"You killed her," Darius growled.
Tain clawed at Darius's hands. "No," he gasped. "She still lives. You can save her."
Slowly the words pierced his rage, and he turned to see that the wolf was still breathing. Barely. He dropped Tain and hurried to Lexi's side. Tain took advantage of the opportunity to make his escape. Darius let him go. If Lexi died, he had the rest of eternity to hunt his brother and exact revenge.
But now he had more immediate concerns. "Lexi, my love. Can you hear me?" He saw the wolf's eyes open slowly. "Baby, it's me, Darius."
A faint whimper was the only response he got.
"Hang on, love." He searched the room, searching for some means to save her life. Maybe if she morphed. He hurried to the pool, now nearly empty, and dipped his hand into it. He felt the warmth of the living magic and carried it to Lexi. He wasn't sure of the best way to help her, so he simply laid his hand on her and willed the magic into her.
The transformation was slow, but she started to change. He hurried several more times to the pool to carry magic back to her. At one point, he considered placing her in the pool, but wasn't sure what that might do to her.
Once she was human, the wound appeared as a tiny hole in her chest. Darius thought that changing would have healed it and couldn't understand why it hadn't. He bent close and finally saw the protruding small piece of wood. He knew he had to get it out, even though he hated to cause her even more pain. Grabbing the end of it, he pulled.
Lexi cried out, but he didn't stop until he'd fully extracted the arrow. Blood flowed freely, spilling over her bare breasts and down her stomach. The bright red against her pale complexion was stark and horrifying.
"Oh, Lexi, baby. I'm so sorry." He lifted her onto his lap, rocking her as he looked around the room, desperate for a way to save her. He didn't think, even given all the magic in the pool, that she had the strength to morph again.
She couldn't even generate a tiny fireball to cauterize the wound, as she'd done for him.
It wasn't fair that the life of the woman he loved should be snatched away from him like this. He didn't want to live without her-not another day, not another hour, not another second. He sure as hell didn't want to spend eternity without her.
But what if he could join her?
He remembered the serpent tattoo on his chest. His life force. He hadn't tried to remove it, wasn't sure he could. He touched the tattoo and felt the shimmer of magic. He found the edge and slipped his finger beneath it. When he gave it an experimental tug, he felt the pull of it all the way to his core. Taking this off could very well kill him, but he was prepared for that. He accepted that. What he couldn't accept was Lexi dying.
But maybe she didn't have to.
Knowing her time was almost up, he bent over and, tilting her head back, he pressed his lips to hers. "1 never forgot you," he told her. "And I never will." He only hoped she would understand.
Then he grabbed the edge of the serpent tattoo and ripped it from his chest. The pain tore at his very soul, and he couldn't suppress crying out. Almost immediately he felt himself slipping away. Quickly he slapped the tattoo over Lexi's wound. Maybe his immortal life force would be enough to save her.
He watched in amazement as the bleeding stopped and the wound started to close. Lexi's breathing started coming easier and color seeped back into her complexion. She seemed to be getting stronger.
Darius, on the other hand, wasn't doing so well. The ringing in his head was getting louder by the second. He felt himself being pulled by unknown forces, but he fought to resist them. He wanted to stay with Lexi for as long as he could.
When her eyelids fluttered open, he smiled down at her.
"Darius?" Her voice was little more than a croak. "What happened?"
"Taro shot you, but you're going to be all right."
"I thought you were dead." Her voice cracked with emotion.
He wanted to tell her he was fine, but he wouldn't lie.
Instead, he smiled down at her, willing her to see the love he felt because talking was becoming too difficult.
The pull on him increased, and he shook from the effort of resisting. Afraid she would feel it, he laid her down on the floor, though she whimpered in protest.
"Don't leave me," she pleaded. "Please don't leave me."
He knew it was a promise he couldn't keep. He bent and pressed a final kiss to her lips. "I'm sorry," he whispered.
Then suddenly he was torn from Earth's dimension, hurtling through space and time. Lights streaked past him, blinding him. He closed his eyes, praying that death would come quickly.
Suddenly he was no longer moving, but lying on something cold and hard. Maybe he was still in the chamber, on the floor next to Lexi? His heart leapt at the possibility, and he opened his eyes.
Quickly he closed them again, to block out the blinding light. It was harder to block out his disappointment.
After several long seconds, he sat up, and this time shielded his eyes before opening them. He found himself on the balcony of his home, surrounded by a familiar clear blue sky and the lush green woods on each side of the sapphire-blue water of Lake Pax. The sense of deja vu was so strong that at first he doubted whether he'd ever left Ravenscroft.
The memory of Lexi's light gray eyes when she looked up at him-of her lush, firm body pressed against his was too real to have been imagined.
"Darius!" Sekhmet cried as she and Whitley rushed out to him. `Are you all right?"
Whitley helped him to his feet, and his mother pulled him into a fierce embrace. He fought to be free. "Send me back," he demanded. He grabbed his mother by the arms and shook her. "Please, Mother," he cried. "I beg you. Send me back. Now."
"I can't," she told him, tears springing to her eyes. "It was everything I could do to bring you back."
"Come inside," Whitley suggested. "Everything will be better in time."
An icy cold enveloped Darius, and he dropped his
hands to his sides, stepping away from Sekhmet and Whitley. He left them staring after him and walked through the mansion until he found his room. It was as stark and bare of emotion as he now felt. At some point, the numbness would wear off and he'd be left with nothing but pain. So for now, he welcomed the numbness.
