Prologue - Vengeful Lightning
Lupa crawled toward him, fighting the bolts of pain that flared from her spine as it protested against such abuse. The soil was damp against the bare skin of her arms, the mud soaked through her top and clung to her jeans like maggots to rancid meat. Thunder sounded overhead, and she was blinded as lightning flashed across the sky. The distance between them grew shorter, her gray eyes glistened with unshed tears as she reached a dirt-smeared hand across the cold, damp earth to the unmoving body of her husband.
"James?" she called out to him, her fingers grasping the sleeve of his jacket. She pulled on his arm, her own weak. He didn't move.
She dragged herself closer, blinking away the fresh blood that dripped hot and sticky down her forehead, ignoring it even when it turned her vision red. She cupped his jaw in her hand and turned his face to her own. His skin was as cold as death, it sent a shiver skating up her arm. She swallowed past the growing lump in her throat.
"James?" Her voice was nothing more than a choked sob. A silent whisper muffled by the roar of thunder as the sky was once again set ablaze by the vengeful lightning. She turned her gaze to the burning sky, vision distorted by the hot tears that stung her eyes before escaping their confines to roll down her cheeks.
Was this the end? For all of them?
Would not even their unborn baby survive?
Her hand was resting on his chest, warm against the smooth, slick leather of his jacket. The fabric chilled her through the cotton of her vest, freezing her insides and slowly turning her spine to ice. The top half at least. The feeling stopped a few inches above her hips.
There all feeling stopped.
She shut her eyes, biting down on her lip until she could taste blood. Shouts echoed through the trees towards them. The enemy drew nearer. It really was the end. Faces flashed in her mind, warm smiles and tender laughs. The faces of those she cared about most, and those she would never see again. Al, Score, Lily, Mum, Teddy, Victoire, the rest passing in a blur, before another swam into being in her minds' eye. That of a young boy with dark hair and sharp gray-green eyes.
Their son. The boy who would never even glimpse the sky.
A cough reached her ears. She opened her eyes, dropping them to her husband. Her heart stopped. He was coughing.
He was breathing.
He was alive!
Air hissed past her teeth in a hoarse laugh of joy. Her eyes, that had only moments before been near black with sorrow, were glowing silver. He was alive!
The leaf green eyes she thought she'd never see again smouldered as lightning shot across the sky. His arm twitched, his hand moving to rest atop her own, fingers too numb to thread grip hers as tightly as he wanted to. Lupa smiled, fat tears splashing down onto his face.
"I love you." His voice was hoarse, a dry whisper. But he didn't care. If he was about to die he was going to make sure she knew how much he meant those words.
Lupa dropped her forehead to rest against his own. It was wet and cold, like a smooth slab of ice. She sniffed, blinking away more tears.
"As I love you."
The shouts were loud enough know they could almost make a guess as to the exact distance of their enemies. James reached up a hand leaden with cold and cradled his wife's cheek.
"I'm sorry. If I-" He had expected his voice to crack and cut off, he hadn't expected her to silence him with a kiss like none he'd ever felt before. Loving, joyous, but filled with fear, and bittersweet.
He kissed her back with as much passion as he could muster in his dying state. The enemy cast their spells, words tumbling from their mouths like rivers of blood.
James and Lu never heard them.
The words were nothing more than silent whispers, lost to the raging thunder as the lightning danced across a burning sky.