by Fiona Starr
I undo the slip knots around his front paws, which sets his body swinging. The collar around his neck vibrates with magic. The lock on the back isn’t fully latched, so I open it easily and toss it on the floor. Marco shifts into his human form and falls into my arms. He’s bloody and he’s cut from head to toe but he’s alive.
“What can I do? What do I do?” I ask, blinking through my tears.
Marco looks up at me and licks his lips. “Help them.” The wound at Marco’s neck is already beginning to heal. I touch the line where the vampire had sliced him open and feel the skin knitting together, microscopic magical healing taking place right before my eyes.
I lay Marco’s head gently on the stone floor and release Angus and Van from the horrific device.
I kiss Angus’s forehead as he opens his eyes, and check to make sure he’s healing. He smiles up at me and grabs my hand, exhausted but happy and on the mend.
Van’s still in his wolf form. His white fur is almost completely red from all the blood. Underwood must have started working on Van first, or else he’d spent more time punishing the man who pretended to work for him for over a year.
“Van! Wake up!” I grab hold of his limp wolf shoulders and shake him, willing him to open his eyes. He doesn’t move. “Van! You can’t die. Not now! Not now.”
Tobias flashes in my head. The wolf is watching me from the trees.
Feel their blood. Draw on the power. Take it in. Become.
A sense of calm washes over me like a warm shower. I feel the tension leave my body and as it does, it brings with it a clarity so sharp, I know exactly what to do.
Wolf blood is healing blood. But my wolves drank from vampires and took on perpetual healing. I need their blood.
I recall the sensations I felt each time I took hold of that branch and try to conjure that openness again. I close my eyes and picture Van’s beating heart. His pulse is weak and his heartbeat is slow, but it’s there, he’s still with me. I lay my hand in the trough, sinking it to my wrist in the wolf blood. My wolves’ blood. I command it to me, drawing on the healing power and bringing it through me to my wolf.
I run a hand over Van’s wounds, moving my fingers through his fur so I can see his bare skin. My fingers glow with the power of healing. His power, coming through me since he can’t call it on his own.
Van’s eyes open and the wolf blinks once and then he shifts and becomes Van again. I realize he isn’t wearing his totem but the others are. Maybe that’s why he was so badly wounded? He opens his eyes and looks up at me.
I rub his hair off his face and pull back when I realize I am just spreading more blood on him. “You came back to me,” I whisper, letting the tears fall from my cheeks and into his hair. I cradle his head in my lap and just look at him.
“Joely.” He’s so weak my name comes out like a breath.
“I’m here. You’re safe. You’re going to be all right. You need to heal.”
Van holds my gaze for a moment before his eyes flutter closed and he passes out.
Thank you Tobias. Thank you magic. Thank you birds. I could spend the rest of my life thanking everything under the sun and it still wouldn’t come close to the level of my gratitude.
Outside the window, the raven takes flight.
Chapter Eighteen
JOELY
I stand at the door of Marco’s bedroom and watch him sleep. He and Angus were able to walk after a few hours of healing. They had to help me carry Van back home. It was slow and torturous, but we made it. I bathed them one by one, showering all the blood and dust and dirt away as their wolves continued the deep healing their bodies required.
Silvery scars run up and down Marco’s back. He sleeps on his stomach, not wanting to lay on the worst of his wounds. I switch off the light and close the door.
Angus is curled up in his bed, staring out the window at the snow.
“Hey you.” I sit next to him and grab his hand, weaving my fingers through his and giving him a gentle squeeze. “You should sleep.”
“I walked right into it,” he mumbles through half-sleep. His eyes slide closed and then open again, heavy and drowsy. “I thought I could trick him, but he knew. He had Marco and Van and he used them to draw me in. He knew exactly.”
“Shh.” I comb his damp hair back behind his ear and try to soothe him. “It’s over now. You’re safe. We’re all safe at home.”
Angus finally gives in and closes his eyes. “Van,” he whispers.
I bend and kiss his forehead, brushing his hair back and scratching his head gently. “Van’s here. He’s safe. We’re all safe.”
Van is asleep on his back in the exact position he was in when we put him in his bed. He’s so still that it takes a moment for me to catch the rise of his chest as he breathes. His face is relaxed as he sleeps, and I watch him, marveling at how peaceful he seems.
He’s never this relaxed when he’s awake. His face is never this serene.
I’ve never been in Van’s bedroom before. The woody citrus scent of him permeates everything. I want to go to him, and sit with him and hold his hand, but that’s not how it is with us. It never was, and I fear it will never be.
I look around his room at the pictures on the wall and eye the books on his shelves and realize how little I really know about him. I’ve spent hours talking and sharing with Angus and Marco, but Van has kept himself apart. He’s a mystery.
A battered leather book sits on his desk, a pen wedged in like a bookmark. It’s the book where he has been recording the prophecy from Tobias and Salma. The one he showed me with the drawing he made a hundred years ago. The drawing of the raven that matches the mark on my chest exactly, from the curve of its beak all the way down to the lopsided arch of the bird’s tail.
