Wilderwood

by Halli Starling

  “Yes. Please.”

  An animal growl escaped her before she struck. Roderick froze beneath her, moaned, and then surged to his feet, breaking Bel’s hold. He had Octavia pressed into the wall a moment later. The pictures frames rattled; he kicked the corner of the rug out of the way so his boots didn’t slip. Hands fumbled at his pants, the clicking of metal impossibly loud even over the roaring in his ears. Roderick felt like he was on fire but he didn’t want it to stop. Ever. Heart hammering, blood hot in his veins, he managed to shove her pants down, eternally thankful she’d removed her boots earlier.

  The mirror beside them banged against the wall as Roderick put his hands under her thighs, lifting her high enough so he could slide in her. As he did, Octavia pulled her fangs away, gasping. “Don’t stop,” he protested, voice weak, overwhelmed. She was perfect.

  A warm presence at his back had him tipping his hips down, drawing a heated moan from Octavia. “Again, darling,” Bel said and somehow he knew they were talking to the vampire right before she struck again. But this time was harder, fiercer, dancing on an edge of pain that pushed him deeper into her body while she clung to him.

  And then Bel’s hands were on his hips, controlling his speed, his angle. “Like this.” Clever fingers were too hot on the thin skin over his hip bones and if he was breathing hard before, he was panting now, dizzy with lust and the steady blood loss. “Hurry or you’ll pass out, Ranger.”

  Oh fuck, he thought. So he gave himself over to Bel’s control, letting them guide every stroke. He was already close, teetering on some cliff, one foot in the air and ready to leap. Groaning desperately, Roderick pulled Octavia’s face up and licked the blood from her mouth. And then he was gone, spilling into her, shaking with the effort of it, his vision awash in white.

  Octavia gasped, trembled. Clenched down on him, wringing a fresh round of pleasure from his body. He was braced on the wall, one palm flat on the textured wallpaper, chest heaving. Bel was murmuring something in his ear and then gentle hands were moving him, pushing him to lie down, to rest.

  When his vision cleared, Roderick rolled over to see Octavia and Bel entangled around each other, bare skin being touched, revered. He watched Bel suck bruises into Octavia’s neck, their way of copying the mark now healing on his own skin. They were so gorgeous together he stared, awash in afterglow and the soft sounds of his lovers pleasing each other. How could he stay away?

  When he woke up hours later, firmly wedged between them, Roderick smiled. It had been a long time since someone had cared for him and it never was like this. With so much lovely inspiration nearby, he felt compelled to write the letter he’d been composing in his head for months. Coming to Wilderwood had turned a hopeful wish into reality.

  To the high chancellors of the Academy, it is with deepest regret that this must be the way I announce my permanent leave from our humble organization….

  ***

  Mist roiled over the ground as the sky hung heavy with thick, white clouds. Morning broke open with a violent splash of orange and purple on the horizon but they’d set out before dawn. Final checks made as war was expected when night fell.

  It was probably a last ditch effort but Bel was now trying to retrace those first frenzied steps as they’d run toward Wilderwood only a handful of days ago. It had felt like weeks since they’d returned and yet unease prickled at the back of their neck as they led Octavia, Roderick, and the witches into the woods near where they’d stumbled across the town’s barrier. They couldn’t make but vague guesses at what Merry’s clicking crystals and beads meant or why Tempest insisted on using a censer to burn a pungent blend of herbs. Rowan’s movements were more scrutable as they shadowed Bel’s steps, a tiny ball of crackling yellow energy dancing between her fingertips. Her eyes roamed the area but there was a hazy distance to them, as if the witch could see things the others couldn’t.

  They came to a stop before a slide of mud and leaves, as if something had run through here not that long ago. “I think….here,” Bel said softly, pointing to the ground. “I remember one of the wolves almost getting me and then Tomas was there.” They motioned to a tree just beyond, its roots littered with shattered bark and broken branches. The forest stretched out in all areas beyond, rain-soaked and thick with the smell of decaying leaves. A blood smear against the smashed tree stood out, long dried but still a reminder.

  Where blood splashes on black bark

  Octavia was immediately at their side, her fingers brushing their cheek. Roderick stepped in beside her, his warmth comforting. “Are you all right?”

