The claws were still in his back, deep, leaking poison, the plague, but that was inconsequential at the moment. The hellhound slowly collapsed, black blood spewing in all directions. Sandu rolled out from under it, gripping the sword. Nicu was there, shooting arrows into the eyes of the hound to give Sandu his chance to get away. Sandu dissolved, streaking across the distance like a fallen star, straight to Adalasia.
The sword glittered like a comet as it came straight to his lifemate’s hand. She caught it and spun in a circle, the tips of the two swords pointing outward, then upward toward the sky, then down toward the soil as she murmured something softly. Sandu was too busy fitting arrows into a bow and killing the hellhounds as they thundered toward his woman. There seemed to be less of them. They were slower. Some stopped and shook their heads in confusion. The brethren finished them off quickly.
Sandu staggered and sat down in the middle of the leaves and rotting vegetation, away from the dead and dying hellhounds and the bodies of the scorpions. Adalasia hurried over to him. Benedek and Siv followed her.
“Sandu,” she breathed his name.
His skin was already turning gray, the poison in him rapidly replicating. “Adalasia, you can’t come near me.”
She frowned at him. “I’m your lifemate, Sandu. You need aid.”
He coughed, and blood bubbled around his mouth. Under his skin, she could see bleeding. Siv was already shedding his body against Sandu’s protest. Siv’s spirit, his white light, was astonishingly bright. Petru strode out of the cloudy mist and, without hesitation, shed his body as well, joining Siv in the fight to save Sandu.
“They will need blood,” Benedek said, “Nicu, Danutdaxton and I will provide that for them.” He indicated Dax. “This will be a long battle, and it is essential to guard their bodies while they attempt to drive the poison from his body and heal him, Adalasia. When it is necessary, and it will be, they will have you join with Sandu to hold him to this world.”
“Riley, my lifemate, will heal the ground while we work on Sandu,” Dax added. “She will be another pair of eyes to watch.”
Adalasia wanted to remind them that Sandu was her lifemate, that she should be the one to be healing him, but she could tell the situation was dire. Sandu had risked everything by aiding her, not once but twice. She had had no choice but to cut all communication between the demon and Nera. Sandu had saved them all both times. He had known the poison in the hellhound’s claws would move faster through his body when he had used so much energy, but he trusted his brethren to remove it, choosing to suffer the agony rather than risk them all.
Danutdaxton began to incinerate the carcasses while he waited to aid the others. Everywhere the hounds had bled, the black acid that was their blood had destroyed every living plant, leaving what appeared to be a barren wasteland behind. Even the trees they had brushed up against had terrible wounds in them.
Adalasia could only breathe deep and wait for the guardians to tell her Sandu was going to survive. He didn’t look as if he would, not even with his brethren, powerful ancients, working so hard to save him.
Adalasia could barely breathe or even think. She had always been able to think through any problem. She might feel the edges of panic, or even have a panic attack, but in the end, training always won out. But this . . . She was expected to sit back and do nothing while Sandu was dying before her eyes. Anyone with a brain could see the life leaving his body.
Sandu. Don’t you leave me. She sent the call to him, terrified of being left alone. She wouldn’t be. She would follow him. Go with him. Abandon her duty to her family and take up her duty to her lifemate. The wild thoughts crowded in on one another as she moved closer to the body lying so gray and still on the ground.
“Adalasia, you cannot go near his body yet,” Benedek cautioned. “You cannot get infected. Allow Petru and Siv to do their best to heal his body. You have his spirit and soul with you. He would never succumb to death completely.”
She tried to hold on to that so she could think clearly. Was he with her? Could she feel him? He was so powerful. Always such a presence. Where was he? Why couldn’t she feel him? Sorrow burst through her, but she fought it off. Benedek had no reason to lie to her. Petru and Siv wouldn’t be outside of their bodies, attempting to heal Sandu, if he wasn’t still alive.
“Tell me what’s happening. Step by step, Benedek. I don’t know the Carpathian ways, and this is terrifying to me. I don’t feel him with me the way I always have. He looks and feels dead to me.” She did her best to keep her voice from trembling. She didn’t want her guardians to think she wasn’t up to whatever task she needed to do to save Sandu. Anything. She would do anything.