Through the Ether (Force of Nature Book 5) - Amber Lynn Natusch Page 0,85
Kat called as she slowly crouched down beside me. “Piper, look at me.” With a gentleness that barely registered, she cupped my face and turned me to look at her. When I finally did, a single, fat tear slowly trickled down her face, carving a jagged line through the blood staining it. “He’s gone,” she said, choking on that final word. “Knox is gone…”
I clutched him tighter still.
“But why?” I asked. Another sob broke through, and my body shook as the reality of what he had done slammed into me like the fey queen’s magic. “Why didn’t he stop?”
“Because he knew you couldn’t do it without him,” Reinhardt said as he walked up next to us. “He knew you would need all of his strength to defeat the queen—and that he would likely die in the process.”
All the air in my lungs flew out in a whoosh of breath, and I folded over top of him protectively, as though I could somehow keep his soul from leaving, even though I knew it already had.
“He sacrificed himself,” Merc said from behind me, “to save you. To save us all.”
As the weight of his words pressed down, Grizz, in bear form, inched up to my side and nudged my shoulder with his muzzle before lying down next to the alpha who had taken him in and resting his massive head on his arm.
“But I didn’t really get to say goodbye,” I whispered, pushing the stray hairs from Knox’s face.
“He loved you, Piper,” Foust said. “This was his way of showing it. This was his goodbye.”
I looked up to where Jagger, Foust, Brunton, and Liam stood. The pain on their faces as they looked down upon their fallen brother was too much to bear. A low, keening sound escaped me as I hugged Knox’s cooling body to my chest and rocked.
He’d found me in those Alaskan woods, and from that moment on, he’d done everything within his power to protect me—to keep me safe. But beyond that, he’d pushed me to be what he, above all others, could sense that I was. The force of nature I was destined to be. And even at the end, he’d had my back while he’d spurred me on, even knowing it would mean his death.
And now he was gone.
“You have to let him go, Piper,” Kat said softly as she disentangled my arms from his body.
“But—”
“I understand,” she said, pinning those sharp blue eyes on me. “I understand…”
She freed Knox from me and pushed Grizz away, then pulled me to my feet amid the wolves—Alaskan and New York combined—and other supernaturals now surrounding us. The guilt I felt as they looked at me was worse than any wound I’d ever endured—even my burns.
Then, without prompting, the pack and Kat turned their heads to the sky and let loose a mourning cry that shook the very ground Knox lay upon. As they honored their fallen wolf, my eyes drifted to where the vampires stood at a respectful distance. The look of sadness on Merc’s face was unlike anything I’d ever seen. When the wolves finished honoring their dead alpha, Merc, his brothers, and the surviving enforcers approached, blades in hand. Each pressed the sharp edge to his palm simultaneously and drew it across his flesh. Then they raised their hands high above Knox’s corpse as their king spoke.
“For our fallen brother,” Merc said softly. “As he shed his blood for us, so shall we shed ours for him.”
A macabre red rain pattered upon Knox’s body as the enforcers honored him as they would their own. I could only imagine the snide remark Knox would have made had he been there to see it. How he would have told Merc that he had gone soft. How they would have egged each other on without mercy until Grizz or Kat or I was forced to intervene. Whatever bizarre bond the two had shared had not been broken in death.
If anything, it might have been strengthened.
As the blood seeped into Knox’s clothing and flesh, the ground around him once again began to rumble. A bright, ethereal tendril of magic wrapped around his arms and legs, then extended toward the pack. Foust’s, Brunton’s, and Liam’s ankles were soon entwined, their bodies connected with the now-glowing aura. The energy pulsed from Knox to them, and everyone nearby stepped back as whatever magic or life-force the alpha—the Original imbued with the fey king’s power—had possessed transferred from his body to theirs.