His entire being was screaming out in pain as it refused to believe what had happened to her.
"Come on, baby," he whispered to her as he gently rocked her in his arms. "Don't die on me."
"It should heal," Danger whispered softly in a voice that belied her pain. "Why isn't the wound healing?"
"I'm sorry, akri," Xirena whispered. "Xirena didn't mean to get stabbed and let your woman die."
Urian joined them, his face pale as he noted her chest wound. "Did Stryker stab her with his personal dagger?"
"Yes," Alexion choked, noting the haunted look behind Urian's eyes. No doubt the man was reliving the death of his own beloved wife at Stryker's hands.
"Is there any way to save her?" he asked the Daimon.
"Acheron!" Urian called.
Alexion tensed as he heard a summons he knew Acheron wouldn't heed. He knew the rules of his mission. Acheron wouldn't interfere.
Danger was going to die.
The pain of that thought lacerated his chest and shredded his heart.
It brought tears to his eyes that he couldn't stop.
"I wish he would have had your soul," Alexion whispered against her cheek. "At least then I could have made you human."
"Can't you call on Ash's powers to heal her?" Urian asked.
Alexion shook his head. The power over life and death wasn't one Acheron was willing to share.
Kyros fell to his knees beside them. "I'm so sorry, Danger. None of the Dark-Hunters were supposed to be hurt tonight. Dammit, this is all my fault."
Alexion glared at him and his stupidity as his anger swelled, wanting to kill his so-called friend. "How do you figure? You were trying to turn them against Acheron."
"I know," Kyros said with a sincere gaze. "I screwed up. I'm so sorry. Stryker was so convincing. At first he turned Marco, and the next thing I knew, Marco was dead. Stryker swore it was you who killed him. I should never have listened to him."
But Alexion wasn't really listening to Kyros at the moment. All he could hear was Danger's breathing getting lighter and lighter.
She choked as she struggled to continue breathing. She reached up and touched his cheek with a cold hand. "If anything is left of me, will you take it to France? There's a mass grave in a park in Paris-"
"I know that park," Alexion said. It was where the victims of the guillotine had all been buried.
Danger took a deep breath. "My father, his wife, and my brother and sister are there. If I can't be with you, I want to be with them."
Alexion nodded as tears choked him. "I promise, Danger. I won't let you be alone."
She offered him a wan smile. "We had fun, didn't we, mon coeur?" She stroked his cheek with her thumb. "I'm so going to miss you."
Then he felt it... that last expulsion of breath from her body.
She went limp in his arms as her hand fell away from his face.
Alexion threw his head back and cried out as pain tore through him. In that moment, he hated Acheron. He hated Kyros. He hated Stryker, but most of all he hated himself for not being able to protect her.
Xirena and Kyros stayed back, their faces pale as they watched him, but Alexion didn't care. Nothing mattered except the woman who lay limply in his arms.
A woman whose vibrancy had shown him how to live again. More than that, she had shown him how to love. She had reached inside his heart and made it beat for the first time in more than nine thousand years.
Now she was gone.