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Sky couldn’t help but think as they breached the wizard’s keep that he really should have known something like this was going to happen.
They’d been tracking a wizard with an obsession with power so deranged that he’d left a trail of bodies in his wake, each with their chests cracked open and drained of blood as though he’d tried to cut their power right out of them. And yet none of them had anticipated that he might turn his unhinged gaze on the one member of their group who had the literal power of a god flowing through her veins. Had he had any indication that Bloom was on the wizard’s radar Sky surely would have warned her to be on her guard, surely wouldn’t have let her out of his sight, surely wouldn’t have left her smiling and carefree in their apartment while he ducked away to pick up their pizza for dinner.
He’d been stupid, so stupid, and now he had just to hope and pray that they wouldn’t pay the ultimate sacrifice for his lack of foresight, that Bloom wouldn’t end up just like all the other victims…
The image of her, chest split open, face bloodless, while unseeing eyes stared upwards, flashed in Sky’s mind, and he gripped his sword tighter while his stomach churned. He could picture it, that place inside her, where her power had once resided, now empty and dull where it had once been full of light and life. They hadn’t been able to work out if the wizard was actually able to capture his victim’s power once he’d sliced them open, or if those powers had flitted away while their host’s life drained away. Either way, Sky knew that Bloom would die trying to defend her power.
Brandon, crouched beside him in one of the outer hallways of the keep, seized his shoulder, squeezing it comfortingly. “We’re going to get her,” he breathed, with more confidence than Sky felt. It had taken them hours to track down the wizard’s hideout, hours where he could have been doing anything to her. She could already be… they could be too late.
But he swallowed roughly and nodded, needing to believe that there was a chance, even if it felt like a lie to himself.
“Time to move,” Riven said, from Brandon’s other side. “The girls are almost in position.”
The guys rose, moving silently through the hallway, preparing to breach the main chamber from one side, while the girls came in from the other side. They were just waiting to hear confirmation that the girls were ready, when they heard it.
A guttural, blood-curdling scream.
Brandon made to grab Sky but wasn’t fast enough as the blonde charged the rest of the way and kicked down the door. He could hear the thunder of boots behind him as well as Riven’s voice, yelling for the girls to move. They spilled into the main chamber and the wizard jerked upright, the tip of one of his daggers still embedded in Bloom’s chest.
Stella blasted him back with a palm of scorching sunlight, and Musa kept him down with a violent sonic attack that made his entire body jerk. Riven strode towards him and kicked the other dagger from his hand but Sky wasn’t done with him. He seized the wizard by the neck of his robes and yanked him upright, slamming his fist into his face. And then again. And again.
“I just wanted to see it, the Dragon’s Holy Flame,” the wizard murmured feebly, face dripping with blood.
“And you had no problem cutting her open to do so?”
“A necessary evil,” he tried to protest. Sky’s fist tightened but then Brandon’s hand clamped down on his shoulder and shook him roughly.
“What?” Sky snarled.
“Bloom,” he said softly, so only Sky could hear.
Riven appeared on Sky’s other side. “We’ve got this. Go see your girl.”
Sky cast a disgusted look at the wizard but released him, turning and swiftly making his way to the table the wizard had had Bloom strapped down to. The sight made him sick but not nearly as much as the sight of Helia gently easing the dagger from her flesh while Flora applied healing charms.
“She’ll still need to see a healer, but he didn’t go too deep,” Flora said, when she noticed Sky’s arrival.
Bloom’s lips were pressed tightly together, but Sky could see tears of pain and fear lining her eyelashes. When she caught sight of Sky her resolve crumbled and she reached for him with her recently freed hands.
“I didn’t know if you were coming,” she sobbed, and a shudder passed through Sky. He grabbed her hand then leaned over her to kiss her forehead, the tears sliding her cheeks, her lips, all over just to reassure himself that she was still here. Her hands fisted her back of his uniform, holding on so tight that he thought she might never let go, but that was alright with him because he wasn't going to be letting go of her any time soon either.
A week later, Bloom was back on her feet and almost back to normal, even if the scars, both seen and unseen, still hadn’t fully healed.
Bloom was pondering this, lightly tracing the scar that traversed from the base of her throat down between the valley of her breasts, when she saw in the mirror Sky entering the bedroom behind her. She yanked her shirt over her head, tugging it down to hide the scar, but not quickly enough to stop the haunted expression that shuttered over his face.
“You-” he began, but broke off with a shake of his head. He squeezed past her to get to the dresser, lightly touching her waist in the process, the most it seemed like he’d touched her since they’d come home.
“What?” she asked not unkindly, wondering what was going through his head. It seemed like he withdrew even more with every passing day, touched her less, smiled less, even looked at her less.
“You don’t have to cover up, I don’t…”
But it seemed like even Sky didn’t know what he wanted to say because he trailed off, looking helpless.
“It’s fine, I know it’s not a pretty sight,” Bloom muttered, hunching her shoulders a little. “The healer said it should be gone soon.” When Sky didn’t say anything and just stared at her with an odd expression on her face, she continued defensively, “It’s fine, I’ve seen your face when you look at it.”
Sky strode to her, turning her so she was finally facing him, one hand fitted against her neck while the other held her shoulder. “Bloom, I don’t hate looking at it because it’s ugly or anything like that, I hate looking at it because…”
“Why?” she breathed.
“Because I feel guilty,” he half-yelled, moving to pull away but Bloom seized his wrists, keeping him close to her.
“Why, why would you feel guilty?”
“Because I didn’t see this coming, because I couldn’t keep you safe, because you thought I wasn’t coming.”
“Sky,” she whispered, touching his face. “I was just scared. Of course, I knew you were coming, I was just scared you wouldn’t get there in time. I shouldn’t have said that, it was unfair to put that on you.”
“But you were right, I almost was too late.”
“Almost,” Bloom stressed. “But you saved me, like you always do.”
“I shouldn’t have let it happen in the first place,” he breathed anyway, leaning down to rest his forehead against hers. His arms wrapped around her waist, bringing her close, while hers came up so she could thread her fingers through the hair at the base of his neck.
“Short of wrapping me in bubble wrap and never letting me go outside, you’re never going to be able to stop anything bad from happening. Just like, as much as I wish I could, I’ll never be able to keep you completely safe from harm. All that matters is that we never stop coming for each other.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
They stood like that for a long time, just holding each other, reassuring each other that the other was still there, then something changed in Sky’s eyes.
“What-?”
But Sky had already slid his hands down to cup the back of her thighs, lifting her effortlessly and taking the few steps that took him to bed where he could place her down gently. Then he pushed up her shirt and pressed a line of kisses along her scar, each one a reminder that not only was she still here, warm alive, beneath him, but also that he would find her beautiful no matter what scars covered her.