because you were already spread thin, and he felt like a burden. Now is no different.”
Ava’s head dipped as emotion built in her chest. “Can you help him?”
Stilted silence met her question, but Luna returned her concentration to Remmus. After what felt like an eternity, Luna’s fingertips left his temple.
“I cannot reach him through passive means.”
“What does that mean?” Ava demanded. “How can you not reach him? He’s right there—help him!”
Each word was a plea, her voice hitching as she rapidly lost her composure. Aidan’s hands came around her in the next second, offering her the benefit of touch while her world collapsed around her.
“You have to try harder. Bring him back!”
For the first time, Luna looked at her sovereign. When Nero gave her a slight nod, she spoke once more. “I can attempt to help him surface by force. But Ava, minds aren’t always elastic, sometimes they don’t bounce back from damage. You have to prepare yourself for the alternative.”
Ava didn’t hear her, blocking out that reality completely. A hit of power skittered up her spine when Luna connected with Remmus’ temple once more. The healer’s eyes frosted white.
Ava held her breath.
She tried not to jump for joy when Remmus’ features pinched slightly, the only indication of life he’d given since he’d gone under. A second later, he jerked beneath Luna’s touch, eliciting a groan of pain from his lips.
Just as suddenly, blood began dripping from his nose. Luna immediately pulled away from him, a look of horror on her features. Remmus writhed in response before Kaien jumped into the fray and laid healing hands on him.
Immediately, Ava’s wolf whined within her, desperate to ease the pain of her mate. She didn’t have to ask the outcome of Luna’s attempt; the somberness in the room spoke volumes.
Luna wasn’t one to leave it in the air. “We cannot pull anymore, Ava, or we risk damaging him irreparably. The poison spread too quickly, dug too deeply, and with his compromised mind, I fear he is lost.”
Eyes burning, Ava refused to cry. She’d done enough weeping and it’d done nothing to help her mate. He lay comatose before her, while she could do nothing.
In the background, she heard snippets of conversation. Luna, stating that Remmus’ only hope may be for someone with another cord to pull. Kaien, asking if giving him time would help or hinder. Nina, thanking Nero and Luna profusely for attempting to reach him.
Ava stopped listening.
Only Remmus remained in her sight, his handsome features once more blank. If she hadn’t known better, she’d say he was at peace, content even.
But there’d been no peace when he’d succumbed to the poison that’d eaten away at his mind. Not only had she turned tail and run from him when he’d needed her most, she’d cast hate-filled insults at him on her way out. Ava had shattered him before she even knew he was already damaged. Spinning in a malicious web of her own design, the harder she struggled to get free, the tighter her restraints became.
A gentle touch roused her from the depressing direction of her thoughts. When she glanced up, her gaze clashed with Luna’s.
“My father told me once to always leave on a good note.” Luna offered her a sad smile. “So, I will say this, wolf: the psychic fire—or the poisoning, I can’t tell which—may have eaten away at the base layer of coercion in his mind. If Remmus wakes up, I can assist in unbinding his mind from his compulsions. There is hope, Ava; cling to it.”
They left her then.
Somehow, the Raeths and her pack knew that she needed time alone with her mate.
Gingerly, she crawled into bed with him, tucking herself into his side and snuggling into the heat of his body. Fresh mint, the scent that forever clung to his skin, made her lips curl in a half-hearted smile. What she wouldn’t give to hear his voice and see that dimple in his cheek.
Day turned to night, but Ava didn’t leave his side. When the air turned chilly, despite her residual fear, she pulled the blanket up to her waist and covered her mate.
As she lay there, curled into her mate’s body, Ava realized that there was something she could do. There was something that remained unfinished.
Slowly, allowing herself the pleasure of taking her time, Ava extracted herself from the bed. Leaning over him, she pressed her lips to the coolness of his forehead and brushed a stray tendril of hair back from his perfect features.
“I’ll kill that Raeth for what he’s done to you, Remmus.”
For what she had done to him. Gently, she pressed her lips to his, kissing him before pulling away and whispering, “Stay alive for me, mate.”
