A strangethunkand Magnus arching his back distracted me from reprimanding him for a moment. Then I saw it—an arrow, its tip dripping blood from where it protruded from his throat. Red-flecked foam gushed from his mouth.
He tried to speak, but the arrow had done too much damage, and only a choking sound came out. And because our bodies were being kept alive by my magic which was now stretched so thin, I knew for once I had had the final word. I strained to touch his face. Tenderness. Perhaps for the first time in our infiniteexistences I had given him something so fragile without fearing he would break it. “We have one, Magnus.”
The light faded as he drew in a final breath, for he could not let me have the last word. “Live, Tenora. Live.”
His words were far away, and with the last of my strength, I reached for him again. Our minds melded together, and he began to breathe for me.
Epilogue
The world revealed itself slowly. First there was sound, the quiet breathing of one asleep and my own raspy breaths. Then came the scents of burnt skin and the harsh fragrance of antiseptic. Then sight—a dark room with a familiar ceiling decoration. Lastly there came touch, or rather, the near-absence of it. My nerves were still healing, and only when I caught sight of my skin did I see I was not completely whole again. Patches were raw, muscle growing over the exposed bone, my blood pulsing through newly connected veins.
“Awake?” The gruff voice was heavy with sleep, and my heart sung to hear it.
“Yes.” I sounded like old Yanga, who had smoked weed most of her life.
“They kept us together, or you would be whole already.”
“You sound angry.”
“Why did you save me?” he asked. I’d never heard him so uncertain before.
“Because I cannot continue missing my other half,” I replied. “No matter what, we stay in the same place. Here, there, anywhere, we go together.”
Magnus gathered me into his arms and buried his face in my neck, breathing in my scent. The pain vanished, though the skin remained an ugly, open wound. “I thought I had lost you.”
“Oh, my love,” I sighed. He froze. Could he hear my racing heart? I rushed to clarify. “It slipped out. I am sorry.”
“Say it again.” His harsh command sent a shiver through my body.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have spoken so.” For though we were united in all things, love was an alien concept to us both. I was not even sure that Kota and Quintus had said the word to each other, though I never doubted they felt it. We were gods, and love made you vulnerable.
“No. What you said before.”
“My love?” It came out as a question full of wonder and hope.
“Yes. That. Again.”
“My love. My perfect, god-like love.”
As the words left my lips, my body and his knitted back together. Did love truly have that much power?
“My love,” I said again, and my mind was once again whole and clear. The powers that had been hidden and locked away within me were set free. I was the Mother once more. “I am returned.”
“Tenora,” he moaned, and pressed his warm, dry lips to mine. I knew that though he might never call me “love” or admit the feeling, what he felt for me was as infinite as the lifetimes we had spent, and would spend, together.
The world was new, the molten earth just hardening, and the brothel a garden of paradise for omegas and alphas until we could step out of the gates and reset humanity. There would be stumbling blocks, there would be setbacks, and there would behope.
