Kiss of Midnight_ A Midnight Breed Novel - Lara Adrian [793]
There had to be some way to break through to him. There had to be some way to help him.
“Renata,” she said, turning to look at the other Breedmate. “You did something to him a few minutes ago with your mind. It dimmed some of the heat surrounding him—”
“Yes,” Renata agreed. “I saw it, too.”
“I need you to do it again now.”
Nikolai stepped over, his expression grave. “Renata’s talent is lethal, Claire. It’s not something you want to mess around with, trust me. If she turns it loose on Reichen again, it might—”
“Might what? Kill him?” Claire felt hysteria bubble up inside her. “Look at him. He’s already dying. If we don’t do something fast, then the pyro will kill him.”
She looked at Renata, desperate for even the slimmest chance of saving Andreas. “Please … please, try.”
Renata gave a curt nod, then looked away to fix her attention on the formidable tower of heat and flames that was Andreas. She stared unblinking, focused like a laser. Claire felt the air beside her shift almost imperceptibly as an unseen current leapt outward from Renata’s mind and seized on its target.
He reared back the instant it hit him.
Claire’s heart lurched as he threw his head back and howled, all of his muscles going taut as cables. He grabbed both sides of his head and doubled over as Renata held him in the debilitating psychic grasp of her strong mind. Andreas shuddered and roared … and as he struggled, the glow that swamped him began to fade.
“Keep going, Renata! Oh, my God, I think it’s working.”
Claire heard more than one of the warriors curse from nearby, where they all stood watching, everyone as transfixed as Claire was as the mental blast Renata delivered continued to douse Andreas’s heat. He dropped to his knees, buckled over, still holding his head in his hands. He looked to be in complete agony, but the heat traveling his limbs and torso had lessened even more.
“Please, Andre … hang on,” she whispered, her heart shredding to see him suffer so. Her nerve faltered. Just when she was about to tell Renata to stop, Andreas pitched forward and collapsed in a heavy, boneless sprawl.
“Claire, stay back!” someone shouted, but she was already running toward him.
She dodged the flames that still burned in places on the ground and raced to Andreas’s side. Energy crackled over his skin, raising goose bumps on her arms, but the glow was gone. The heat was cooled.
“Andre,” she sobbed, folding her legs and dropping down beside him on the ground.
She lifted his head onto her lap and stroked his bloodless cheek and brow. He was cold. Unmoving
Oh, God.
“Andre, can you hear me?” She cradled his broad shoulders and bent to press her face against his. “Andreas, please don’t die. Please … come back to me.”
She kissed him all over, holding him tight. Praying she’d done the right thing. Hoping he was still in there somewhere, and that the gamble she’d taken with his life hadn’t been the worst mistake she would ever make.
“Andre, I love you,” she murmured, dimly aware that Renata and Dylan and the warriors had all gathered around them now. “You can’t leave me. You can’t.”
Tegan knelt down beside her and put his hand on the side of Andreas’s neck. “He’s alive. He’s breathing, but he’s out cold. Got a strong pulse, at least…”
“Thank God,” Renata whispered, clutching Niko in a tight embrace as she looked down at Claire in kinship and shared concern.
“We have to get him out of here,” Tegan said. He glanced up at Renata. “Will you be able to keep him under control if he comes to on the ride back to Boston?”
She nodded. “Whatever it takes, yeah. I’ll cover him.”
“Come on, Claire.” The warrior nudged her gently as he crouched to heft Andreas’s heavy bulk onto his shoulder as he would care for any one of his fallen brothers in arms. “I’ll carry him back to the Rover. Everything’s going to be okay now.”
Claire nodded numbly and fell in alongside him as they all made the short trek from the smoldering forest and obliterated