House of Royale (Secret Keepers #4)(68)

Stone. Until that moment I had not noticed the weight in my hands, I had not felt the burden I carried, but the second he mentioned it, I remembered the words and opened my hands.

And let the stone go free.





23





Avalon





Lexen reached them first, followed closely by Daniel and Xander. Callie and Rao were not moving, flames roaring up around them. Daniel waded right into the flames, the only one of us able to touch them.

“You can’t go in?” Emma asked Lexen when she reached his side.

“No.” He shook his head. “These are Flames of Ether, right from the justices themselves. Daniel is the only one who can touch them.”

With a growl, Lexen pulled away from us and stormed toward Laous. Xander followed close behind him. Emma looked like she was about to follow as well, but I grabbed her arm.

“He’s fine, Em,” I said. “Look…”

Laous, who was covered in flames as well, was not fighting them. He was crashed out on the ground, like he’d used all his energy and now he was slowly fading away.

Lexen reached down and hoisted Laous up. The smaller man found a second wind and started to fight him, his flames shooting out. Lexen and Xander didn’t appear to be fazed by the fire, but Emma lurched forward, and I wondered what she had seen.

Then I saw it too. Laous’s flame was zooming across the ground, like an accelerant lit its path. Right toward the huge aircraft.

“Xander!” I screamed already moving. Emma was screaming for Lexen as well.

Our guys turned their heads toward us a microsecond before the world lit up and we were thrown backwards with the force of the explosion. Everything went white and then dark for a moment, my ears ringing. I groaned and tried to pull myself up from where I’d been thrown, shaking my head as I crawled forward.

My eyes zeroed in on where the guys had been standing last, but there was nothing except a giant crater in the ground. I screamed until my throat burned, tears pouring down my cheeks as I continued dragging my injured body forward. I wasn’t exactly sure what I’d hurt, but my legs weren’t really cooperating with me. My arms still worked though, and slowly I got closer to where I’d seen Xander last.

He couldn’t be gone. He was strong enough to survive an explosion like that. He had to be.

I collapsed as gut-wrenching sobs ripped through me. We might have saved the stone, we might have stopped the worlds ending, but what had we lost in the process?

I twisted at a noise beside me, only to find Emma half crawling, lurching toward me. She stopped by my side, hand scraping along the ground to clutch mine. “Can you see them?” she choked out.

“No,” I sobbed, my throat closing so no more words could escape.

A breeze brushed over me then, lifting the loose strands of my braid so that my hair was flying around me. Emma and I managed to roll over, sprawling on our backs.

A helicopter was closing in on us … more than one, actually.

There were dozens on the horizon, coming closer and closer. At first I thought this was more of Laous’s people, and I was already saying my goodbyes, because we had nothing left to fight them with. Then I noticed two of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen in my life.

One was the American flag etched on the side of the closest metal beast in the sky. The other was Lexen, soaring in between two choppers, Xander holding on to one of his arms. They flew in like angels, maneuvering so that they could land right by us. The helicopters started landing as well, but my focus was on Xander, on every perfect strand of golden hair on his head. On the beautiful eyes that were locked on me. The gentle hands that stroked my cheeks, taking the tears with them.

“I thought you were gone,” I said, my head pounding as I fought to hold on to consciousness.

Xander fitted one of his hands under my head; the other he gently slid under my butt, and he lifted me up to cradle me in his arms.

“Laous was determined to take us out with him,” he said huskily. “But I managed to counter with water; it formed a barrier between us for long enough so that Lexen could fly us out of the main blast zone. Laous wasn’t so lucky.” His lips pressed to my cheek, chasing the tears as they fell. “I will never leave you, Avalon. You’re stuck with me for life.”

In that moment, I let myself believe his words.

A loud wailing drew our attention. Xander spun with me in his arm, heading straight for the spot Callie’s huge fire had been. It was gone now, but three bodies remained sprawled there, the starslight stone on the ground beside them.

Callie was wailing, screaming, holding on to the body underneath her. “It’s not fair,” she sobbed hysterically. “He never had a chance. He never had a life.”

At first I thought it was Daniel, then I remembered that their souls were tied together. If Daniel had been dead, Callie would be too.

It was Rao.

His body was burned beyond recognition. Ash covered Callie from head to toe so that she was almost unrecognizable.

“I killed him.”

More screams ripped from her and I wanted to run away and hide, because her pain was hurting my heart so badly that I couldn’t breathe. I wouldn’t be a weak-ass bitch like that, though. She needed me.

“We have to go closer,” I said to Xander.

His eyes were hard, jaw rigid as he nodded. We were all mourning, all of us sharing Callie’s pain. Especially Daniel, who had just lost his second brother in a matter of a month.