Down below on earth, Tohr felt as though he was losing his ever-loving mind. Lassiter was gone. Autumn was gone.
And a terrible sense of logic was making him wonder why he hadn't guessed at the mechanisms they'd been working under for the past year.
Wellsie had been trapped in the In Between by him.
And Autumn... had been trapped in the In Between by herself.
Then by loving him, and forgiving not just him but herself, she had been freed - so just like Lassiter, she had been granted what she had not even known she was in search of: She had been given at long last the entrance to the Fade, that which she had been denied when she had taken her own life in a fit of terror and agony.
Now she was free.
"Oh... Jesus..." he said as he let himself fall into John's strong arms. "Oh... fucking hell..."
Now, like his Wellsie, she was gone from him, too.
Bringing a hand up to his face, he rubbed hard, wondering if maybe he'd wake up from this... like maybe this was just the worst nightmare his subconscious could possibly dream up... yeah, like he'd wake up at any moment and drag himself out of bed to get ready for the Fade ceremony, where in the real world this would not be the outcome...
There was only one problem with that theory: His back was still stinging from the salt and the branding. And his brothers were still milling around, talking over each other in a panic. And somewhere, somebody was yelling. And all around, the glow from candles provided plenty of light to tell who remained in the foyer and who had left....
"Oh, fuck..." he said again, his chest suddenly so empty he wondered if he hadn't had his heart removed and not noticed.
Time passed, and shit sank in, and he was taken into the billiards room. A drink was pressed into his hands, but he just let it sit on his thigh, his head falling back as John Matthew comforted Xhex and Phury talked to Wrath and some plan was made for the king to go confront the Scribe Virgin.
At which point V stepped in and volunteered to hit up his mother.
Which was promptly shot down. Only to have Payne's offer to go with the king accepted.
Blah, blah, blah...
He didn't have the heart to tell them all it was a foregone conclusion. And besides, he'd already been through the mourning process once - so he had a core competency in recovery, right?
Yay.
For godsakes, what the fuck had he done in an earlier life to deserve this? What the hell had he -
The sound of the doorbell going off was a dim noise behind him. Nonetheless, everyone froze.
Anybody who knew about the mansion was already here.
Humans couldn't find them.
Lessers shouldn't have been able to.
And the latter was also true for Xcor -
That doorbell let out its throaty demand once again.
On a oner, all the brothers as well as Payne and Xhex, and Qhuinn, John, and Blay, outted weapons.
Fritz was bodily prevented from going over to the vestibule; Vishous and Butch did the duty of checking the screen.
And even though he didn't give a crap whether it was the Scribe Virgin herself on the other side, Tohr focused on the foyer.
A shout went out, an excited shout with a Boston accent. And then there were lots of shouts, a legion of them, too many to decipher.
Someone in a white robe came in with V and his boy.
Whatever -
Tohr jacked up onto his feet, sure as if someone had hooked his ass up to a car battery.
Autumn stood under the arches of the room, her eyes dazed and her hair a flyaway mess, as if she had been through a wind tunnel -
Tohr plowed through big male bodies, shoving people out of the way to get to her. And when he did, he skidded to a halt. Grabbed her shoulders. Looked her over from head to foot. Shook her hard to get a sense of how corporeal she was.
"Is it... truly you?"
In response, she threw her arms around him and held on so hard, he couldn't breathe - and thank fuck. Because that meant she was real, right? It had to be... right?
"Lassiter... Lassiter did it.... Lassiter saved me...."
He tried to track what she was saying. "What... what are you - I don't understand any of this - "
The story came out several times in different iterations, because his mind just wasn't tracking anything. Something about her making it up to the Fade, and that angel coming out and telling her...
"He said he would give everything he had to save us. Everything..."
Tohr pulled back and touched Autumn's face, her throat, her shoulders. She was as real as he was. She was as alive as he was. She had been... saved by that angel?
Except Lassiter had said he would be free if this worked.
The only possible explanation was that he had traded his future... for theirs.
"That angel," he whispered. "That godforsaken angel..."
Tohr bent down and kissed Autumn as deeply and for as long as he could. And as he did, he resolved to honor Lassiter, and himself, and his female as best as he was able, for however many years he had on the earth.
"I love you," he said to her. "And just like Lassiter, I'm going to give everything I've got to give to the two of us."
As Autumn nodded and kissed him back, he felt more than heard her say, "I love you," back.
Gathering her up in his arms, he held her close and closed his eyes, his body shaking from too much to describe. But he knew the score, and he was good with it.
Life was short, no matter how many days you were granted. And people were precious, each and every one, no matter how many you were lucky enough to have in your life. And love... love was worth dying for.
Worth living for, too.