I could hear their shouts as a pair of arms carried me.

They were shouts of happiness, shouts of relief, wails of mourning, and soon, the quiet whisperings of worry.

I opened my eyes and it was immediately clear that I was no longer in my body.

Once again, I found myself in the in-between.

It was Christian's arms that carried me. He walked across the drawbridge toward Dannek castle stone-faced and with his jaw set.

As for me, I lay perfectly still.

My chest didn't rise and fall.

My body did not breathe.

My body was...dead.

There were several lacerations across my face, neck, and arms--the soul-sucking scratches of my ghosts and my ears and nose were bleeding.

My lifeless head flopped against Christian's blood-stained shirt.

"Lady...no," Darius whispered as Christian carried me past him.

"Make way!" Darius shouted. Waving his arms in the air, he cleared a path for Christian to get through, past the foyer, past a long, dark hallway, littered with women, on the ground, crying, and down a set of stairs into the dungeon.

In the dungeons, it was dark, only the dim light of the moon filtering through small windows.

Darius, assisted by another guard, pulled open a heavy trap door , and I saw, below, the peering, tear-streaked faces of dozens of women and children.

"Find my Grandfather," Christian ordered.

Darius jumped into the basement and a great commotion ensued below.

Women jumped out of the way, some gripping their crying children to open a path toward the back.

Christian handed my limp body to a guard below before he climbed down and immediately took me back into his arms.

Grandfather Nandru pushed to the front of the crowd, his white hair brushing his shoulders. I remembered him from the last time I'd seen him, under very similar circumstances, his kind face hovering over me as he placed his palms over Christian's shoulders.

"My heavens, child. What happened?"

"Help her." Christian croaked. Then louder. "Grandfather, help her!"

Christian dropped to his knees, setting me on the cold stone floor of the dungeon, though I could not feel it.

Grandfather Nandru knelt down beside him, worrying creasing his forehead.

"I think she's dead," Christian whispered, and he used the back of his palm to swipe at his face. "I told her to stay away," he went on. "She didn't listen."

A woman with black hair, piled into a crown of braids on her head, skirted around Grandfather Nandru and fell to her knees beside Christian. She had bright blue eyes and they shared the same cheekbones.

His mother, I realized.

She wrapped her arms around his stiff shoulders and rested her head in the crook of his neck. She rubbed his arm up and down as he sat there, unmoving, while Grandfather Nandru pulled vials of liquids from his cloak.

My heart ached for Christian.

A quiet, concerning silence, had come over him. He stared at my body with hands balled into fists which shook slightly against his knees.

Anca, his mother, continued to whisper soothing words to him but he didn't react.

He appeared not to hear her. He appeared not to see anything, not even my blood-stained face.

Just like me, Christian was, in a way, trapped somewhere cold and dark.

Grandfather Nandru lifted my head onto the inner crease of his arm and tipped a vial of blood into my mouth.

Several minutes went by.

The crowd was slowly ushered out of the dungeons by Darius. When it was empty, he stood in the background, his arms clasped behind him, pretending to look anywhere else but my lifeless body.

Grandfather Nandru chased one vial after another, pouring them into my mouth but nothing happened.

I didn't want to die.

I wasn't ready.

I still didn't know where mom and Taylor were, hadn't even come close to rescuing them.

With me gone, they'd be dead too.

And Christian...

I couldn't leave him to deal with the after math of this battle alone.

Ally's cold fingers clasped over my wrists, in this dark and desolate void.

Not yet, I whispered to her. Not yet.

But her cold, seething grasp tightened. She spun me around, pulling me further into a tunnel of darkness.

I resisted but it was useless. Ally had a sort of power that I lacked now. There was nothing but emptiness in me.

As if the fiery magic outside had burned away every last drop of life from my body.

Aly, please, I whispered. I'm not ready.

There was a hollow ache in my bones, a painful tugging but not in the direction of my body.

No, my body, and Grandfather Nandru as he gave me frantic chest compressions and Christian stared silently and unflinchingly at my face, those things were miles away.

Then she appeared.

In a sea of black, where the life behind me tunneled out of existence, my birth mother appeared.

She grabbed Ally by the shoulders and pushed her away from me.

She took my face, kissed my cheek, and blew air into my face, her hands shoving me hard in the chest.

The next moment, I slammed back into my body and coughed, blood spewing out of my mouth.

At the same time, Christian let out a ragged breath.

I glanced between him, Grandfather Nandru, and Anca, all staring at me with wide eyes.

