Page 22 of Claim the Light
Both Micah and Beatrix remain still.
Their eyes are closed, their faces pale and gray.
Isaac’s calm expression falters as he takes in Beatrix’s still form. The worried tension around his eyes and mouth increases. From the first moment he met Beatrix, they’ve grated on each other, a friction that seems to fill the space between them even now. Except that this time, I also sense fear on Isaac’s part.
Lana has remained between Beatrix and Micah, kneeling behind their heads, facing me. She looks up at me, her face framed in her black hair, and I’m shocked to see tears in her eyes.
“I feel their torment,” she says, shuddering and wrapping her arms around herself. “It’s pure darkness. I haven’t felt anything like it since I threw myself into oblivion to escape the veil.”
My eyes widen at her mention of anoblivion, which is exactly how I would describe that dark space we plummeted into where the keeper of dark magic appeared.
“You’ve been there? To the oblivion with the dark keeper?”
She nods. “A long story. It’s how I escaped the veil after Atrox and Dominus trapped me.”
I need to ask her all about it—I need to tell her everything that happened—but I freeze at the tears trickling down her cheeks.
She never cries. She’s tough and hard and fearsome and she never gives up. To see such a raw sadness on her face only triggers my own fear.
“Death,” I whisper, as the memory of the ash and the abyss threatens to swallow me. “This darkness is like death.”
CHAPTEREIGHT
My heart is hurting in a way it never has before.
Micah gave me a moment of happiness and now he lies mere paces away from me, injured and unconscious, and I can’t help him. I’m powerless to protect him or rescue his mind from the darkness that must be ensnaring it. Just as, in the past, I was powerless to escape my mother’s cruel intentions, or my father’s scheming, or my own dragon-less body.
Opposite me, Lana shakes herself before she swipes at her tears.
“Isaac,” she calls, “come quickly. They need your soul light. You’re their only hope.”
Isaac bursts into action, the tension rising off him in palpable waves, his focus on Beatrix more intense with every passing second.
He drops into a kneeling position between Micah and Beatrix, in line with their chests, one hand outstretched on either side of himself. His back is to me while his soul light glows softly up across their faces.
If only his light could calm me, too, because awful thoughts are taking over my mind.
What if Micah never wakes up?
What if Beatrix has sacrificed her life to help me?
All because they cared about me.
Me. The most useless of all dragons. The least worthy to be saved.
I can’t stop my tremors as I wrap my arms around my chest. I want to be near Micah, crawl across the stone surface to his side, but I’m too afraid that everything terrible that occurred has happened because of me. Because of Tyler’s hatred of me.
My shoes are waterlogged. My clothing is saturated. My dragon’s power could probably repel the water from my body, but I can’t seem to make any part of me function properly. Not my arms, or my legs, or my power that seems so inadequate right now.
I huddle at the edge of the stone ledge within the shadows, the soft swishing of the river water filling my ears, but my own internal voice is louder.
I rebuke myself for my choices.
When Micah offered me his heart, I should have turned him away. I should have protected him from all the poison that remains in my life.
When Beatrix offered to help me stand, I should have saidno. I should have told her to fuck off like I would have only weeks ago before we’d built trust and kinship between us.
If I’d kept my walls up, they wouldn’t be hurt now.
