Delta [Epsilon #2]

Chapter Fifty-Two

Faelen

******

My legs burned. My lungs ached. My heart was pounding so hard that I was sure it would break a rib, but I kept running, because nothing mattered more than the girl in my arms. 

I glanced down at Kyra again, her short, jagged breaths hard to ignore even past all the roaring in my ears. I'd never seen her so pale, so sickly. Just looking at the greyish tint of her once beautifully tanned skin made me want to snap a neck. And seeing that silver dagger embedded in her chest filled me with this incomprehensible rage every time I looked at it. 

The worst part was that I couldn't even pull the dagger out. Ironically enough, it was the only thing keeping Kyra alive. I knew that pulling it out would make her lungs collapse entirely -- and she was having a hard enough time breathing as it was. Plus, the wolfsbane in her blood meant that she wouldn't be able to heal as fast. Ripping out the dagger would be a massive fucking risk. 

So, I kept running, even though the Northern Court was still a good hour away. There was no way I could shift and carry her, so I had to rely on the sluggish pace of my human form. I listened to her jagged breaths as a I went, my heart stopping every time they ceased, only for me to flood with relief when they started back up again. Sometimes, I checked her pulse with shaking fingers to make sure she was still alive, for her skin was only getting paler and paler for every drop of blood she lost. 

I swore, I would kill that slimy cunt when I got my hands on him. Hell, I was going to make him suffer. This was all his fault. He'd pulled a fucking fast one right under our noses, and tortured Kyra for his own damn amusement. He'd even tried to make Kyra gut her own friend -- something I knew would have destroyed her. And it almost had destroyed her. I still remembered the horror I felt as I watched the dagger get re-directed to her heart. When Kyra used that one drop of her willpower -- something she would have fought so damn hard for -- to save her friend at the expense of herself. The only reason Kyra wasn't cold and dead right now was because right before the dagger plunged into her heart, I sent out a lightning bolt last second, striking her hand and sending the dagger into the right side of her chest instead. It was still bad, but hell, it could have been much worse. I wish I could have sent the dagger elsewhere with my blast, but everything happened too damn fast for me to react in time. Azriel had had his claws in Kyra and, with that in mind, I'd been reluctant to do anything that may have put her in further danger. That was, until she'd gone ahead and done exactly that to herself.

An agonised moan came from below me. I gritted my teeth. "Come on, Kyra, hang in there. Do not fucking die on me now."

Still, that was no guarantee, I knew. And that fact alone filled me with a kind of incomprehensible dread I hadn't felt in years. And to think that I'd never get to apologise to her, that I'd never get to explain that those words I said were entirely false...

She would die thinking I despised her; die believing I thought so low of her. And I could not let that happen. I couldn't. Because a world without Kyra didn't seem like a world worth living. 

"Faelen?" a voice rasped. I came to a screeching halt. I looked down to find Kyra staring up at me, her distant eyes hidden behind drooping eyelids. My heart did that strange thump it always did when I saw her, but I had to push that aside, because now was not the time. 

"Kyra," I breathed. "Are you--?"

"It hurts, Faelen," she sobbed, the little sound fracturing my heart. "Please, set me down, even if... even if it's only for a little while. I don't want... to run anymore. I want... to rest..."