“Why did you do it?” he croaked.

She hadn’t been sure the first time she heard it, but yes, they were both crying. Abby tilted her face so she could see his eyes. She had to smile even though she could see his heart breaking in his eyes, could see the tears sliding down his face. She’d done that. She’d inadvertently hurt him when all she wanted to do was save him.

“Because,” she gulped, her air supply growing shorter and the heavy feeling growing in her limbs getting worse, “I love you so much.”

He pressed his forehead against hers. “You shouldn’t have done it. You shouldn’t have.” He kept saying it over and over again.

It was the last thing she ever heard.

He felt the life leave her body.

He could actually feel it as if her soul just walked out.

“Abbigail.”

He shook her. Her eyes stared somewhere off the point of his shoulder.

“Sweetheart wake up.” His voice broke. “Wake up, dammit!”

She didn’t blink. Her chest refused to rise and fall again.

No, no, no. This couldn’t be happening again. This couldn’t happen again. NO!

“Somebody help me!” he shouted.

He set her body on the grass. His eyes caught sight of the dead carcass of his mother, and he shoved out his arm to push her away from his beloved.

He covered her wound with his hand and searched his memory for something. This couldn’t be the end. There had to be a way.

Footsteps neared.

It was Aidan and his men. They looked solemn, their eyes heavy with sorrow. “Where’s your healer?” demanded Alrik.

A man came forward to kneel beside her. He checked the wound and pressed his fingers to her neck but said as he’d expected.

“She’s already passed on, my king.”

The last of the words he ignored. He didn’t give a shit if they respected him now. “You have to do something. Anything. Any spell any amount of power, name it and I’ll do it.”

He kept hold of her hand, kept squeezing it, but she wouldn’t squeeze it back. His chest squeezed so hard it was a wonder his heart didn’t start bleeding from the pressure. Tears kept coming. Why did she have to look so pale?

“My king, there is nothing you can do. She has gone from us. Let us bury her.”

“NO!” he shouted. He wouldn’t give up. He would figure out a way. His eyes swept over her face. “Give me a wet rag someone. Now!”

Within a few seconds, a demon pushed one at his face. He grabbed it started cleaning her face. She was so beautiful even in death, but blood marred her skin. He cleaned every spec of dirt and filth from her face and then started on her neck as his mind worked slowly, numbly. He couldn’t contain his flinch at the horrible bruises covering her neck. From him!

Aidan stepped forward as he set to cleaning her hands. Dirt and blood had caked under her nails. That pain in his chest intensified. He’d done this to her. He’d taken her from her home and gotten her killed. And for what? His mother wasn’t worth her life. She wasn’t even worth a single hair off Abbigail’s head.

“What have I done?” he whispered, squeezing her hand. He pressed it to his lips and kissed them as his eyes clamped shut. “Oh God, what have I done?”

Aidan stepped near him but didn’t touch him. A good thing, he didn’t know what he might do if someone laid a hand on him right now. Alrik kissed the palm of her hand and started cleaning the other.

“None of us have any spells to fix her. There are no herbs to push away death. Very few have such a white power to bring back the dead,” Aidan said. He was speaking slowly. He’d cared for his Abbigail even in the short amount of time he’d spent with her. Alrik couldn’t even blame him; she had that effect on people. He’d learned that first hand. “I’ve known very few who had that power... One is dead at my feet.” He kicked the dead queen. “The other is alive before me.”

Alrik nearly stopped breathing.

“But I can’t heal anymore. The curse took that away from me before.” Besides, he’d never actually done it. He knew it could be done in his bloodline. He knew his brother could do it, had even seen him do it. His mother and even seen his father had the healing powers in their blood. But the curse had taken his white magic from him. “Look at me. I can’t. Don’t you think I’d save her if I could?”

A small smile lifted the corner of Aidan’s mouth. “I think you need to look at yourself one last time. You might just be surprised.”

A low tremble started in his gut then worked its way out. He knew what his words meant, but could it really be possible?

“Bring him a mirror,” said Aidan.

The men talked amongst themselves and realized they didn’t have one. So, someone brought forth his double-bladed axe. The steel was sharp and the fire reflected off it.

“Are you ready?” the demon asked.

No, he wasn’t. He couldn’t nod, couldn’t even shake his head. He just sat there holding Abbigail’s steadily cooling hand.

The demon shrugged then lifted his axe to face Alrik.

Alrik looked at his oblong reflection marked with specs of drying blood and at a face he hadn’t seen in a thousand years.

Gold skin covered his face and neck. Bright violet eyes stared back at him as if he was looking into the face of a stranger. Brown hair with a good dose of red fell around his face in a wild array.

He kept hold of her hand but used his free on to touch his cheeks as if to make sure the reflection he saw matched up with him.

“It’s real,” he breathed.

“Yes, it is. You are cured,” Aidan said.

He looked away. He was cured, but what for? What did it matter now? He’d lost the love of his life. He had no one to share this with. A hollow shell sat inside him as if he’d been carved out into a shell. He was nothing without her.

“Just because I look as I did before doesn’t mean I’ll have the powers as I did before.”

Before...before he’d changed. When his powers hadn’t been of rage and ice but of good things too.

“True,” Aidan agreed. “But you could still try.”

Yes, yes he would. Of course he would because if she died then he’d die with her.

Alrik tried to remember how to call forth healing magic.

He set his hands over her chest and closed his eyes.

He thought of closing her wound, of seeing her eyes blink, and hearing her heart beat. He let the thoughts course through him like blood until it was all he thought or felt. His hands started to warm and he focused harder and put all of his energy into it.

Hope sprung. He could do this.

Breathing ragged, sweat poured from his brow and still nothing happened. He sat back and wiped the sweat away. The demons and vampire watched him with a various mixture of grimaces on their faces.

“What?” Alrik asked at their strange looks.

Aidan looked uncomfortable. “It’s been nearly half an hour and nothing’s happened, Alrik. Why don’t we just bury her and let us mourn?”

Thirty minutes? Impossible. It hadn’t felt that long at all. Yet his muscles felt strained and tired in a way they hadn’t before.

His gaze swept over Abbigail’s cooling body and something fierce and raw came over him—a steely resolve.

“No, I’m going to do this. I can do this.” Alrik leaned back over her as he placed his hands on her chest. He winced as he spotted the deep bruising on her neck. Disgust filled him. He didn’t deserve her, but if she forgave him after he brought her back, then he’d grovel to her for the rest of his life.

Closing his eyes, he concentrated. He focused on the healing powers that existed in his blood. He called it forth as if beckoning a small hurt animal. His skin warmed. His mind rested in a place where time didn’t exist. All that existed, all that mattered was Abbigail’s bloody wound beneath his hands.

The heat grew. His muscles flexed and twitched as he physically forced the healing magic up and out of him. Ragged breaths tore from his burning throat. His arms shook as if he was holding up a building to keep it from collapsing. Even his head felt about to burst as if too much air filled it.