Carpathian 20 - Dark Slayer

if all the parts weren’t connected. He couldn’t move. Maybe he was just afraid to move, to worsen the agony ripping through his body. He felt movement around him, as if insects and other nameless things crawled over him. Or through him. Even that wasn’t enough to induce him to try to move.
    He heard whispers, so low at first he thought he was hallucinating, but the voice grew stronger in his mind. Soft.
    Feminine. Determined.
    I am with you. You are not alone. I watch over you and protect you. I will not leave you alone deep within Mother Earth. Do you feel her surrounding you? Holding you in her arms? Welcoming you? Feel her, lifemate. Feel her when all else seems lost .
    He was certain he was hallucinating. Xavier would never allow him to sink into the rich soil to be rejuvenated. There was only pain and suffering. An endless life of it. He couldn’t let go.
    He forced his will to obedience. No matter how much his heart stuttered or his lungs fought to draw breath, no matter the pain, he couldn’t let go. He had promised—her.
    He remembered her, although she might have been a dream, another hallucination. He considered that when he could get his mind to work through the waves of pain. He doubted he could have conjured her up even in his wildest imagination. He tried to picture her, but he found he couldn’t think, so he just lay listening, trying to hear her voice again.
    Far off he could hear a chant, spoken in the ancient language, voices raised, both male and female. It was impossible to sort through them to find one single voice, and he was certain she wasn’t chanting with them. He felt her, not surrounding him, but merged with him, sharing his body. He didn’t like the idea. If he felt so much pain, was she sharing that as well?
    He didn’t know the answer.
    Again his mind drifted, as if, because he couldn’t do anything to prevent her from feeling the terrible pain, he didn’t want to know if she was with him. He had spent too many years causing those he loved distress and he refused to think he was doing the same to her.
    No, my love. I am with you by choice. I asked to be bound to you. I share your body willingly. Hear me, Dragonseeker, you must hold tight to me. Never let me go .

    If he could have smiled, he would have. Where was he going to go? He couldn’t move. He could only lie there, believing himself insane. The only consolation was her voice. He tried to remember if he’d dreamt it up when he was young.
    After a while—and it could have been nights, or weeks, or even months—he became aware of a heartbeat. The sound was unusual, deep, echoing through his surroundings, so that it vibrated through his body, every muscle and organ, torn sinew and bone. Each beat shook him, yet soothed him. Each beat brought a twisting pain, but at the same time was strangely comforting.
    After a long, indeterminate passage of time, he found he listened for that sound, enjoying the echo of it through his battered body. Now came a stirring of interest in his dark world. What are you?
    I am Mother Earth, my son. You have become a part of me. My daughter begged me to accept you, to heal you. You are hearing the heartbeat of the earth moving through your body, making you one with me, with all of nature .
    Now he knew he was insane. He was having a conversation with the earth. It was strange that it didn’t bother him that he’d lost his mind. The pain was no less, but he had grown used to it, and he found the darkness and warmth a peaceful, restful place. He drifted further out on the sea of pain, letting it carry him as he had done so many times in the past.
    His mind turned to his woman. Ivory. His lifemate. She was so beautiful she took his breath away. He knew if he’d met her a few hundred years earlier, their lives would have been so different. He had never dared to dream of her—never wanted Xavier to know for a moment that somewhere in the past or the future, there was a woman who held the other half of his soul. It was such an intimate gift, the sharing of souls, and he would never taint that bond with Xavier’s evil.
    Had he not died and been buried to suffer in this place, he would have taken her to his secret garden, the one place he remembered from his childhood where life had been good and filled with joy. He had played there with his beloved sister, Natalya. They had laughed