Page 172 of A Courage of the Chosen

“Good. Prepare to leave within a few hours.”

The Dorche I’ve been fighting bows, deep red dripping from his nose as I leave to begin my own preparations.

Despite being stronger than ever, I need to rest for a short while, then I’ll move every last Dorche to the spot I’ve chosen, barely half a day’s ride from the city.

A few hours later, I jolt awake on the bed, something dragging me from the sleep I’d dozed into after a soak in the springs, deep beneath the earth.

I pat my chest. The Craobh is still there, and slightly clammy from the sheen of sweat coating my skin.

My heart races and my fingers tremble.

What the fuck?

I scan the room. Nothing out of place, but a sense of impending dread tingles through my limbs anyway.

A glacial pain spears along the bond, and the dark threads turn to cutting streams of ice that force me to hunch over.

“Fuck!” I bite out.

Unsure what’s happening to her, I fly down the bridge. “Elsie?!”

There’s nothing at the other end. No sign of the woman who has occupied my thoughts from the second I saw her. Where Elsie’s fire and contempt always greeted me when I shoved my way in, there’s nothing but a cave awaiting my arrival.

No wall. No barrier to her thoughts. A vast emptiness that sends a different kind of chill trickling down my back.

She can’t be . . . I don’t even want to think the word. I might be furious with her, she might never love me, but I need her alive. And not just because she’s the key to everything. I could take Callahan’s light just as easily as I could take hers.

Because if she’s truly gone, I’ll burn it all to ash alongside her body.

Another presence takes up the same space, and I know who it is before even addressing him.

“Where is she?” I demand.

“She’s gone,” Callahan replies with the voice of a broken man.

“What the fuck did you do to her?” I growl.

“Nothing. I did nothing.”

And the world falls away around me.

Chapter 51

Callahan

“Happy birthday, sweetheart.” Paul drops a kiss onto his granddaughter’s forehead, settling into a chair at the side of our bed where she rests.

For the last eighteen hours, I’ve watched the shallow breaths dragging between Elsie’s blue-tinged lips.

There have been very few times in my life where I’ve known true terror, and most of them have happened in the last six months. Brodie almost dying. My sister being corrupted by Dorche magic. And the stillness of my bond with Elsie as she went cold and limp in my arms.

With every heartbeat I don’t feel or hear her, the noose around my neck gets tighter, as she floats further and further from my reach.

I hold onto the fragment of her soul with all that I’ve got. Something tells me that it’s the only reason she’s still living, and that if I waver for even a moment, she’ll slip through my fingers when I’ve only just got her.

“What does it feel like, Paul? When a part of your soul dies?” I ask the question quietly, staring at my wife.

“I wouldn’t ever be able to find the words to explain it to you, son. The worst part of it is the knowing your other half has gone some place you can’t follow,” he replies.