Fatal Ties: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Lillim Callina Chronicles Book 7) (16 page)

“
I
f I said
everything was fine, would you believe me?” I asked Thes as he got slowly to his feet and rubbed his head.

Truth be told, I was dying. I knew that. I could feel my body shutting down. Call me selfish, but if I was going to die, I wanted to draw it out a little longer.

I barely had the energy to sit here with my eyes open, and soon, I probably wouldn’t be able to do that.

“No,” Thes replied, still trying to shake the cobwebs out of his brain. “Where’s Connor?”

“Dead.” There was no use sugar-coating it, and this was what he’d wanted. He didn’t know that, and everything inside me was scared he’d hate me, but I had to let him know, if only so his future self would know too. “He sacrificed himself to stop Death from melting the world.” I took a deep breath. “He died a hero.”

“He wasn’t supposed to die at all,” Thes growled, taking an angry step toward me like he could bring Connor back to life by beating me with his fists. He couldn’t, but I might let him try if it’d make him feel better. I was going to die anyway. It could be my parting gift to him. After all, we’d saved the world. I was fine dying for that.

Part of it was that I sort of felt like I’d served my purpose. After all, I’d been brought back because Dirge had been a hero and I’d never quite felt like I’d lived up to what she had been. Now, I didn’t feel that way. I felt like I’d earned my life, like I’d made something of it. Yes, it had been shorter than I’d liked, but at the same time, I’d done my duty. I’d made the hard sacrifice, and I liked to think Dirge would be proud to have come back as me.

“Yeah, he was.” I sighed, wondering just how much to tell him or if it’d do any good. Something told me I should just save my breath. Only, I needed to tell someone. It might as well be him. “I’m going to let you in on a secret, Thes.”

Thes looked angry enough, that for a second, I thought he might grab me by the throat and throw me into the abyss. I probably wouldn’t have stopped him. I mean, what I’d done was horrible. I’d lied and promised things to Connor to get him to sacrifice himself. It was made worse because I didn’t even know if Caleb was alive. The last thing he’d seen me do was kiss Connor. God, I was despicable.

“What secret?” he asked, shutting his eyes and visibly calming himself. I wasn’t sure how he managed to do it since he was a werewolf and they were notorious for the whole “berserker rage” thing, but then again, Thes had always been a remarkably calm werewolf.

“You told me to do it.” I sighed, not able to look at him as I continued because I was every kind of coward. I wasn’t telling him for him. No, I was doing it for me. I knew that, and I went on anyway. “You may not believe me, Thes, but you came from the future and told me how it had to be. You told me you spent years trying to find a way to bring him back, but that Connor’s death was the lynchpin. It was him or the universe.”

“Then I was wrong,” Thes snarled. He was so close to me I could feel the heat radiating off of him. He was mad at me, and that was okay, but being mad at me wouldn’t make it less true. I just wasn’t sure I knew how to explain that to him.

“You weren’t,” I said, turning my gaze upon him. The tears in his eyes hurt me more than any physical blow ever could have. Thes had sacrificed so much to save Connor, and in the end, he couldn’t. I saw that realization hit him, saw him wallow at the end of a life-altering depression that would drive him to become his guilty future self.

“You don’t know that.” He tried to smile, failed, and hit his chest anyway. “I’m a fool. What do I know?”

“More than you know,” I replied, reaching out and taking his hand. He didn’t pull it away which was somewhat surprising. “Right now you’re thinking, I went to Egypt and made Connor into the destroyer. If I hadn’t done that, well, maybe he’d be alive. He wouldn’t be, Thes. None of us would be because at the end of the day, we needed Connor, not the destroyer, to win. We needed someone who could hold all the power of the universe in his hand and
decide
he was still going to do the right thing. Only Connor could do that, Thes. So, no, you did do the right thing even if it doesn’t feel like it.”

“Why are you holding my hand, Lillim?” he asked, and the hostility in his voice radiated along my skin. Hadn’t he heard a single thing I’d said? It seemed like he should have, but if he had, he didn’t seem to care much about it. That was too bad, I hoped that when he replayed this conversation in his head later, he wouldn’t be guilty. After all, I had way better people to haunt than him.

“Because I think I’m going to die.” I wiped my lips with the back of my free hand, and they came away red. I showed it to him. “Because my vision is fading to black, and I don’t want to go into that great beyond alone. I know you don’t care, and let’s be real, you’re not my first choice.” I tried to smile, but failed. “But you’re not my last choice either.”

“Lillim,” he said, only it wasn’t his voice. At least, it didn’t sound like him, and it was coming from behind me. “I’m not letting you die.”

I turned toward the sound of it, and as I did, I felt the pulse of magic on Mattoc’s brand. It pushed back the darkness encroaching on my vision, and for a split second, for a tiny, nearly unfathomable length of time, I felt Mattoc’s touch on my hand instead of Thes’s.

Now, I know that’s not possible. I know Mattoc is gone. He wasn’t dead in the way my mom was dead. He wasn’t waiting around in Hades or Valhalla or wherever the heck he was supposed to go when he died. No, Mattoc had been erased from existence. He couldn’t talk to me.

But I would have also sworn on everything I was, that Mattoc, that my Mattoc, was touching me, was speaking to me from somewhere. And as I reached out toward the touch of him, I felt him slip away like the last vestiges of a dream. A fresh pang of loss hit me all over again. I wasn’t even sure if it was real or not, but it felt real. If it was, then I had to do something about it.

“Lillim, I’m not letting you die,” Thes said, moving close and wrapping his arm around my waist. He hauled me off my feet like I weighed nothing, and as I turned my gaze back to him, I realized he was back in werewolf form. “But that doesn’t mean you don’t need a doctor. I’ve had enough friends die today.” The muscles in his legs tensed as he leapt into the air and drove his claws into the bark of Yggdrasil. “You won’t be joining them, at least, not if I can help it.”

“We’re still friends?” I asked somewhat surprised because he was supposed to hate me. So why didn’t he seem to hate me?

“We were never friends,” he grunted which wasn’t really the response I was looking for. I mean it was true. We were uneasy allies at best, but still, he didn’t have to tell me that when I was dying. He was supposed to be nice to me.

As he scaled the world tree with remarkable ease, I thought about yelling at him about it, but I didn’t because part of me hoped he’d make it before I went into the great beyond. Call me crazy, but I had no special desire to bite the bullet. Once we got to the top, we could have more of a talk, assuming, of course, I didn’t die.

Besides, I was still holding onto a stupid little hope I’d see my mother up top one way or the other. If I didn’t die, would she still there? Or had she been recalled to the underworld? Would my father be there to see me? It seemed like he should be. Maybe if all of us were there we could all take a picture? I’d like that.

As tears began to leak down my face, I realized I had no idea what I’d find when we got out of this hole, but I knew one thing. No matter what it was going to hurt, and I’d grieve. Then I’d get up and take a step forward.

Why?

Because Mattoc might not be as lost as I’d thought he was, and if that was the case, if that was truly the case, I would find him.

I had to find him because, like Thes, I’d lost far too many friends, and that was about to change.

T
hank
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