Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 88025 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88025 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
“I’m never letting you go again,” Harrison swore.
Hale was completely on board with this plan.
Chapter
Twenty-Five
Hale leaned heavily against Harrison where they sat in the dirt. He wasn’t entirely sure he could get his legs to work just yet. But he wasn’t complaining—he was wrapped in Harrison’s arms and alive after all.
But the ground was cold, and there was an uncomfortably sharp rock that was digging into his left butt cheek. Moving was probably a good idea.
Except the cars were four miles away down the side of the mountain.
“Are you okay?” Harrison asked, brushing his lips across Hale’s temple.
“You mean for a dead man?” Hale replied with a grin.
“That’s the last time you get to say that,” his mate warned. “When you died, my heart stopped. I thought I’d lost you and I wouldn’t be able to cast the spell to bring you here. I never want to go through that moment again.”
Hale tipped his head back, offering up his lips to Harrison. “You won’t. I promise. This was it. Last time I’m doing anything crazy like that.”
Harrison took the offered kiss, but the skeptical look remained. “For some reason, I don’t believe this will be the last time you do something crazy.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to agree with Harrison, but a groan rose up from somewhere close by and Hale was suddenly reminded that his five Weaver brothers had died with him. Had the spell worked for all of them? Had Gio been able to pull back two soul mates?
He lurched upright only to stop suddenly and release his own moan of pain. Apparently giving up his life and powers to close the rift had meant pulling every muscle in his body. Somebody was definitely gonna carry his ass down the mountain. He was not hiking.
But at least he was upright. He’d apparently fallen right where he stood with the other Weavers, because they were all close at hand and currently wrapped in their mates and very much alive. Gio was sandwiched between Calder and Lucien, looking as if only magic and the jaws of life could separate them.
A loud bark of laughter erupted from Clay as he tipped his head toward the sky. “We did it!” he shouted. “We fucking did it!”
“Really, Clay. No need to sound so surprised. We told you so, didn’t we?”
Hale’s heart jumped in his chest at the sound of Aunt Flo’s voice. The goddess swept in and easily helped Clay and Dane to their feet, giving the Earth Weaver an extra little pat on the cheek.
Hale could only stare at her. She looked different, but not. He wasn’t sure how to even put it into words. She seemed like the same stern woman with gray hair pulled into a tight bun as she always did, but there was simply more to her. She was stronger, healthier, and just more.
“We got all our powers back, that’s all, my sweet Hale,” Aunt Willie chimed, clearly reading his thoughts as she also helped him up to his feet. As she touched him with her soft hands, all the pains and aches that riddled his body melted away like snow under the summer sun.
When she had him safely on his feet, she placed him in Harrison’s arms before flitting over to the throuple with Flo to help their Weavers. Aunt Jo was also tending to Baer and Grey, seeing that her Weavers were in fine form again.
Hale chuckled softly to himself. They all had the same stunned and slightly confused expression on their faces. Maybe coming back from the dead required a reboot of the brain as well. They looked ragged and worn.
“What about the pestilents?” Baer suddenly asked.
That was a damn good question. Shouldn’t they all be overrun and fighting for their lives once again? Wiley’s barrier had to have fallen and Clay’s vines and rocks should have crumbled by now.
“Dead,” Cort declared.
“What?” Hale gasped, already turning toward the barrier. It was the truth. There were hundreds of corpses littering the ground and stretched out across the natural bridge. The vine barrier was partially torn down, but no pestilent body had gotten more than a step beyond it.
“The moment the rift was closed, they all dropped dead,” Gio explained in a weary voice. That man needed to nap for about three days. Even under the tender ministrations of two goddesses, the poor guy looked ready to curl up on the rocky ground and sleep. Saving two soul mates had to take it out of a person.
“The pestilents really can’t survive in our world,” Aunt Jo explained. “They need the trickle of magic between worlds to keep them alive.”
“What about the times that it was closed temporarily? Surely they would have died then,” Clay pressed.
Flo shook her head. “A thread of magic got through the temporary closing, allowing any pestilents trapped here to remain alive.”