The Darkest Touch

CHAPTER NINETEEN

TORIN WATCHED KEELEY, who lay on his bed. Still, so still. He’d slept in this room for hundreds of years, dreaming of a day a woman could rest beside him. But this was as far from a dream as possible—this was a nightmare.

The sheets were soaked in her blood. His Sugar Plum Fairy was dying.

“No. No! I refuse to lose you. Do you hear me?” He shouted the words to the unconscious Keeley.

She had touched him, again and again, willing to face the consequences—this would not be how she died.

She will never die.

I need her too badly.

The day Torin had gone to the prison with Mari, Danika had given him a portrait. As the All-seeing Eye, Danika often saw glimpses of the future, and so far, she had never been wrong. In this particular portrait, Torin had been reclining in a dark leather chair, a glass of something in one hand, a cigar in the other. He’d been surrounded by people, enjoying life. His, theirs. The smile on his face suggested he was sublimely happy, with no worries or unsatisfied needs.

If that was to be his future, Keeley had to survive. It was as simple as that.

He applied pressure to her wounds...and she stopped bleeding. But as he watched, her chest stilled, no longer rising and falling.

No longer breathing.

He pounded on her sternum, one minute ticking into two...three... The wound in her neck reopened. Blood she desperately needed poured out.

He reared back, shouting, “Come on, Keys! Heal!”

The ensuing silence cut at him.

“Please! Do you have any idea how important you are to me?”

Again, silence.

But...she couldn’t know. He’d never told her.

With a bellow that sprang from the deepest depths of his soul, he punched a hole in the wall, welcoming the sharp pain in his knuckles. He never should have allowed Keeley to stay here. He should have found the strength to walk away from her a second time. For good.

His weakness had cost him. Had cost her. Just not the way he’d envisioned.

“Keeley! Are you listening to me?” He toppled the dresser, the drawers spilling across the floor. He kicked over a nightstand and stomped on the remains. “You’re in my bed. You said I could boss you around there. I’ve told you what to do, so do it!”

But she didn’t.

Every inhalation a burn in his chest, he ripped a light fixture from the wall and tossed it across the room, adding a new hole to his collection.

He cared for this woman. Cared so damn much. Seeing her like this, so helpless against a wound he hadn’t caused but hadn’t protected her from...something broke inside him. The last shreds of his humanity, perhaps.

He fell to his knees. He felt like an animal, starved and desperate. Utterly wild. Inconsolable.

“Calm down,” Lucien said, appearing beside him.

Calm down? “Why don’t you shut the hell—”

His door swung open before he could finish insulting his friend, and Danika rushed inside his room, carrying a jar of...dirt?

“Sienna brought me back,” she said, stopping at the side of the bed to dump the—yes, dirt. The scent of it filled the air as the grains covered Keeley’s injury.

Torin was on his feet and at Danika’s side before she could finish, getting in her face, almost brushing his nose against hers. Realizing how close he was, he backed off an inch. “You better have a good reason for doing that.” Or else.

Danika’s eyes went wide with sudden fear.

“She does,” a voice said from the doorway. It belonged to her man, Reyes. “She had a vision, and it showed her how to help your girl.” The keeper of Pain stood with his arms crossed over his middle, eyeing Torin with expectation. “Step away from Danika, or we will have a problem, my friend.”

Can’t even challenge my friends without putting their lives at risk.

Grinding his teeth, he straightened and stepped away.

Danika breathed a sigh of relief and continued on. “I’m going to lean down and make sure the dirt gets inside the cut, okay?”

“Why?” he barked.

She flinched at his vehemence, saying, “Do you know the saying just rub some dirt on it? Apparently, that came from her species. The Curators. Keeley is bonded to the earth and its seasons, which means she’s bonded to its elements. They help her.”

That...made sense, he realized. He shouldered Danika out of the way without actually touching her and crouched at Keeley’s side. He gently worked the dirt into her wound. For the first time since he’d watched her fall under the Unspoken One’s attack, he began to hope.

“Torin,” Danika said. “Are you sure you should be doing that? You’re—”

“I’m gloved,” he snarled. He would not put Keeley at risk, not again. He just...he had to touch her in some way.

“I know, but...” Danika licked her lips as he pinned her with a glare. “Never mind.”

The next few minutes of stilted silence were sheer torture. He waited, but Keeley’s condition never improved. He rubbed the dirt harder, even manipulating the tears in her skin to let the dirt penetrate deep. Something burned the back of his eyes.

“I don’t understand,” Danika said. “This was supposed to work.”

Torin got up, swiped the jar from Danika’s hands and filled it with water. If one element would help, two would surely help more. He gently poured the water onto her wound.

She remained quiet, still. Too still.

Hope died; it was a swift, brutal slaying.