Chapter 99 The Grounding

Chapter 99 The Grounding
The darkness didn't last.

It was replaced instantly by a blinding, searing white.

The Iron Room was no longer a room. It was a crucible. The silver plated walls acted like mirrors, bouncing the raw torrent of my magic back and forth, layering it until the air itself turned into plasma.

I couldn't breathe. I couldn't see. I was suspended in the center of the storm, my feet barely touching the floor. My body felt like it was being unmade, atom by atom. 

The pain was absolute, a white noise that drowned out every thought, every memory. I was dissolving.

This was what Kane wanted. He didn't just want me dead. He wanted me to burn myself out. He wanted to turn the Savior into a supernova.

"Evelyn!"

The voice came from everywhere and nowhere.

Through the blinding glare, a shadow moved. It wasn't retreating. It was advancing.

Abel.

He was fighting his way toward me. He looked like a man walking into the heart of a nuclear reactor. 

His clothes were smoking, the fabric disintegrating where the raw magic lashed against him. His skin was turning an angry, blistered red.

"Stop!" I tried to scream, but the sound was swallowed by the roar of the energy. Go back! You'll die!

He didn't stop. He leaned into the wind, his muscles straining, his teeth bared in a snarl of pure defiance. He wasn't fighting a person. He was fighting a force of nature.

Ten feet. Five feet.

He reached the center of the vortex.

He didn't hesitate. He grabbed my wrists.

The connection was like a lightning strike.

"RAAAGH!" Abel threw his head back and screamed.

It was a sound of agony that tore through my soul. His hands clamped onto mine like vices. The moment skin touched skin, the circuit was completed.

The magic that had been tearing me apart suddenly found a new path. It rushed out of me and into him.

My back arched. The pressure inside my chest dropped, siphoning away at a terrifying speed. But as I felt relief, I felt his pain. 

Through the Mate Bond, his agony crashed into me. I felt his blood boiling. I felt his heart stuttering, skipping beats as the electrical surge overwhelmed his nervous system.

"Let go!" I sobbed, trying to wrench my hands away. "Abel, let go! It's too much!"

"No," he gritted out. His eyes were open now, glowing a fierce, impossible silver. "Push it... into me. Give it... to me."

"It will kill you!"

"I am... your Alpha," he gasped, forcing me closer, pulling me until our chests collided. "I can take it. I can take anything for you."

He wrapped his arms around me, pinning my burning body against his. He buried his face in my neck.

"Ground it," he whispered against my skin. "Don't hold it. Let it flow."

I looked at the walls. The silver was starting to warp, melting in dripping rivulets down the concrete. If I didn't let it go, we would both vaporize.

I had no choice.

I surrendered.

I stopped fighting the torrent. I pushed. I shoved the ocean of fire out of my own body and straight into the bond.

Abel’s body convulsed. A shockwave blasted out from us, hitting the walls with a sound like a cracking whip. The floor beneath our feet melted, the silver turning to liquid pools.

But he didn't let go. He stood like a mountain. He became the lightning rod, taking the strike that was meant to destroy me and channeling it down, deep into the earth, deep into the foundation of the pack.

Slowly, the blinding white light began to fade.

The roar quieted to a hum. The hum faded to silence.

The air in the room was scorching hot, thick with the smell of ozone and burnt ozone.

I sagged against him. My legs gave out.

We collapsed together, sliding down to the ruined floor.

I lay there, gasping, my lungs burning. My skin felt raw, tender.

Abel was on top of me, heavy and unmoving.

"Abel?" I whispered.

Panic spiked in my chest. I scrambled out from under him, rolling him onto his back.

He wasn't moving. His face was pale, streaked with soot. His shirt was gone, burned away entirely, leaving his chest bare.

And on his chest...

I covered my mouth to stifle a scream.

The mark.

A faint, branching pattern, like the Lichtenberg figures left by a lightning strike, was etched across his skin, directly over his heart. It wasn't red and angry like my curse had been. It was silver.

"Abel!" I shook his shoulders. "Abel, wake up! Please!"

I pressed my ear to his chest.

Silence.

"No," I whimpered. "No, no, no."

I placed my hands on his chest, right over the silver scar. I didn't know what I was doing. I just knew I couldn't lose him. Not now. Not after he saved me.

"Come back," I commanded, pushing what little energy I had left into him. "Come back to me, Alpha."

A beat.

Thump.

It was weak. Fluttery.

Thump... Thump.

His chest hitched. A ragged gasp tore from his throat as his lungs expanded.

His eyes flew open.

Silver. Pure, molten silver.

He stared up at the ceiling for a second, disoriented. Then his gaze snapped to me.

"Evelyn," he croaked, his voice wrecked.

"I'm here," I sobbed, collapsing onto his chest, mindful of the burns. "I'm here. You idiot. You stupid, brave idiot."

He lifted a trembling hand. He rested it on my head, stroking my hair.

"Did we... did we win?" he asked.

I looked around the room. The walls were scorched. The floor was a mess of solidified metal. But the storm was gone. The pressure in my chest was gone. The "void" was stable, humming quietly in the background, no longer threatening to swallow the world.

"Yes," I whispered, kissing his soot stained cheek. "We won."

The heavy vault door groaned. It cracked open a few inches.

Freya’s face appeared in the gap. She looked terrified. She peered into the gloom, expecting to find ashes.

When she saw us, battered, burned, but alive, her jaw dropped.

She pushed the door open fully and stepped inside. She looked at the melted silver on the walls. She looked at the branching scar on Abel’s chest.

"Impossible," she breathed.

She walked over to us, kneeling on the ruined floor. She hovered her hand over Abel’s heart, feeling the new rhythm, the new energy signature radiating from him.

"He didn't just ground the magic," Freya murmured, looking at me with a mixture of awe and fear. "He absorbed it."

"What does that mean?" I asked, wiping my eyes.

Freya looked at the silver scar on Abel’s chest, then at the matching pale scar on mine.

"It means," Freya said, "that Kane was wrong. You aren't a typhoon that needs to be contained, Evelyn."

She looked up at Abel, who was struggling to sit up.

"You are a battery," she said. "And you just found your charger."

Abel grunted, pulling himself upright. He winced, touching the mark on his chest.

"Does this mean I can shoot lightning now too?" he asked, a faint, tired smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"No," Freya said. "But it means your Mate Bond has evolved. It is no longer just emotional. It is metaphysical. You are sharing a magical core now."

Abel looked at me. The humor faded from his eyes, replaced by that intense, unwavering heat.

"Good," he said. "Let Kane come. Let him bring his war."

He took my hand, lacing his fingers through mine. The connection between us hummed, steady, strong, and infinite.

"We’re ready for him."