"You jerk!" I ran to Stark and cradled his head on my lap. He was breathing hard, in panting gasps, but he was breathing. I looked up at Kalona. "No wonder she won't forgive you. You're cruel and heartless and just plain wrong."

"When you get back to the world, stay away from me. You'll be out of her realm then, and Nyx won't come running to save you," he said.

"The farther I am from you, the better."

Kalona stretched open his wings, but before he could take to the sky, tendrils of Darkness, sticky and sharp, oozed from the black sides of the arena and the pitch-colored dirt beneath his feet. While he stared at me, they wrapped around his body, slicing his flesh. Segment by segment they cut him, covered him, until he was nothing but writhing darkness, blood, and amber eyes. Then the tendrils reached his eyes, plunging into them. I cried out in horror as they ripped something that was so bright and shining from inside him that I had to close my eyes against its brilliance. When I opened them again Kalona's body had disappeared along with the arena, and Stark and I were inside the grove.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Zoey

"Zoey! What is it? What's happened?" Stark struggled, trying to make his broken body work.

"Ssh, it's okay. Everything's okay. Kalona's gone. We're safe."

His gaze found mine, and all the tension went out of him. He slumped in my arms and let me cradle his head in my lap. "It's you again. You're not shattered anymore."

"It's me again." I touched his cheek in one of the few places on his face that wasn't bloody, broken, or bruised. "This time you're the one who looks shattered."

"No, Z. As long as you're whole, I'll be fine." He coughed then. Blood poured from the gaping wound in his chest. His eyes closed, and his face contorted in agony.

Oh, Goddess! He's hurt so badly! I tried to speak calmly. "Okay, good, but you don't really look fine.

So how about you and me get back to our bodies. They are both waiting for us, right?"

Another shudder of pain went through him. He was breathing in shallow, panting breaths, but he opened his eyes to meet mine. "You should go back. I'll follow you after I rest a little while."

Panic fluttered around inside me. "Oh, no. I'm so not leaving you here. Just tell me what you need to get back."

He blinked a few times and then his broken lips curled in a hint of his cocky smile. "I don't exactly know how to get back."

"You don't what? Stark, seriously."

"Seriously. I don't really have a clue."

"How'd you get here?"

His lips curled again. "Through pain."

I snorted. "Well, then getting you back should be easy 'cause you have some pain going on here."

"Yeah, but back there I have an ancient Guardian in charge of keeping me on the line between life and death. I don't exactly know how to tell him it's time for me to wake up. How are you getting back?"

I didn't even need to think about it. The answer was as natural as breathing. "I'm going to follow spirit to my body. It's where I belong, back there, in the real world."

"Do that." He had to pause as another wave of pain engulfed him. "And after I rest, I'll do the same thing."

"No, you don't have an affinity for spirit like I do. It won't work for you."

"It's good that you still have your elements. I wondered about that, what with your tattoos being gone."

"Gone?" I turned my hand over and, sure enough, there were no tattoos filling my palms with sapphire filigree. Then I glanced down at my chest. The long pink scar was there, but it, too, was tattoo free. "Are they all gone? Even the ones on my face?"

"All that's left is the crescent," he said. Then he grimaced in pain again. Clearly beyond his exhaustion level, he closed his eyes, and said, "Go ahead and follow spirit home. I'll figure something out. When I'm not so tired. Don't worry. I won't leave you - not really."

"Oh, hell no. I'm not losing another boy with some kind of abstract I'll-see-you-again Zoey thing. That's not working for me ever, ever again."

He opened his eyes. "Then tell me what to do, my queen. And I'll do it."

I ignored the "my queen" stuff. I mean, I'd heard him call me that earlier, and then again to Kalona. I wondered briefly if that had been before or after the immortal had started smacking him in the head, then I focused on the "I'll do it" part of what he'd said. So, he'd do what I told him . . . but what the heck did