Zadok did as I demanded, his chants once again echoing through the room, their sonorous tone rattling my very bones. He kept going until blood started to drip from his nose and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. Once he broke away, he staggered backward, crashing into his workbench. “Shit.”

He scrambled to right himself, swiping his arm across his face before clambering over to the bookshelf on the far wall, his movements unsteady. Deranged. I checked Luca’s pulse—still sluggish but faintly improving—as Zadok rifled and tore through the books until he found what he was looking for.

“There’s a spell…” he murmured as he flicked through the pages with shaking fingers. “It’s in the old language and I’ve only used it once. It will take a fraction of your life force and pass it over to him. It might not wake him up, but it should stall the poison, give me more time. I-It’s all I can think of. I-I don’t know what else to do.” He peered up at me, looking as discouraged and panic-stricken as I felt, and I knew this was the last resort.

It has to work.

“Do it,” I said without hesitation. At that moment, he could have asked me to spill every drop of blood in my body to save him, and I’d agree.

I rose at his insistence, pulling my shirt open so he could paint an invisible symbol onto my chest—a word he whispered under his breath. The lines glowed purple, showing an intricate arrow, and stung as if branding themselves into my skin before disappearing again. No mark, not even a faint redness, was left behind. He did the same for Luca, applying its replica over his breastbone before muttering under his breath and waiting for the magic to seep in. Finally, he stood between us, the book balanced in his hands as he repeated the incantation from the page, over and over and over, until the burn of the unseen rune became an aggravating pest burrowing under my flesh, taking root.

A fragment of my very being was ripped out. I felt it exiting through my parted lips, could swear I saw it floating through the air toward my mate. It wasn’t painful. Though even if it had been, I would have suffered it gladly.

Once the heat dissipated and Zadok ceased his repetition, I sagged forward, my hands on the edge of the bed. It was as if my spirit had fleetingly wilted, but the unexpectedly stable thump, thump, thump in my ears brought it hurtling back. I stood, and we observed my mate’s still prone form, both of us visibly relaxing at the sound of his heartbeat picking up strength and speed. It was slight, but it was there, quickening with every second that passed, stronger and stronger, regaining the liveliness it had lost, plus some…