N-no matter. She could fix this. She could. She would, she would, she would. Because she wouldn’t give up. Not ever. Panting, wheezing, Viola dragged her male’s beautiful head back to his body, doing her best to fit the pieces of the puzzle together.
“Come on! Heal!” He had before.
Like Crimson, he’d just…stopped.
“I’m so sorry, kitten. You were right. Death came for me.”
Though she cradled his head in her lap, he spoke from behind her. Or rather, his spirit spoke from behind her.
She knew he petted her hair. She felt a chill, all his warmth gone. Hot tears spilled down her cheeks. “I can fix this.”
“You cannot make me a new body, and that is what I need to stay.”
Hair slapped her cheeks as she shook her head. “There has to be another way.”
Instead of trying to convince her otherwise, he said, “Before I met you, I was the living dead. You brought me to life.” His voice cracked at the edges. “I’m not ready to leave you. I’m so sorry,” he repeated.
His heartbreak hastened hers, but she shook her head again. “No. No! You’re healing, and that’s that. I’m the most amazing goddess to ever goddess, and I will not lose my husband.”
She got to work, easing his body to the side, scrambling to her feet and issuing commands. “Lie down inside your body without argument. Now.”
“I won’t let you use one of your lives on me. I can tolerate leaving you only because I know you’re safer this way.”
“I said now!” she screeched, palace walls shaking. The floor shaking. Vines shot up from the ground and coiled around his wrists and ankles, even in his spirit form, forcing him to do as she’d commanded. “Thank you,” she told the world.
“Viola—”
“You are not abandoning me. Not now.”
He pressed his lips together. Had he faded even more?
“I’ll weld you whole again. Every part of you.” She tore off her long-sleeved shirt, revealing the tank top underneath. “I can separate a spirit from a body, so why can’t I repair a body and reconnect the spirit?”
Viola worked for hours. With painstaking care, she used streams of her own immortality to sew the intangible into the tangible and connect tangible with tangible. Giving him what he’d forbidden. One of her lives. At some point, Brochan fell into a deep sleep, the vines no longer needed. And still he faded. Faded right before her very eyes.
I won’t panic. I won’t. Faded wasn’t gone. And this was a far more complex surgery than she’d performed on Fluffy when she shared a piece of her heart with him. It was a far more painful surgery, too. In some ways, however, the process was easier. Brochan’s body accepted her lifeforce as if they were one and the same. Two halves of a whole. Maybe they were.
If she lost another ability, so be it.
Fluffy remained by her side all the while, primed from battle. At some point, McCadden arrived to gather the pieces of the Forsaken and pile them inside a locked cell for burning later. Or another surgery. Viola’s mind raced with possibilities…
Still fading… There was only one Best Mate Ever, and Brochan was it.
Can’t lose him. Agony choked her. Tears stung her eyes. Working faster…
Finally, she finished, nothing else to be done. His head was attached to his body, his spirit nestled inside. His eyes remained closed, and she fought for breath, her lungs squeezing. If this failed…
This couldn’t fail.
“Brochan.” She shook his shoulders. “You wake up right this second. That’s an order from your beloved. Wake or I’ll be extremely cross with you. I might even give you the silent treatment!”
Nothing.
McCadden pulled her head against his chest. Not to stop her but to…comfort her? “He’s gone, goddess. He’s gone. I am so sorry. I—”
“No!” Too frantic to untangle the meaning behind his actions, she wrenched free and gave Brochan another shake.
“Either you wake up, or I wed your brother-son,” she screamed in his face.
His eyelids popped open, rage flaring in his irises. He blinked. “Kitten?”
Relief shoved her into motion. Crying out, she threw herself atop him, and he wrapped his strong arms around her. As she sobbed, he held her and cooed.
When finally she calmed, she sagged against him and sniffled. “I did it. I saved the day.”
“You did,” he replied. “And you did it well.”
“The wellest.” Sniff, sniff. He was alive and well, and she was free of the demon. They had hope and a future! “I don’t think you’ll need a battery charge. You love me so much, I was already a part of you.”
Fluffy raced circles around them, clearly excited to have his parents all better.
“Well,” she said, “apparently I’m not just the goddess of the Afterlife. I’m the goddess of New Beginnings.”
He rolled her to her back, rising above her—to everyone’s horror—and brushing the tip of his nose against hers. “We will have the most incredible life together.”