Between the Moon and Her Night (Between Life and Death #3)

Chapter 37

Von

“E zra!” I yelled as I rushed into the apothecary with my mate in my arms. Her head was slumped against my shoulder, her body shivering uncontrollably. The color was chased from her skin, turning it an ashen gray.

“Lower your voice, you’ll scare the herbs,” Ezra scolded as she rushed over, shooting me a stern look before she looked at Sage, her expression shifting from stern to concerned. Her purple-stained fingers washed over the Little Goddess’s face, shifting from her cheeks to her forehead. “She’s as cold as ice. What has happened?”

“She asked me if I said something through the bond, but I hadn’t. Terror filled her eyes and then she just fell,” I told her, urgency filling my voice. “Help her.”

Ezra gestured to a small bed in the corner of the room. “Place her there.”

Quickly, I walked over to it, but when I went to lay her down, the muscles in my body locked up like they’d suddenly taken on a will of their own—as if they were not willing to part with her.

“Newly formed bonds are strange things indeed,” Ezra muttered as she walked up beside me. “It knows that she is suffering and does not wish to let her go. It feels . . . she is safer in your arms.”

In truth, I felt she was safer here, too, but I knew that Ezra needed to examine her.

I gritted my teeth, trying to reconnect my mind to my arms.

Nothing .

“Von,” Ezra said.

Somehow, my neck muscles complied, and I turned my head to face her.

She raised her hand, palm facing the ceiling, brought it to her lips, and blew. A plume of green hit me in the face, followed by a waft of mint. Fresh and earthy.

“Breathe it in now,” she instructed.

I grimaced as I drew a breath, feeling the foreign particles pass through my nostrils, down into my lungs. It itched horribly.

“Deeply now.”

Scowling, I did as I was told.

Seconds later, my rigid muscles relaxed, like a hand had massaged out the kinks, the tenseness. Abdomen contracting, I leaned over the bed and gently placed Sage on it. “What was that stuff?” I asked, backing up.

“It’s a combination of things, but the main ingredient is catnip.” She rubbed her hand on her apron .

Fucking catnip? I shook my head. “Does that work for everyone?”

“No. Not really. Just you, and well, cats.”

I snorted at that.

Something moved in my periphery, pulling my gaze towards it.

A fluffy brown and white cat emerged from a crate that had been flipped over, a door cut into it. Slowly, he waddled over to me, his watermelon belly nearly scraping against the floor. He began to rub against my legs—painting my pants in fur.

“Like I said . . . you and cats.” Ezra stated as she bent over and began moving her hands over Sage’s face. Ezra worked in strokes, as if she were smoothing something out, pulling her hands towards her.

“Mrrrow,” said the cat.

I glanced down at it and quirked a brow. It looked up at me and meowed again, showing off its tiny little fangs.

“Don’t mind Big Papa,” Ezra said. “He’s just saying hello.”

Having heard its name, the feline meowed again. He continued to rub against my legs as I returned my attention to Sage. My stomach knotted. I hated seeing her like that, hated that I didn’t know how to help her.

“Should we cover her?” I asked. “Try to warm her or something?”

“No. We don’t know what this is yet,” Ezra said as her hands glided over Sage’s body. She paused. “That’s strange.”

“What?” I asked, leaning in. Adrenaline pounded through my veins.

“Her soul . . . it isn’t here.”

“What do you mean it isn’t here?” I growled, taking a worried step forward, around the purring cat.

Ezra shook her head, her hands hovering directly over the middle of Sage’s chest. “Her soul walks somewhere else. But where or when, I do not know. I do not know if it is a separate realm, a dream, or a vision that she has gone to. Regardless, she is not here, and that is why her body has grown so cold. It has lost the warmth of her soul.” Ezra retracted her hands and turned to me. “You have fed from her, yes?”

“I have.”

“What color is her ichor?” she asked, brows raised.

I shook my head, not understanding what that had to do with anything. “It is gold.”

“You are sure?” She rushed over to a wood desk full of various jars and tinctures. The cat followed her over, meowing at her. She pulled open a drawer, rummaged around it, and grabbed a small knife with a thin, smooth blade.

“Of course I’m sure.” I was growing increasingly frustrated.

“The true color might be hiding from us.” She went over to a row of shelves and began looking through it before she settled on a tiny vial filled with a clear liquid and dropped it into the pocket of her apron. Then she scooted back to Sage, grabbed her hand, turned it over, and—

I snatched Ezra’s wrist. “What are you doing?” I snarled, my shadows peeling away in fear.

“I am trying to help her. So let me do that.” She punctuated her words through gritted teeth .

My nostrils flared, but I let her wrist slip free.

“Territorial male,” she grumbled as she turned back to Sage.

The beast inside of me rattled against its cage while I watched her carve a three-inch slit into Sage’s hand. Rich, golden ichor pooled to the surface, scenting the room.

Ezra didn’t look at me as she stretched out her hand towards me—the one that held the knife. I took it from her, raised it over my shoulder, handing it to my shadows. They placed it on a small table.

Ezra’s hand darted into her pocket, and she removed the vial. Using her teeth, she pulled out the cork, spit it onto the floor, and then dumped the contents on Sage’s palm. As soon as the clear substance mixed with Sage’s ichor, it began to hiss and steam.

