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“I’m trying,” Enry said.
The energy vibrating through the air seemed to waver and the light beneath the water shimmered like a flickering candle. Enry cried out and put my hand in a vise grip. I didn’t need to be a healer to know that this wasn’t good.
“Forget about the gate,” I urged him.
He shook his head. “I can do this. I can do this.”
The energy returned and made the surface of the pool dance. He was doing it, but at what cost? I wanted to plead with him to stop, that he was going to kill himself if he didn’t, but I knew it was pointless. Enry was beyond that point now. He bore an aura of unbreakable determination I’d once believed only dragons possessed, and it was his love for his mate Layne that was driving that strength.
Realizing that nearly broke me. It made me wonder if I would ever experience a love like that. And it brought the weight of the reality of my predicament down on my shoulders like a boulder.
“Ari! Eli!” Visir shouted. “Please hurry!”
Ari ran over to us. “We have the potions almost ready. Enry, once the egg is showing, that’s when you’ll drink them. Then Theo will step in and provide his fire elemental for the last push.”
“No,” Enry said. “It has to be Layne.”
“I’m sorry, Enry, but you need the touch of a fire dragon. Without the element of your mate, we don’t know what will happen.”
“No,” he replied through clenched teeth.
Enry was never one to lose his patience, but he looked very close to it now. He stared at Ari, eyes flaming.
“Are all of you mountain dwellers so stubborn?” Ari grunted as he adjusted his glasses.
“You’re human, Enry,” Eli said gently, joining us. “Your body isn’t designed to withstand the rigors of dragon birth. That’s why we need the potions. That’s why we need a fire dragon alpha to share his power.”
“I’m not an ordinary human, I’m—” Enry’s body seized, trapping the words in his throat and turning them into a pained scream.
“Push, Enry,” Eli said. “We’re getting close. Push!”
The water was frothing now, splashes leaping several feet into the air like invisible pebbles were being hurtled into the pool. Shen jumped back in and disappeared beneath the surface, but I was too concerned with Enry to see what was happening with the gate. I could feel it though—something was changing in the air.
Ari and Eli were at Enry’s feet, focused on the situation between his legs. From where I sat by his side, I couldn’t see a damn thing over the swell of his belly. It was only by the looks on their faces that I could get some kind of feedback about what was happening, and in this moment, even Ari couldn’t mask his expression of concern.
“Enry, you need topush,” he urged.
“I think he knows that!” I snapped.
Ari stabbed me with a glare, but before he could say a word to me, Shen resurfaced and flung his arms desperately in the air.
“We’re losing the connection!” he said. “The gate is closing!”
“Fuck the gate!” Ari roared.
Enry’s shuddering cry rang out through the garden, rising even above the rumbling waterfall, and everyone around him was knocked backward by a wave of invisible power. Green sprouts and moss erupted from the ground where I landed, and sparks of electricity snapped from Eli and Shen’s skin. The ground shuddered violently, and I heard the sound of breaking glass from inside the house. Suddenly, all of the water from the pool exploded out like a geyser and sent Shen and all of the fish flying into the air.
Everyone was soaked. The waterfall continued to pour into a now empty pool, and the stone gateway that had been erected in the recess of a cave at the bottom glowed like a sunlit window. The air returned to a calm.
“I can feel him,” Enry murmured deliriously, still gripping my hand tightly.
Shen brushed a wriggling fish off of his chest, rolled onto his hands and knees, and crawled to the edge of the pool.
“By the Gods,” he said. “You beautiful son of a bitch. You did it!”
All of us looked in amazement at the glowing doorway that shimmered through the falls. Its color changed from pale blue to a deep, familiar green that made my heart jump. There was some movement, like shadows through translucent leaves, and with a loud snap and a bright flash, Layne burst through the veil.
“What the hell?” he exclaimed, drenched as he splashed into the ankle-deep water. “Seriously? A waterfall?”
