Page 5 of Treasured

His legs were at weird angles, and blood seeped out of him, turning the snow as red as the queen’s ruby. His wings looked strange, as though someone had held them in one hand and snapped them in half.

That piercing, throbbing pain hounded me relentlessly, but I shoved it away.

This was more important.

He was more important.

Dropping the bag with the plant beside me, I fell to my knees. “No, no, no,” I sobbed. “Sebastian!”

He didn’t move. He didn’t speak. He didn’t do anything at all.

I shook his shoulders as red tears streamed down my face. “Wake up, wake up, wake up.”

The laughter was nothing but a distant memory now.

Seconds became minutes, but still, he did not move.

Lifting my head, I roared at the snowy heavens. My headache worsened, but I didn’t care. We were Bound and Tethered, and I could still feel our connection, but this was… he was… his body looked broken.

How could he be this injured and still be alive?

Focus, a voice in the back of my head urged me. He needed me. I couldn’t panic. Not right now. I had to be strong for us both.

He wasn’t dead yet.

I lifted my wrist and bit. The moment my fangs broke through my flesh, I moved my still-bleeding arm to Sebastian’s mouth.

“Drink,” I urged him.

I didn’t know what I would do if he didn’t wake up. I didn’t even know where we were. Who would I get for help? One of the only good things about our Tether was that our blood sustained the other.

Hopefully, if the gods cared about us at all, it would be enough.

My blood dripped into his mouth. One drop. Two. Five.

“Please,” I whispered.

At first, he did not move. Every second was an eternity as I waited for that first pull of his lips against my flesh. When it finally came, I sobbed.

He drank slowly, color returning to his face. His legs straightened, and his wings righted themselves before disappearing into a cloud of shadows.

“Wake up, please,” I begged him.

His eyes were still shut.

Hot tears slipped down my cheek. “If you wake up, I’ll try to curb my tongue.”

Nothing. He just drank.

“I won’t argue with you as much,” I offered, hiccuping as I tried to stop crying.

Still no response.

“I’ll even check with you before Sunwalking.” Giving up on stopping the tears, I wept freely. “Please, just wake up. I need you.”

A long, agonizing minute went by before his finger twitched. Hope rushed through me, but I didn’t dare remove my wrist from his mouth. He drank, and I stared at him.

When his eyes opened and that obsidian gaze met mine, I cried out.