Her ichor turned . . . red. Just like the mortals. And then it changed to—

“Silver,” Ezra gasped. “Well, I’ll be damned. I knew there was something different about her.” She turned to me, her eyes wide. “Do you know what this means?”

I took a breath—I needed it. “She’s not just a New God.”

“She’s not, no.” Ezra shook her head.

“So then why does she bleed gold?”

“I imagine it is because Aurelius’s heart beats inside her, however that is not her origin. Silver blood shows that her soul predates the creation of the New Gods, but the red is confusing because that would also make her . . .”

“Mortal,” I finished her sentence. It explained a lot of things, like why she needed sleep every night, why she needed three meals a day. Sage’s soul was both mortal and immortal, but not in the sense that she was a Demi God. No, this was different. This wasn’t half and half—it was two separate but full parts of her, like two sides of a coin.

“What do you make of it?” Ezra asked.

“The fact that you are asking me, I find concerning.”

“Indeed,” she agreed, a crease forming between her brows. “My sisters and I have a droplet of silver blood in our veins, but it is nothing like hers. It’s all so very curious.” Ezra let out a sigh. “But perhaps some secrets are better left hidden.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning we leave this riddle for another day and focus on what matters most—bringing her back to us.” She walked over to a shelf that ran from floor to ceiling and began looking through her jars of herbs—glass clinking against its brethren as she searched with little patience. “I suspect that she has had her first vision and it has knocked her soul loose in the process.” She turned to face me, a jar in her hand. Some type of brown substance lingered within. “We must give her a reason to return here, to us. And then I will call upon my sisters to help me stitch her soul to her body so that this does not happen again.”

I eyed the jar suspiciously. “How are we going to bring her back?”

“I’m not. But you are,” she said as she walked over to us. She pointed to me, flicking her pointer finger up and down. “Shirt off, muscles.”

I didn’t bother to ask why. I just did it.

When I dropped my black tunic onto the floor, I looked up to find Ezra’s eyes on me, burning as hot as an iron. She let out a low whistle. “The Creator sure doesn’t build ‘em like you anymore.”

I gave her a look.

She chuckled and then gestured to the bed. “If you would, please.”

She didn’t have to ask twice—the bond had been pulling me towards Sage ever since I placed her there—begging me to take her trembling frame in my arms. Swiftly, I conquered the short but unbearable distance between us. The bed dipped beneath my weight as I scooped Sage up and maneuvered underneath her. I lowered her so that she was lying down against my chest.

Ezra unscrewed the lid of the glass jar, dipped her hand inside, then ran her fingers down the middle of Sage’s face, painting three brown stripes.

The scent of wet soil bloomed in my nostrils. “Mud?” I asked.

Ezra nodded. “It is from the floor of the forest where you two forged the bond between you. When two halves of the same star become one, the magic is immense. It preserves the space as it is for centuries, making it a sacred spot. Now—” she gathered more of the mud and repeated the same act on me, “—it will be the thing that brings her back to you.” She screwed the lid on the jar and turned to walk back over to the shelves where she had gotten it from. “The barrier of her clothes must go too. You must be skin on skin for this to work.”

I looked down at Sage’s dress, and it dissolved away, revealing her ghostly pale skin—covered in strange markings that were an angry red, full of deep crevices and prominent furrows. I ran my hand down her back, expecting to feel the divots, but her skin was . . . smooth.

“What do you see?” Ezra asked me as she rushed back over. Her eyes flickered wearily between mine, as if she were trying to find the answer there.

“I think . . .” I clenched my jaw. I had grown used to seeing the markings and scars of what had taken the lives of other souls and it had never bothered me before. But seeing this, seeing the markings stamped on my mate’s flesh? Ice ran like a blade down my spine, causing my bloodless veins to run cold. “I think I’m seeing her death.”

“Past or future?” she asked, her voice crackling with concern.

“I do not know,” I answered. My gaze shifted to her arm. Gently, I took it and rotated it. The depression in her skin was different there—it looked as if it had been made from a rope.

Sage had either died from whatever this was, or I was getting a glimpse of her future.

The flames of anger consumed me as my stomach twisted, aching to purge itself of its contents. My shadows slithered around me, contorting and twisting as they looked for something to latch on to—to destroy.

“That will not help,” Ezra scolded, the knife in her hand once more. She placed it in Sage’s palm, wound her hand around it, and then took the blade to my wrist.

I latched on to the pain of the blade slitting my skin, focusing on it over my anger. Crimson bubbled to the surface.

“Feed your mate and call her home,” Ezra said as she stepped back.

I brought my wrist to my mouth, drawing a few swallows of blood, and then I leaned forward. I tipped Sage’s face up to mine and pressed my lips against her freezing ones, parting them as I released my blood into her mouth.

Come back to me, Little Goddess , I purred through the bridge of our connection.

Her lips began to warm under mine and then . . . she swallowed.

I pulled back, my hand roaming over her cheek.

Slowly, her eyelids fluttered open.

Weary blue eyes met mine.

“Nockrythiam?” she asked weakly, before her eyelids fell back closed.