Wrapping her arms around her middle, Adalasia couldn’t make herself step away from Sandu’s body. She felt protective. She even felt protective of the empty shells of Siv’s and Petru’s bodies. Their spirits had left to enter Sandu, leaving their bodies unprotected. Clearly, they were valiantly fighting for him.
Her heart stuttered. Her breath slowed in her lungs. Her body was suddenly weak. She found herself on the ground beside Siv’s body, tears burning in her eyes.
Sandu. Don’t you dare leave me.
He was moving farther away from her. She could feel it. He burned. His entire body burned. Why? What was happening to him?
“Benedek? He’s in such pain. He’s on fire. Burning hot. I have to go to him. He can’t survive this, even with the aid of the ancients.”
“No.” Benedek caught her shoulder in a firm grip.
Nicu suddenly was on the other side of her, also gripping her shoulder, as if they could physically hold her to the earth when Sandu was somewhere else. She felt the guardians in her mind, Nicu and Benedek, taking hold there as well.
“He will need you, but not yet. You cannot go to him yet. It will take you to guide us to him and all of us to bring him back if we are to save him,” Benedek said. “You have to trust us, sisarke. We are your brothers. We are bound together, all of us. Where Sandu goes, we go. We have sworn to protect you.”
Nicu nodded his head. “It is impossible to lie to you, Adalasia. We may tease you, but we cannot deceive you over such a thing as Sandu’s death. Trust us to know how to care for him. He has been poisoned with the plague. There are parasites in him. The bacteria have multiplied at an alarming rate and are striking at every organ. It will be a hard fight to remove all of this before we can safely go after his spirit. We know you have his spirit safe. He transferred what he could as quickly as he could to you before he went down. You hold his soul as you did before.”
Adalasia knew what Nicu said was true. That was what had alarmed her the most. It felt to her as if Sandu had rejected her in some way, thrusting that part of him she’d guarded so carefully, as she’d been born again and again to keep him safe, back into her keeping. She hadn’t thought that he’d once again be asking her to hold him safe. She’d been looking with her human eyes at his dying body, not with Carpathian eyes.
She took a deep breath to calm herself. To find balance. If Sandu was in both worlds, she would find a way to bring him fully back to her. She knew patience. She had to trust in the men he’d surrounded himself with. He’d chosen them for a reason. She looked to Danutdaxton. They had come to him for a reason.
Right at that moment, Dax’s lifemate, Riley, was with him. The plants in the rain forest responded instantly to the presence of Riley, a renewal that was incredible to see. She moved through the blackened remains of the forest where the terrible battle had taken place with a grace and soothing calm that Adalasia could see and almost feel that the plant life responded to. She seemed able to coax reluctant growth back just by talking softly as she moved around beneath the scarred trees. Without the bodies of the hellhounds or giant scorpions to tell the supernatural tale of a battle with demons, the rain forest, under Riley’s direction, was already returning.
Adalasia rocked herself gently, trying to watch Riley in order to keep her gaze from continually straying to Sandu’s lifeless body. Siv’s body suddenly jerked and was there, coughing, weak, pale beyond belief. Immediately, Nicu held his wrist to his chosen brother to give him the blood that would aid him after such a fight for Sandu’s life. Adalasia bit back her questions. She could see Siv was in bad shape, which meant the fight had been hard.
Benedek shed his body and entered Sandu’s. Adalasia was astonished at how fast they could get beyond ego and rid themselves of all things physical to become healing spirit. Danutdaxton moved into position beside Nicu as Petru emerged, every bit as weak and pale as Siv. He was coughing as well, trying to clear his throat. Wheezing even. Dax immediately offered him his wrist.
The moment Siv closed the twin holes in Nicu’s wrist, Nicu shed his body and entered Sandu’s in order to help fight the poisons in Sandu’s body. Everything in Adalasia wanted to go with the two men, to be with them to help her lifemate, but she breathed away the terrible need. She had to rely on their expertise. They were ancients, and they knew what they were doing.
No one was treating this as if it were an easy task. She knew the situation was dire just by their silence and the tension in the air.