Lifeblood (Everlife #2)

—Myriad

Warm rays of Light drift through me. Remembering how Meredith stored precious beams throughout the Grid to be used whenever needed, I do the same, filling up room after room. When I finish, no more doors before me, I open my eyes...and find I’m centered in a beam of bright sunlight.

I stretch with languid satisfaction. Memories flood me, and I go still. The battle...taking blows meant for Killian and Sloan...no one else willing to embrace peace...being carried out of the danger zone.

With a gasp, I jolt upright.

My swords are beside me, and I snatch them up, ready to...swim? I’m surrounded by water, sand and banana trees rather than armies at war.

In the trees, limbs and leaves shake as monkeys climb. Overhead, birds soar. Normal monkeys and birds. This is not Many Ends.

Salt scents the warm breeze and strokes me. All of me. I’ve been stripped to my bra, panties and two necklaces. My vial of manna is empty. Killian must have poured the contents down my throat and cut away my clothes.

I can’t really complain about my seminakedness. I think I needed sunlight as much as manna. There isn’t a scratch or bruise on me. I’m healed.

A few feet away from me, sitting pretty in his Shell, crystal waves lapping at his feet, is my rescuer. He’s lost in thought, staring into the distance.

Love for him is undeniable and inescapable.

I’ve been fascinated with him since our first meeting. Over the ensuing weeks, as I got to know him better, that fascination only intensified.

In the beginning, I was a broken thing. A girl who’d been shattered into a million pieces of pain and heartache, betrayed by nearly every person in her life. A girl with no anchor or purpose, who’d fallen deeper and deeper into an abyss of misery. I thought I could fight my way out on my own, but indecision made me weak. I see that now.

Piece by piece, Killian and Archer carried me out of the abyss. They welded me back together and protected me no matter the cost, ensuring the girl I became would be stronger than the girl I was.

At any point, Killian could have betrayed me. He could have chosen his realm over my fragile trust, but he never did. Not once. He picked me. He put me first. I see that, too.

I matter to him.

He is the answer to my every equation... I am Juliet to his Romeo, and oh, zero! I don’t want to end up like the fictitious, doomed lovers. Forced apart because a war between our families is stronger than our love.

Nervousness pricks at me as I set the swords on the ground and fist handfuls of sand, the grains falling through my fingers.

He notices the movement and turns his head to scowl at me. Not quite the reception I anticipated.

“Where are we?” I ask.

“Fiji.”

Nice. “What happened to—”

“The humans were transported to a new Troikan safe house, just as I told you. So let’s focus on what you told me. You almost died before this? Tell me what happened. I’m close to blowing a fuse.”

He’s been sitting there stewing, hasn’t he?

I scrub a gritty hand over my face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“Less apology, more detail. I’ve been waiting twenty-eight hours, lass.”

What? “I’ve been out for more than a day?”

Even as I speak, the number twenty-eight rings inside my head. In the Book of the Law, page twenty-eight states: There is a time for planting seeds and a time for harvesting what has been planted, a time to fight and to a time to heal, to destroy and to build, to cry and to laugh, to mourn and to dance, to embrace and to turn away, to search and to wait, to keep and to discard, to tear and to sew, a time for keeping silent and a time to speak, to love and to leave...a time for war and a time for peace.

Peace...the word teases me. Still a pipe dream?

“Yes,” Killian says. “More than a day. Every second has been agony. For me. I’ve wondered if you would wake up. I’ve weighed the pros and cons of taking you to Troika’s Veil of Wings. I’ve cried, Ten. Cried like a baby—for you.”

I melt for him.

As I tell him about Victor’s sneak attack, he radiates aggression and menace. It’s easy to imagine him as the cold-blooded killer so many Troikans believe him to be.

“I wish I’d been there, wish I’d protected you, but I can’t even protect your mother,” he says with a scowl. “She and a Laborer I trained are now in the Kennels. I’ve failed one too many times lately, and today might have sealed the deal. Myriad wants you dead, and I shielded you. I’ll spin my actions to the best of my ability, but I fear my treachery has been exposed. I could be sentenced to life in the Kennels the moment I return to Myriad. I could be used against you.”

My heart sinks. For Killian, my mother and even his friend. “Don’t go back,” I say. “Stay in the Land of the Harvest until we can set a court date.”

“I have to free them. Which means I have to continue my charade as long as possible. If I’m locked up, I’m locked up. I’ll still have a chance to rescue our people. The moment I defect, I lose that chance.”

“Killian, please. There has to be a way we can keep you safe and save the others...together.”

Silent, he stands. He’s so tall, I have to look up, up, up. The sun hits his back, shadows and radiance dancing over his chiseled features. Because he’s in his Shell, the sunlight doesn’t bother him.

He walks over, sits beside me, the scent of peat smoke and heather enveloping me.

Yearning consumes me. Hold on to him and never let go. Be his buffer in this time of trouble.

I reach for his hand, desperate for contact, but my fingers ghost through his Shell and reach his spirit. We hiss and jerk away from each other.

Disappointment consumes me.

“When you fought the Myriadian army,” he says, “you were glowing. There’s still a halo around you.” He stretches out to peer up at the sky. He is shirtless, wearing only a pair of ripped jeans and leather bracelets he gave me before I died, his tattoos on magnificent display. “It’s beautiful. You are beautiful.”

Touch him...every glorious inch...

My gaze follows a line etched through a skull that is crying tears of blood...through a cracked and crumbling moon, with pieces falling onto a blanket of dying stars...through a rosebush. The roses are black, the leaves withered, the thorns sharp.

“Since your Firstdeath,” he says, his tone gentle, “I’ve turned my entire life upside down. I’ve sabotaged the only home I’ve ever known. I’m doing what you said, putting word into action. For you. I regret nothing. But I can’t turn away from those in need. Not anymore. You taught me that.”

“Killian...”

“You were right. I think we can do more together. I think we should make covenant...with each other,” he says, and looks away.