Ascension - Book Eight - Man x Man

Chapter 86

Closing my fist to command Victor to pause, I wait, glancing over the mountain of Russian to nod to Tomas to be ready. "Randy." 

"Anything. Anything else but this. Drag me over the coals, skin me alive, but I can't take this anymore." He was bleeding from his nose, and his mouth, soaked to the bone from the water and trembling to the point that his chains were rattling. "If you've got a plan.. do it now.. my chains are loose." 

"Tomas!" I shout, and the horror of the situation hits me all at once. What if we are wrong? What if this is the wrong version? What if we seal Verando away forever?

My feet move before I can comprehend it, I jump into the pool with him, scrambling across the water to grip him from Victor and yank him to me by the ragged remains of his shirt. He's limp, chilled, hardly conscious as our eyes meet. 

Pulling a knife off my hip, I show it to him. "If we're wrong, if you're Fenrir-" I feel a sob coming through, "I'm going to have to kill you and it's going to kill me, too. I'm not going to be separated from you, understand? I'm going to find you, in hell or valhalla. You're not done here, so don't you dare give up on me." I demand of him as the light eyes meet mine. 

He meets me with my favorite expression, irritated with my audacity but amused by my ability to still impress him.

I nod to Tomas, putting my arms around the man's neck to hold him still as he presses the reddened metal to the junction between his shoulder blades, at the base of his neck. The back that had bared all his sins, the scars, the surgery, the scratches of ecstasy, lashes of injustice punishment. It was one more mark to mar that tapestry of suffering. 

Listening to him scream was worse than any torture one could inflict on me, I sob into his neck, holding him as tightly as I could manage. Feeling his body convulse as the god tries to fight to the surface, listening to him fight back the agony of being shredded from the inside. I can only hold onto him as if I was trying to keep him together with my own arms. 

Verando slips out of my grasp, plunging back under the water as I attempt to yank him back up. Victor helps me, pulling him out of the tank and onto the grass. Adriam rushes over to turn him over on his side, letting him cough but he didn't regain consciousness. Our resident medic checks his eyes, still the same icy blue. 

"I think he's just exhausted." He sighs in relief, checking the brand and frowning. "This does look pretty good, I think it will work for now."

Opening his phone, Tyler speaks quickly to Ron, ordering an ambulance with magical consideration. While I was afraid to take him to a hospital given his status, I knew better than to question Ron when it came to this sort of thing. Ron would help us, he would make sure we weren't separated again. 

Sliding out of the tank, I crawl over to him, collapsing onto the grass as I curl as close to him as the chains would allow. My wolf rejoices, my body singing the praises of being reunited with the man who was my soulmate. I could breathe, his scent was muddied but familiar, I could only assume it was from the blood loss. 

Adriam speaks into the phone, relaying to Ron a list of possible injuries. I slip in and out of consciousness. "Xaiver." I plead, over and over again. "Please. Bring Xaiver."

The minor amounts of sleep I'd been getting this last week had not nearly been enough, my body needed time to heal and mend. With Verando now in some sort of order, I could finally succumb to what my body had been begging for, for days. 

In a forced sleep, where the body shuts off and won't awaken, it's nothing but blackness. No sense of time, no dreams, no sounds, I'm vaguely aware of the pain in some instances but only enough to pull me towards the surface and then drop me once more. It could have been hours or years, I would have been none the wiser.