There’s so much I don’t know about this man. So much I want to know, but I have to honor Van’s wishes and just give him his space. I can exist at a distance as long as I know he’s alive and well.
I settle into the window seat and shiver as I lean against the cold glass. It’s still hours until dawn, and the moon has just risen, and all is quiet. I grab one of Van’s sweaters off the chair to use as a blanket. It smells of him. I press my face into the wool and breathe him in. I’ll let myself have that bit of him at least.
I wake to the moon beaming in through the window. I don’t know what woke me.
“I promised him.” Van’s words come to me through the darkness of the bedroom.
I turn and see that he’s shifted onto his side and he’s watching me.
“Promised who?” I ask.
He licks his lips and swallows before continuing. “My brother. Tobias. I promised him that I would avenge him. I swore that I would die trying. That I would never stop until I made Underwood pay.” A tear runs down the side of his face.
“Hey.” I slide off the window and move onto his bed. I don’t understand why he’s so upset. I touch Van’s arm. “You did it. We did it. It’s over. The vampire is gone.”
“I saw him. Tobias. When I was… when we were. I thought I was going to die.” He closes his eyes and when he opens them again he holds my gaze. He looks heartbroken. “My brother told me that I wasn’t alone. He said I’m here. I’m with you. He told me he loved me and he stayed with me as I hung there, bleeding out and dying. He comforted me. My brother held me and made me feel at peace and said that now that this was done he just wished I would live the life I was meant to live. That’s what he wanted for me. Not revenge. Not this. And all I could think about was how I failed him.”
“Oh, Van. But you didn’t. How can you say that?” I want to wrap my arms around him and comfort him. I want to make him feel better, but what he needs right now is to talk. So I let him. I sit beside him and listen.
“I failed him because when he was dying, I didn’t comfort him. I didn’t tell him it would be all right. I didn’t keep telling him that I was there, that his brother was with him and that he wouldn’t have to die alone. No. I spent the last precious moments
of my brother’s existence cradling his head in my arms and spewing all the rage and anger I felt. I had no words of comfort for him. I gave him no peace. I spoke about revenge. I swore I would kill for him. I talked about murder and death and anger instead of letting him go in peace.”
“You can’t blame yourself for that. You were with him. You were there to the end. He knows that. And he knows you love him.”
Van shakes his head. “I’ve spent every single moment of my life since he died working to make sure that if nothing else, those last things I said to him would be true. If I was doomed to an eternity on this planet without my brother, then I was going to find a way to make sure that the last words he heard in his life didn’t end up being a lie. And after all of that, my brother told me that maybe now I could be free. Be at ease. He wanted me to live my life.”
I wipe the tears from Van’s cheeks and hold his face in my hands. “That’s good, though. Isn’t it?”
He stares at me, eyes wide. “What if I don’t know how? What if I’ve wasted my chance at a life by focusing completely on something that my brother never wanted?”
I shake my head. “You’re forgetting the rest. That Underwood was coming for you. It doesn’t matter if you swore to avenge him or not, Underwood was going to make that happen eventually.”
“My brother sent you to us,” he whispers. “I thought it was because of my promise, but I see now that I was wrong.” He laughs ruefully. “I should have known better. My brother could always see the future, and I never let him tell me anything. I never listened. He didn’t send you because of my promise…”
“Then why did he send me to you?”
“He knew you would save us.” He laughs again and shakes his head. “I’m such an idiot. Ever since you came here, since that moment we met outside the tailor’s shop, I’ve been fighting you. But Tobias knew. He told me you would end the evil. I always thought the Nightbird would come to help us end the vampire—end that evil. Not the evil that has consumed us all these years—consumed me.”
“Van…”
He touches my cheek. “I’ve been on a collision course with you since that first time I laid eyes on you. It’s like a car crash between us. It’s happening in slow motion. I can see it coming. I know I’m going to collide and I don’t know how to stop it.”
“Maybe you’re not supposed to stop it. Maybe you should stop fighting so hard,” I say.
He looks at me, and in his eyes I can see everything laid out plain and open. Van doesn’t know how to do this. He’s not used to being vulnerable. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “I don’t think I know how to do that.”
“I can help. If you’ll let me,” I whisper.
He leans over and kisses me gently, a soft press of his lips on mine. It’s like he’s asking a question. He pulls away and I’m speechless, stunned by his tenderness.
Van looks me in the eye, his face is soft and open, he’s trying so hard. “Can you forgive me for being so awful to you? I want to know you, Joely. I want you to know me. If it isn’t too late?”
“Oh, Van… it’s never too late.” I kiss him back, giving him his answer. “Never. Not ever too late.”
Chapter Nineteen
VAN
I can’t believe I am with Joely. I keep opening my eyes to make sure I’m not dreaming; lord knows I’ve imagined this enough times. But she’s here. She’s real and she’s here in my bed. With me. For me.
I feel like a fool for everything I have done to her, to Angus and Marco, too. My logical brain knows that we had to destroy Underwood. My logical brain knows that it would have happened eventually and no amount of planning on my end could have changed that fact. But the other part of me feels like a fool for wasting so much time, so many years, consumed by this need to make good on my promise to my brother.
