Page 154 of The Never List
“Jax…she’s…she’s not breathing,” Kal whispers as if the breath from his lungs has gone thin.
“Rylee!” I scream her name, gently shaking her, running my hands over her body in search of a pulse that isn’t there.
“No,” I hear Pierce say behind me, and Axl and Kal.
I can hear them all, can feel the weight of their powers as they drop to their knees where I hold Rylee, her lifeless body still warm in my arms.
Tears spill over my lashes, rolling down my cheeks as I try and fail to revive her. I blow breath into her lungs and push against her chest in an effort to make her heart beat.
“Pierce! Help me,” I scream, looking to my friend,begging him.
My screams break him from his shock, his despair.
“Helpme,” I cry out again from where I’m working on her chest.
She didn’t make it. She didn’t survive the Athanry.
“She’s strong…” Axl whispers. “How did she not survive?”
I glare at him, my power crackling outside enough to make him flinch.
“She’s strong enough!” I yell. “She is.”
“Jax.” Pierce draws my attention, his tone commanding as he waves at me to stop working on her chest.
I do as he says, watching as an emerald ribbon of his energetic power slides into to the center of her body, folding itself into her skin until I can’t see it. I look from her lifeless face to his and back again, holding my breath as I desperately wait.
“No.”Pierce whispers the word, injecting her with more of his power, so much that her body jolts before me.
But she does not breathe.
My mate.
My match.
She’s dead.
Kal is shaking as he smooths his hand over her forehead, tears welling in his eyes.
Axl slams his fist against the floor so hard it cracks.
Pierce stumbles backward, shock and regret clinging to his face.
My entire world shatters beneath me, and rage splits me open like a cracked egg, my power spearing out in every direction around me in a terrifying snap that sends theentire audience of the Choosing ceremonyrunning.
Screams of terror fill my mother’s sacred temple as they rush out of the building, my power biting at their heels, lashing out at anybody it can as my grief consumes me.
“Jax!” my father screams, but his elite enforcer is pulling him away, forcing him out of the temple for his own safety. The other elite enforcers are doing the same with the other kings, until the temple is completely emptied out and there’s no one left for me or my power to attack.
No one but the Legends and myself.
“She’s mine,” I yell up at my mother’s statue, stomping toward the small table set up near the doorway.
I glance down at the wooden box containing the other four vials of elixir. The last four chances at ever having a mate.
I snatch one up, uncorking it with my teeth.
“Jax, what are you doing?” Pierce asks, suddenly at my side.
