Page 197 of Heir of Broken Souls

She spins back to Lenox. “No, this isn’t happening,” she spits. “I refuse to let this happen!”

Her eyes grow frenzied, her movements manic, and all of a sudden, I witness Harlow transform.

She kneels next to him, picking up one of his blades, and slices her wrist. She doesn’t blink or flinch at the pain. Instead, she smiles as she dips her fingers into the crimson blood pooling along her forearm and moves toward Lenox.

Her lips move a mile a minute, and her fingers swirl as she draws her blood along his tattered body. It mixes with his and the black blood that took his life.

My breath freezes in my lungs as Harlow becomes the very thing she hates the most in this life—a witch.

* * *

“What is she doing?” Axel asks, yet his voice is devoid of emotion. There’s not a single light behind his eyes. Axel is completely checked out, his mind having taken him far from the reality that’s trying to rip his heart out.

“She’s doing what must be done.”

Is that my voice? Is that what I sound like with a part of my soul gone? Gravelly and devoid of hope?

Where is my angel when I need her?

It’s a call into a void—hopeless. She hasn’t answered this whole time. She sends warmth down the bond but that golden door doesn’t open an inch.

Where are you?

My heart yearns to touch her. To feel her pulse beneath her warm skin, to feel her heart beating. I’d do anything to feel it and not Lenox’s cold neck and still chest.

Axel’s eyes narrow. “It can’t be.”

Spinning back to Harlow, I find her hands glowing red, the blood she’s smeared in strange symbols lighting up one by one with every word. Blood runs down her nose but she waves off our touch, ignoring everything but Lenox.

He is her world.

He is her everything.

He is her heart, her soul, her reason to live.

He is her best friend.

She would never admit to that before, would never admit that’s why she’s been so sad the passing weeks when he ignored her, but he is. Lenox is the other half to her soul.

So in turn, she offers up her own in exchange for his heart to beat.

Zephlyn and Aurora land behind me, Elysia’s footsteps thud in the mud as she runs for Axel, clinging to his forearm, trying to shake him from his emotionless stupor. All the while, I stand shell-shocked, wanting to help and yet terrified that I’ll do something wrong.

The only thing I can do is continue to blast my power in all directions, keeping the hounds away as they smell the cooling blood of our loved one.

Elysia cries out at the sight of Harlow as, before our very eyes, she gives herself up for him.

Lenox’s body begins to glow red, from the power thrumming along his skin where Harlow touched him.

Harlow leans back and slices another forearm, slathering both her hands in her blood. She rises on her knees and shoves her palms into his chest and screams in a foreign tongue. In a language that makes goosebumps rise and the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. A language that makes me fearful for what she has to give in return for his life.

“Elysia?” Axel shouts suddenly, drawing my attention to the small blonde Fae he takes by the shoulders and shakes. She’s fallen unconscious.

There’s too much.

There is too much happening. I can’t focus on?—

Elysia gasps, right as Lenox screams in terror and agony. A sob flies from me as I rush forward and bark, “Everyone use your healing powers, now!”