Darius had no idea how long he slept. For all he knew, it could have been months. He had no interest in living, so there was no point in getting out of bed.
When he finally did venture forth from his room, Whitley and his mother were waiting for him in the family room. She was sitting in her favorite chair, doing something with two metal sticks and a roll of yarn. It was so unexpected to see her doing something as mundane as knitting that for a moment he actually felt a spark of curiosity. It quickly passed.
"How are you?" she asked, her concern obvious by the tone of her voice and the look on her face.
"Hello, Mother." He walked over to her and placed a kiss on her head. "I'm . . ."
Miserable.
"Fine."
She cupped his face with her hand and kissed his cheek. "We were worried about you."
He walked over to sit in a chair beside Whitley and waited for the barrage of questions. He didn't wait long.
"Tell us everything," Sekhmet said. "Were you able to stop Amadja? What about Tain? Did you see him? Is he all right?"
"Whoa. You're overwhelming the boy," Whitley said. "Darius, just tell us what happened. We were worried about you "
Darius tried to consider how they felt. How he would have felt if he and Lexi had had a son.
A fresh new pain shot through him, but with it a small hope. Taking a deep breath, he swallowed hard. Then, slowly, he told them everything.
Lexi felt the tendrils of dawn urging her to wake up. She wasn't ready to face the day just yet, so she rolled over and willed herself back to sleep.
She woke hours later to the sound of Mai walking through her apartment, but kept her eyes closed, hoping Mai would take the hint and go away.
"You can't sleep your life away," Mai told her, not unsympathetically. "Eventually, you'll have to get out of bed and start living again."
Lexi knew she was right. "I don't think I can," she said, no longer pretending to sleep. "I hurt so bad."
Mai came over and sat down on the edge of the bed. "I thought the wound had completely healed. Maybe I'd better check it."
Lexi sighed. "The wound healed. The heart didn't."
She felt the cool touch of Mai's hand on her head. "I know, honey. It's not easy. I was talking to Ricco and he was saying ... well, he was wondering, you know ... maybe Darius will come back?"
Lexi had thought so too. Each day for the first two weeks after he disappeared, she'd thought he would come back for her. Each day that he didn't return, though, was further proof that her worst fear had been realized. He really had forgotten her. For him, there was nothing to return for.
She still saw him, though. Every time she closed her eyes, he was there beside her, telling her that he loved her, that he'd never forget her. Her heart ached so badly for him that she'd taken to sleeping later and later, just so she could spend more time with him.
It was pathetic, she knew. But it was all she had. "Lexi," Mai said, apparently not for the first time. "Are you listening to me?"
"What?" She felt so tired.
"There's someone here to see you."
For one brief moment, Lexi thought that maybe Darius had come back, but then logic exerted itself.
"Sit up," Mai ordered, doing her best to straighten Lexi's hair. "Okay!" she hollered.Lexi looked at the door expectantly and was mildly surprised when her brother-in-law, Derrick, appeared.
He gave her an apologetic smile. "I know I'm probably the last person you want to see right now, but Ricco told me what happened, and under the circumstances, I thought..." He paused and took a deep breath. "I thought it might help to talk to someone who'd been through the same thing."
Someone who knew what it was like to lose the person they loved. Like he'd lost Bev.
He came into the room, and Lexi gestured to the side of the bed. He sat down while she considered all the questions she wanted to ask him and settled on the most important. "Does it ever stop hurting?"
"I'll let you know," he said, his voice cracking a little.
She realized now how much he must have suffered when Bev died. "I'm so, so sorry for all the things I said," she apologized. "I shouldn't have blamed you. It wasn't your fault."
He shook his head. "There was nothing you said that I hadn't said to myself at least a million times
She reached out and took his hand. "But you have to know that it wasn't your fault."
He covered her hand with his. "Thanks, but it doesn't make the day any easier to get through-does it?"
"No, it doesn't." Lexi tried to smile but couldn't. And then it was like a dam bursting. Her pain and heartache came rushing out. And Derrick held her, letting her cry until she thought there were no tears left. They talked well into the night. She never even noticed that Mai had snuck out early to leave them alone.
When Derrick finally decided to leave, she was starting to feel better. They made plans to see each other again because he was, after all, her brother-in-law. Then she went into the kitchen and, for the first time in days, ate because she was hungry.
Afterwards, she went to her room to lie down again. The dreams she had that night when she slept were mostly the same ones she'd been having, with Darius holding her and telling her how much he loved her.
At one point, a beautiful woman appeared in her dream. Lexi had never seen her before, but she wasn't frightened. The woman looked on her with kindly eyes, and when she waved her hand, the dreams changed. She relived each moment from the time Darius had appeared to her to the moment she'd realized Tain was about to shoot Darius and she'd morphed into a wolf to save him. Had saved him. Her last image was of waking up and seeing Darius's face one last time, just before some force snatched him from her. "I love you," she called to him, but he didn't come back. "I'll always love you."
She woke up in tears and saw that it was morning. With the sun shining brightly through her window, she forced herself to get out of bed and headed for the bathroom. It was time to start living again.
When she undr
es
sed and looked in the mirror, the coiled serpent tattoo over her heart stared back at her. She touched it, as she did so often, tentatively testing its permanency. It didn't move or rub off. It was one of the two things Darius had left her to remember him by.
She touched her stomach and wondered how the Mother Goddess could gift her with a child while robbing her of its father. It was too much to think about, so she stepped in the shower and let the steam carry her thoughts away.