Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 132138 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 661(@200wpm)___ 529(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132138 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 661(@200wpm)___ 529(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
There is nothing inside Shim. Nothing at all. His body is a shell and a molten one at that. Lach’s body is burned, his skin torched, every inch an agony, but something cool and calm comes over him.
Power flows for the first time. It starts in his center and reaches out. He can feel them. The dead. There is power in them, an unspoken essence that they each retain, whether bone or ash. Power remains and Lach calls on it.
And his brother takes a deep breath.
Lach falls back, his vision fading, the pain taking over. His brother is…alive? He isn’t sure. But Lach can feel his soul once more.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Shim
I come out of the bond, my whole body shaking. I clench my fists and look down at my skin. It looks normal, but I know now it isn’t.
I am a corpse. I have been since the day I gave my life to save Bron’s.
I am a walking, talking corpse.
“You aren’t dead,” Lach says harshly. His voice is strained, as though he was really screaming, and not just in the dream. “You aren’t dead. Maybe you were, but you aren’t now.”
Tears stream down Bron’s face. “I killed him. I killed Shim.”
Gods, I don’t want her to take it that way. “No. I gave my life to you, a chumann. I didn’t want to live without you.”
She sits up, her breasts exposed in the moonlight. “Gillian didn’t bring me back. Shim did.”
“Yes, and somehow I brought Shim back,” Lach insists. “He isn’t dead. I know when I’m reanimating someone. I can feel it.”
I stare at my brother and wonder how many secrets he keeps. “And how many corpses have you reanimated over a long period of time, brother?”
Lach’s face is pale, except for the scars which appear as red as the day he got them. “More than you know. More than I want anyone to know. Shim, you’re alive. I didn’t remember much, but I remember now. I called on my power and it flared, like your fire. It flared in a big way and it brought you back to life. Damn it, Shim, use that brain of yours. You eat and sleep and you can feel your body. A corpse can’t do that.”
“You don’t know. You don’t know that.” The thought horrifies me. I was dead. Am I still dead?
“I killed you.”
Bron. I need to hold on to Bron. My head is swimming. My body feels like a foreign thing, but I move to hold her. “You didn’t kill me. You didn’t.”
“I felt it. I was you in that dream,” she explains. “I felt my hand reach out and pull at your soul. I reached out and took your life to save mine. How could I do that? You’re dead because I killed you.”
“He isn’t dead,” Lach insists. He gets off the bed and shoves his legs into a pair of trousers. “Will either of you bloody listen to me?”
“You should have left me, Lach,” I spit back, anger bubbling to the surface. How can I go on knowing what I am? How can I make love to our wife when I’m a dead thing animated only by my brother’s power? I gave my life for her, but Lach brought me back and turned me into a monstrous thing.
Lach’s fists clench. “You would rather be dead than dependent on me? Is that how much I mean to you?”
Bron stiffens in my arms. “He didn’t mean that. He values you.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask.
Bron turns her face up to me. “You said I didn’t listen, but I think you’re the one who missed something here. Didn’t you see what he did for you? Didn’t you feel why he did it?”
I shake my head as though I can sharpen my memory by getting rid of the cobwebs polluting my brain. All of our memories are there now. Mine and Lach’s and Bron’s memories are shuffling through my head like a wild mixed-up stew that was stirred and now bubbles. Lach ran into the burning building. Lach was horribly burned—by my body—and yet he picked me up again.
And I am dead. Dead. Dead.
“He won’t listen.” Lach turns away. “And it’s not about this bullshit. He felt what it’s like to really be me for the first time and he doesn’t want anything to do with it. Well, guess what, brother, get used to it. We’re bonded, fully, and now you have a piece of my darkness inside you.”
I don’t know what exactly is fueling me. I know deep down I need to take a moment, but that word keeps riding me. Dead. Dead. Dead. I won’t have children. They’ll all be Lachlan’s. Bron will turn away because she can’t want a dead body in her bed. Lach set himself up to win everything. “And you have what you always wanted, brother. You have a tiny piece of light to illuminate that wasteland you call a soul.”