"You have more lives than a cat," Grandfather Nandru whispered as he rested back on his ankles. "But you will not survive this a third time. Do you understand, child?"

I nodded and sat up slowly.

Though Christian was inches away from me, as my hand reached for his, he stood abruptly and stormed away.

He stopped at the back wall and leaned against it, palms first, head bowed down and shoulders shaking, as if those bricks were the only thing holding him up.

Grandfather Nandru's hands supported me into a better sitting position just in time to see Christian fall to his knees.

The river of emotions he'd been holding back exploded out of him and his mother held him as he sobbed.

I glanced at his grandfather and then back at Christian, shock keeping me frozen on the ground.

"Chris," I whispered.

"He needs a moment," A different voice said.

It was Daciana.

She emerged from the shadows, weary-faced and with the front of her royal blue dress stained with blood.

"Let's get you cleaned up."

Grandfather Nandru helped me to my feet which were unsteady at best.

"Go slowly, child," He said. "You must take it easy."

I nodded, eyes glued to Christian's form still kneeling on the floor, his face buried in his mother's shoulder.

Anca glanced up at me as we went past and shot me a small smile.

I hesitated at the edge of the dungeon. It felt wrong to leave him like this. But what could I say? He'd begged me not to go after him and I'd done just the opposite...but if I hadn't, it'd be me mourning over his dead body right now. And I wasn't sure that was something I could ever handle.

It'd been reckless, maybe, but I'd do it again if it meant he'd get to live.

Yet something about the sound of him sobbing so broken-hearted like that, twisted inside my stomach like a knife.

I'd seen plenty of men cry in my lifetime. Luke for one had never shied away from emotion but the fact that it was Christian...

The man I loved.

Maybe it was the bond, but I could feel the hollow pain in each sob. And knowing it was because of me that he suffered like this...

He'd been right all along.

Loving someone was giving them the power to hurt you. But given the choice, each time, no matter the consequences or the pain that came with it, I'd still choose him.

I'd still save him.

"Lady," Darius said, bowing slightly at the waist as we reached him. "I owe you my life. Thank you."

"Aimee," I said, my voice raw. "You can call me, Aimee."

Darius climbed up through the trap door and reached back down to pull me through.

I glanced one last time over my shoulder at Christian. His mother rubbed circles into his back and it struck me how young he looked at that moment.

I was glad now that there were no Readers left in the dungeon to see him like this.

Where the battle hadn't been able to break him, somehow, this had.

I swallowed hard just as Darius grabbed my wrists and pulled me up through the trap door and onto a cool, marble floor.

Daciana emerged next and with an arm draped across my shoulders for support, she led me away from the dungeons and to a rectangular room with small windows.

I'd been there once before, inside the servant's dining room.

The table had been pushed back to the furthest end of the room and on the ground lay several injured vampires, some groaning in pain, others nursing their wounds in silence.

"I think I broke him," I said as Daciana wiped the blood from my face with a cool, wet rag. "I broke Christian."

"You died, Aimee. To have your bonded mate die, even for just a few minutes...it's soul-crushing. It's a pain I wouldn't wish on anyone. Not even the humans who attacked us tonight."

"I had no idea. I--"

"You saved his life and ours along with him. He is thankful he just needs some time to get over that shock. Be patient."

"I feel horrible but I can't apologize for it. I won't, Daciana. I'd do it again in a heartbeat."

"Oh, I know, honey. My brother is lucky that you love him so much otherwise we'd all be dead now. But try to put yourself in his shoes. If it had been you mourning him...I can't even imagine that level of pain."

It wasn't difficult to imagine.

Just the thought of Christian lying somewhere on the stone bridge, a stake in his chest and the life gone from his eyes made me shiver. It made my knees weak and my heart thunder in my chest.

More than shiver it made me want to curl up into a ball and die.

And that's exactly what he must be feeling now.

I should have stayed with him but something told me Daciana was right.

He needed a moment.

"There were so many of them. I couldn't let him...I just...do you know why they attacked?"

"I wish I knew."

"Were they Defenders?"

"That's what I thought too. At first. But then I fought one and he was just a human boy. No special abilities. No faerie-tainted blood in him. I don't understand what happened tonight."

"Do you think they'll return?"

"There aren't any of them left to return."

I swallowed, glancing out one of the tiny, square basement windows, picturing all the burnt, dead bodies lying across Dannek bridge.

How many sons and daughters had I killed today?

How many lives had I ended this night?

I glanced down at my hands, for the first time terrified of what they could do.