Page 2 of Renegade Kings

This wasn’t happening. I wouldn’t let this man die because of me. And I wasn’t just talking about shoving him into a violent river. His brother stabbed him because he was saving me.

As soon as my hands reached the sand, I clawed my way up the shore. My muscles screamed at me for not just flopping on my back and giving into the exhaustion screaming through my body. Instead, I pushed to my feet, knowing that just because I’d made it to shore didn’t mean it was over yet.

I staggered forward as my gaze latched onto Tank and the way he tilted Dean’s head back before he breathed into his mouth. I knew what it meant, but my mind wouldn’t let me consider the thought. It wouldn’t let me accept that he was gone.

This wasn’t the end.

This place didn’t get to take someone else from me.

Not now, not ever. I was so fucking done with running away and accepting the horror of it all.

Not when there was a chance still left, when there was a chance to fight.

“Alyssa, I need you,” Tank barked without even looking up. Instead, his hands came to Dean’s chest as he started compressions, concentrating on the task at hand.

I dropped to my knees beside them. My magic simmered just underneath my skin like it was searching for a way to reach out and help. Except, I didn’t know if it could. I’d ignored everything about it for decades. Even when I had the chance to train, I’d been hidden away for fear of what would happen if anyone else in Nymeria had discovered the truth.

Tank’s muttered counting pierced the self-hatred threatening to fog my mind, and I concentrated, waiting for when it was my turn.

“Now.”

Pinching Dean’s nose and making sure I tipped his head to the right angle, I sealed my lips to his and pushed two breaths into his lungs. This wasn’t how I envisioned the next time I pressed my lips to Dean’s, but it would be the most important kiss we ever had.

Tank listened quickly at Dean’s chest again before, with a quiet snarl, he returned to the compressions, refusing to give up.

“The others…” I started, my gaze flicking to the river as I did.

“Don’t matter right now,” Tank told me gently. “They can look after themselves. If they come out further downstream, we’ll regroup with them after.”

It helped that Tank had complete faith in the others. That he seemed so confident that we hadn’t lost Dean.

“Again,” Tank ordered.

I dipped my head without question, closing my eyes as I concentrated on the magic that ran through me, through this land. There had to be a way to use it in this situation, and as I breathed the precious oxygen into Dean’s lungs that he couldn’t draw himself, I forced myself back to that place of calm I’d found before.

There was an answer here. I knew there was. We just had to find it.

I could see that calm reflected back at me in Tank’s serious eyes. Determination flared to life inside me. He moved without question as he continued his attempts to resuscitate Dean. He was so sure of the men who had strolled into our lives and changed the course of everything that I knew he wouldn’t accept this as an ending, either.

They were meant to be in the bond with us. It wasn’t complete yet. There was still an empty place where the others were supposed to be, and I knew Tank felt it, too.

For a moment, I considered trying to force it. Perhaps that was the answer. If we could bind Dean to us, perhaps we could use the bond to hold him in this world where he was supposed to be. My magic would tether us together and maybe it could be enough to bring him back to me.

But even as I thought about it, I knew it wasn’t possible. The bond wasn’t made for something like that, and you sure as hell shouldn’t force it on someone.

Then as I listened to Tank’s rhythmic, muttered counting, waiting for when it was my turn to try to bring back the man lying too still in front of us, the magic inside me rolled and pushed against me. It heard my desperate plea to save the man in front of me and it was answering.

Hope surged with a wave of power that I didn’t understand. I’d never felt it before, and I didn’t even dare to dream that it could actually do what I needed it to.

As I dipped my head once more to breathe for the man in front of me, I felt the magic move. It withdrew back inside me as I pushed out the first breath, and then it reached deep inside me, cracking open a well of power I didn’t even know existed.

I felt the rush, the hum of magic as it filled every cell in my body, and when I released the second breath into Dean, it rushed forth, invading him as well.

But this magic was different. It took a part of me with it and I could feel the way it twisted and turned, filling Dean’s body and brushing against a power that was buried deep inside of him. A power that lay dormant, fading, just the glimmer of a flame about to extinguish.

Tears touched my cheeks as I realised how close we were to losing him, how close he stood to the edge of life.

Tank’s hands moved back to Dean’s chest, but I grabbed them with my own. He looked at me confused, but I couldn’t explain to him what was happening when I didn’t understand it myself.