Tobias came to me. I am sure I was delirious with blood loss and pain, but I know it was him. His spirit came to me and wrapped itself around me and told me all the things I should have told him all those years ago. In my moment of need, he came through where I couldn’t. I can’t fix what I said. I can’t go back and make his death the peaceful moment it should have been. But maybe there’s a way forward now that I know my brother doesn’t hold it against me.
Joely straddles me and bends to kiss me, pressing her hands into my chest for balance. She tastes sweet and clean, her tongue explores mine with a dainty curiosity. I press my hands into her hips. Holding her down against my erection. She smiles and bites her lip as she grinds down on top of me.
She takes off her shirt, shaking out her hair which falls over her shoulders and covers her breasts. I brush her hair aside and sit up, unclasping her bra and cupping her breast, taking her nipple into my mouth. Her skin is so warm, and she smells so good, I don’t know how I thought it was okay to keep her at a distance. I trace a finger along the edges of her raven mark, kissing the black wings and then moving back to her breasts.
“Thank you,” I say as I move my hands over her ribcage, touching every contour of her frame.
She laughs softly. “For what?”
“For being here. For letting me…”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know what it is that brought me to you and your brothers. I don’t think I’ll ever know. I’m still learning all there is to learn about this magical life. But it’s like you said the other day…”
I try to recall our past conversations and none of them make me feel good.
“We were fighting. I yelled at you and said that I don’t belong to you.”
I press a finger to her lips. “Don’t. We don’t have to rehash that.”
She pulls my hand away and smiles. “But that’s just it. I do belong to you. I belong to Marco and Angus, and I belong to you. I feel it inside me in places I never even knew I had. I know it. And just like I know that I belong to you, I know that you belong to me. You belong to me Harry VanDemaar, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
A burst of something bubbles up inside me and I realize how fucking lucky I am. I am the luckiest man in the world because this woman has seen through all of my bullshit and ignored all of the attitude and when it was all said and done, she let me in anyway.
“I want you, Van. I want all of you. I want you inside me right now.”
“I think I can do that,” I whisper because my mouth has gone dry.
Joely unties the string on my sweats and pulls my tee shirt off. She rolls off of me and onto her back and lets me take off her leggings and her tiny black panties, then she slides my sweats and my shorts down and we’re completely naked, my cock standing at attention.
She pulls me on top of her and spreads her legs and she feels so small under me I am afraid I am going to break her. Then she guides me to her and urges me inside.
I kiss her as I enter her, moving as slowly as I can, wanting to feel every inch of me fill every inch of her as I finally, finally come home.
Chapter Twenty
JOELY
Van’s body fits perfectly with mine. He’s exactly a foot taller than me and it’s like we were made for each other. I lay with my head on his chest, his huge arm cradling me as he sleeps, and I feel protected and safe and… whole. Now that Van and I have come together, it’s like there’s balance among the four of us that wasn’t there before.
We made love tonight. Deep, serious love. It wasn’t rushed and it wasn’t a race to the finish. It felt like we were finally meeting for the first time and he was tender and gentle, generous and slow. All this time I thought of Van as this hard, coarse guy. I assumed the rough exterior was an honest advertisement for what he held inside. But the opposite is true. I keep running over the things we talked about, the things he said, and the way he made me feel, and the man who I met tonight is nothing like the Van I was expecting. He was so much more.
I nestle down against him and close my eyes, finally giving myself over to sleep.
In my dream, I am in the woods surrounded by evergreen trees. Tobias stan
ds before me, his white fur lit by the moonlight, his amber eyes glowing, and the long scruff at his neck blowing in the breeze. A pair of ravens croak and click from a branch over my shoulder while the Tobias’s rough edgy essence surrounds me. It’s absolutely silent for a change. No fangs no screaming, no red eyes blazing in attack.
I close my eyes and draw Tobias’s energy to me, allowing him to wrap himself around me, probing my body and warming me despite the cold of the night. Angus steps out from the trees. He stands next to me, facing Tobias, the gray wolf and the white dip their heads in greeting. Then Marco’s black wolf appears like a shadow. The opposite of Tobias with his dark green eyes and his jet black fur. Van appears at last, the white wolf steps into the circle. He’s Tobias’s twin. They are identical in every way, except the eyes. Tobias has bright amber eyes to Van’s blue, but otherwise, I can’t find any way to tell them apart.
My wolves and I stand together, facing Tobias. The wind ceases and the ravens go still in the trees. There’s a moment of nothingness, no breath, no heartbeats, no movement from anyone.
Then Tobias throws his head back and howls. It’s the howl of agony and loss. The cry of an animal desperate for something, longing and aching and crying with need.
He keeps on howling, and then blood starts running from his mouth, staining his fur and dripping onto the ground. It pools and then runs in a line along the forest floor, turning around and around, forming a circle like a thick red snake trying to swallow its tail.
Tobias stops howling and drops to the ground, his eyes open and his tongue hanging out. The wolf is dead.
I spring from the dream, startling awake.
Van pulls me close to him as he sits up. “What the hell was that?”