Page 370 of Commanding Blood And Bonds

“We can’t find her,” Nat said. “She’s not answering. I think she went into the mall chaos and can’t reach us. Aren, I can’t lose another⁠—”

“She’s alive,” I reassured when her voice cracked with fear. “Ally sees her. She’s in the endgame with us.”

Nat gave a shaky nod and returned to work. My gaze drifted to Adrastos’ seizing body—to grotesque, black-webbed wounds as they began to glow blue—then back to Mags. I laid my hands on her and pushed my energy into her body.

Come on, baby. Take it. Take everything I have.

Her power stirred—barely. Like a creature waking from a deep, unnatural slumber. It reached for mine, sluggish but alive. I might not be a healer, but I could seal the superficial wounds so Nat could focus on what mattered. Slowly, I shifted from one slice to the next, healing whatever my fingers could find.

But I wasn’t a Porter. She couldn’t draw directly from my well. And I had never felt more helpless.

“Freya,” I rasped.

She appeared beside me in a blink. “Oh! Yes! Hang on—this is gonna feel weird.”

She placed one hand on my back, the other on Mags.

The moment the connection formed, I felt it. Power pouring through me, through Freya, into Magnolia’s innumerable injuries. She’d broken her body. Her gifts—fragmented, scattered—reached greedily for mine.

Christ, she’d shattered bones.

I was no healer but even I could sense that much. So much blood loss. “Come on, baby,” I whispered, lowering to my knees. I brushed her hair from her swollen face. “I love you so fucking much. Do you hear me? You have to get through this, my Autumn Magnolia. I’m right here. Right here, and I love you. I love you, goddammit.”

That sentiment alone should have been enough. Should have somehow magically anchored her here. Given her eyes the strength to open. But mates cleaved apart weren’t new to the world. Even I could acknowledge that I wouldn’t be enough, should her soul be called elsewhere.

Tears rolled down my cheeks. I couldn’t stop them.

August stepped beside me. “Can I help?”

“Please,” I croaked.

He laid his hands over her. If anyone could give us a miracle, he was the one made for it.

I brushed bloody tendrils of dark hair away from her bruised cheek, working to heal the wounds I could. “I loved you before you ever breathed in this world,” I whispered. “Loved the woman you would become before I knew you existed. And all of that pales in comparison to what I feel now. I am yours, Magnolia Green. Unequivocally. Irrevocably. Stay with me.”

I kissed her bloodied lips, resting my forehead against hers.

She was mine. Always.

A faint clink, clink, clink sounded beside Nat. Glass against metal. My teeth ground. Heart pounding. I didn’t want to know what they were pulling from her.

“Stay with me,” I murmured. Kari cursed softly.

“This Blood Bond is fucking sentient,” she noted, earning nods around the table. My stomach turned. One healer was bad enough, but for them all to note it…

“Contain it?” Nat offered.

“But how?” Rika asked.

Kenna’s eyes darted between Magnolia and Adrastos, through a wall of my people fighting to keep him breathing. Sar snapped orders as she dropped a glowing slug onto my damn coffee table.

“Speak,” I said, latching onto Kenna like a buoy at sea.

She looked up, hesitant. “I think the bond is mimicking their gifts. Maybe it would respond to that connection.”

I snapped my gaze to Ally. “Do we have a Shadowwalker?”

Before she could answer, a rough southern baritone cut in.