Three Square Meals Ch. 053

It felt so good to be linked with him again, but their bond was different now. He had held something back, and with a flash of understanding, she realised he'd deliberately withheld the compulsion to obey him. Without that constraint, she was gloriously free to act in kind. She felt a surging wellspring of positive emotions throbbing within her, as memories of their time together danced before her eyes. Saving Calara, rescuing Dana, freeing Jade, protecting Rachel, all the glorious times they'd spent in bed enjoying each other, and yes, even Irillith helping at the end. She channelled it all into one massive beam of pure white energy, and sent it flowing back into him.

"No!!" Progenitor-John wailed, his face twisted in anguish. "Not when I was so close!"

Then suddenly he was gone, banished into a pit of blackness and despair, with a long echoing wail of abject misery. As his dreadful plaintive cry echoed around the room, John slumped to the ground, gasping for breath.

Alyssa ran across the room and flung herself into his arms, sobbing with relief. John hugged her to him fiercely, and when she finally pulled back to gaze lovingly into his eyes, he stared back at her in wonder.

"You did it. You saved me," he said in awe.

She hugged him tightly again, and whispered in his ear, "We saved each other."