Page 225 of The Ember that Tethers

“C-come on, Dez,” she sputtered. Her air depleted and lungs burned as his fingers dug into her windpipe. “You don’t want to …do this.”

“Be quiet,” he snarled. “Stop messing with my head.”

“I’m not”—a stuttering breath seized her chest—“messing with y-your head.”

“Stop.” His eyes closed and when they sprang open, something flashed there. “Stop it!” he spat. His grip left imprints of his fingers in her neck.

His response and that flash spurred her on.

She gasped, “I know you care about me.” Blood bubbled up her throat and trickled down the side of her mouth. “You said you would never hurt me. You promised—”

“Stop. Stop, stop,stop!” he bellowed. His molars ground together, and he hissed as the crown tightened like it would crack his skull. Blood poured down his face, into his eyes, and dripped off his chin.

They both startled as the enormous entrance door burst open and banged against the stone wall.

Emmery’s heart nearly exploded as Fionn and Brennen strode into the room, followed by Vera and Cyrilla. Her saving grace.

Vera’s silver swords smiled hungrily in the moonlight, ready to shred through muscle and bone. At her side, Fionn stood, bow aimed, and Millie coiled around his neck. The serpent breathed fire onto an arrow’s tip before he shot it into the curtain, and it snagged in the fabric. Fire spread with fervour despite the damp room. Brennen surged into the throng and black blood spurted as he tore into the creatures.

Thellonius ordered the creatures in one drawn out roar. “Seize them!”

That’s when the silver spark at Emmery’s wrist flickered and began to glow. A high pitch noise joined the roaring in her ears.

It was about fucking time.

The roof shook, the castle’s foundation bowed, and the ceiling caved in as stone rained into the dining hall.

And it was Arborius’s glorious, smiling face that breached the hole. He inhaled, swept all the air from the room, and exhaled fire so white and pure that it lit up the night as if dawn had risen. As her bargain came to light and torched those creatures, a sad, desperate laugh wheezed from Emmery.

Dez didn’t even turn to the chaos behind him, his attention locked on her, as finely aimed as Fionn’s arrow.

Then Emmery saw something squirming in his gaze, as she laughed. It wriggled beneath that mask, but his brows pinched, he blinked, and it disappeared. But she’d seen it.

A dwindling fire inside him. A dying ember.

Fractionally, his hold loosened. Emmery gulped air and doused the burn in her lungs. With a glimmer of clarity, a plan formed, because she had to do something. She had to get through to him if he was still in there. And she remembered the Hollow and how he’d brought her back.

She placed her hand on his clasped around her throat. The moment she touched him, he clamped his eyes shut and hummed low in his throat.

“Dez—” She squeezed his hand. “Look at me.”

The thorns tightened and blood spurted. His arms twitched like they no longer belonged to him, like someone had severed his and sewn these foreign hunks of flesh on his body, though she knew his arms like no other. How she felt warm and safe in his embrace, how he’d reached for her time and time again, saved her from drowning, cradled her while she slept, carried her Collapsed body from the Hollow, held her as they made love, and made her feel precious and special andhis.

Dez’s eyes flicked open and he stared at her, his jaw clenched and chest shaking with each laboured breath. But it was like he still couldn’t see. Like he peered through a black and white lens.

Foolish hope surged in Emmery’s chest, and she was already so shattered, but she had to try.

As she cupped his cheek, her fingers slickened with his blood. The squirming in his gaze resumed, and she knew what it was now.

It was him fighting.

He let her touch him, peel back that lens, feed him her light, and she poured her fire into their bond, praying it would chase away his darkness. And even amongst all the chaos and roaring and death—there was only them.

“Come back,” she whispered, from the deepest part of her heart. His grip faltered. “Come back to me, Dez.”

His hard, frigid gaze shattered, and he blinked, then snapped back into himself. Eyes wide, he hissed something, but the hold on her neck remained. She rasped a breath, her throat scorched like she’d swallowed sparks, but relief bubbled over. “I thought I lost you.”

“That w-wasn’t me. Those w-weren’t my w-words,” Dez stammered, his wide stare frantic and unfathomably dark, none of his midnight suede, only a black pit. “I don’t know … how long I can hold it off. I—I can’t let go.” He ground his teeth and managed to wrench his hand from her throat.