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“Please, come with me,” Endre begged, half stumbling as he fell to his knees before me.
Every fight over Kazimir and Izidora, every harsh word we’d said to one another, every sensual touch we’d shared, all hung in the air between us. My heart broke as I opened my mouth to speak, then shut it again before I drew a serrated breath and said the words I had known were inevitable.
Yet they shattered me anyway.
“I can’t,” I whispered, brushing his messy locks away from his face.
Endre sucked in a breath, then with a slowness we didn’t have time for, rose and embraced me as if it was the last time we would ever touch. His mouth captured mine in a searingkiss, tongue twining against mine. Two strong hands grasped my lower back, and Endre bent me over as he deepened our goodbye. His messy black hair brushed against my forehead as he broke us apart. “I love you, Liliana, so I will wait for you until you are ready to find me again. I will always wait for you.”
My vision blurred as he spun away from me, leaving me breathless and without a moment to respond to his words.
Vadim looked between Kazimir, Endre, me, and the rest of the Night Fae fleeing the citadel. “Fuck!” he roared. “Take care of yourself. I’ve taught you well. Love you, Lil.”
And with that, the two males I loved most of all vanished down a chaotic hall, racing for their lives out of the Iron Realm.
49
Béke Day Thirteen
Thank the Goddess, Rares appeared from thin air to help us. His oath to the Iron Crown compelled him to protect its wearer, and although it was not his own, Ruslan was in excruciating pain.
“Help me,” I begged the man responsible for my entrapment in the Iron Realm, letting my dislike of him wash away as I tried to save my cousin’s life. I’d poured more magic into her than I had thought myself capable of, keeping her heart beating while the Night Fae had battled just beyond a wall Drazen erected to protect us.
They’d led Kazimir away in chains, and if I hadn’t been so busy trying to save Izidora, I would have taken a shot at the pathetic male before he disappeared.
The old Mage dropped to his knees beside me, immediately chanting in a rhythmic way, waving his hands in a circle around the knife still lodged in her chest. “The knife needs to come out, but she will bleed out the moment it is dislodged. I can use my magic to stem the flow of blood if you cancarefullyremove it.”
“I can do that,” I promised, focusing all my attention on the tip of the knife somewhere deep inside her.
Rares’s chanting quickened, and I waited for the jerk of his head to wrap my magic around the blade and begin the most precarious lift of my life. One wrong move would end in tragedy, and I would not let my cousin die here – not when she was destined for so much more.
Drazen paced back and forth behind a collapsed Ruslan. “Stay still,” I snapped at him. “We need to concentrate.”
He didn’t argue, settling himself down with his back to us, keeping watch should anyone attempt to return to finish what Kazimir had started.
Slowly, painstakingly, the knife began to retract, the silver of the blade invisible beneath a layer of ruby.
“That’s it, keep going,” Rares gritted out, resuming his spell while his gnarled hands clenched and twisted over Izidora’s heart.
The blade tapered, and sweat dripped down my back as I focused on keeping it perfectly steady and upright, not wanting it to knick another blood vessel on its way out. Ruslan groaned, pushing himself upright and blinking slowly, his gray eyes cloudy with pain.
Almost there.
The tip was nearly visible, and I held my breath until the knife floated above her chest. I snatched it from the air, tossing it away so it could not harm her any longer.
“Is she going to be okay?” Ruslan rasped, and Drazen shot up from his seat, eyes raking over the four of us on the ground.
“Yes, but she is in a very fragile state right now. I need tools in my office to finish healing her,” Rares muttered, still focused on stemming the blood flowing from Izidora’s chest.
“Touch me,” Ruslan panted as he crawled closer, putting both hands on Izidora’s legs.
Drazen rushed to his side, dropping into a crouch beside him. “You are weak, Ruslan. You can’t move us in this state.”
“I am the most powerful Félvér to ever exist. Watch me,” he growled, though the bite he intended for his words wasn’t there.
Rares and I placed hands on his outstretched arms, and with a grumble, Drazen joined us. Moments later, Ruslan moved us through space until we ended up on the floor in Rares’s office. The old Mage immediately barked orders to help him. Drazen rushed to fetch hot water and clean bandages, while I found the potions and instruments he required.
Ruslan was pale, his lips nearly drained of all color, but he managed to lift Izidora onto the table so we could work on her. The gentleness with which he placed her was something I never thought I would see from him, and my heart twinged for the pain he was in.