  Bel nodded stiffly. “It’s like my mind refuses to see those moments clearly.” They groaned, frustrated, their fingers instantly toying with the crystal Octavia had given them.

  The crystal. Shit.

  Bel pulled it from their neck, leaving Octavia and Roderick to stare questioningly as they stomped over to Rowan. “You’ll need this.” They dropped it into her outstretched hand.

  “It’s like you read my mind.” Was that a hint of warmth in her tone? Bel frowned, knowing better than to think Rowan wasn’t solely focused on the task at hand. “This will do. It was with you in the Faelands?”

  “Yes.” It was such a small sacrifice to make and yet Bel hated to give it up. Bile rose in their gut. “I did this. I brought it back with me.”

  “Yes. And no.” The witch’s words weren’t as harsh as they could have been, but it stung just the same. “You were an unwilling, unwitting pawn in the Queen’s game.” Rowan’s dark gaze sombered. “She underestimated you.”

  The crystal floated off her palm and was immediately launched through the air, buzzing past all of them like a mayfly. Its movement only stopped when it crashed into an unseen barrier, faint energy rippling out at the impact. Rowan darted forward, the others hot on her heels. As they moved, Merry pressed a beautifully striated malachite into Bel’s hand. “For luck,” she whispered.

  “This is part of the old set of ley lines that ran through this end of the forest,” Rowan called back to them as they approached. “Just as I suspected.” She motioned to where the crystal hovered in the air, miniature lightning storms flickering on its surface. Ozone lay thick on everyone’s tongues but it made Bel’s head ache. Roderick’s hand was on their shoulder, heavy and comforting. They sent him a grateful look and got a small smile in return. “The portals open on the old ley lines and this,” and she shoved a pile of leaves aside with her boot, “is all the more proof.”

  Spongy blood moss covered the ground in scraggly patches while skeletal fingers of deathtwig poked through it, as if trying to scrape at the sky. “So yes, Bel, you cracked open the door but you aren’t the cause of the rest.”

  Bel huffed, oddly reassured. “And if I had left the crystal in the Faelands?”

  Octavia grimaced. “You wouldn’t have come back. You need an object from your home realm to move between.”

  “And when the Queen used your connection to Octavia and this realm through that crystal, she changed its essence,” Tempest said. “We can shatter that connection now. It might weaken whatever hold she’s hoping to gain here.”

  “I’m thinking it destabilizes the portal energy and if we hit them all at once, we should be able to close them off, take them out.” Rowan flicked a hand out and the crystal moved back, settling in the air between them all. “Nothing’s a guarantee, however.”

  “So that’s it, then? We wait for nightfall.” Octavia’s words were a harsh blade of truth through the bit of hope that had sprung up in the wake of their discovery.

  “So be it,” Bel replied, willingly away the tendrils of unease rolling through them. One way or another, it would be over by sunrise.

  ***

  Roderick stood before the trees behind Wilderwood Manor and waited for the ravens to arrive. Syd stood silent sentinel with him, leaning against the back of the manor with arms crossed, posture slouched. The man might have been napping if not for his alert gaze on Roderick. “So after this you’re
leaving.”

  A statement, not a question.

  He inclined his head slowly. “I am. My time with the Rangers is past. Luther was the only loose end and that will end tonight.”

  Syd laughed. “I do love a cliché. The big bad villain arrives to challenge the stalwart hero to a duel while war wages around them.” He pushed off the wall to come to Roderick’s side. “You don’t have to fight him alone, you know. There will be plenty of action for everyone. Stalwart heroes don’t have to be so selfless.”

  A snort escaped him. “But how will I get my revenge if I don’t duke it out with the vampire who killed my partner?”

  “I’d be more worried about surviving for them, Arman.”

  There was a heavy beat of silence and then he laughed. “I hate how well you read people, Syd. Fuck.”

  One red eyebrow arched playfully. “I’m jealous, gotta admit.”

  “You should be.”

  A cacophony of wings cut short their conversation and Roderick looked up to see a dozen or so ravens perched above, their glittering black eyes looking directly at him. “Ladies,” he said, bowing low. He held up a pewter disc and the biggest bird hopped down in a rush of black feathers to land on his arm and pluck the disc from his gloved fingertips. “Thank you for your assistance before. I’m hoping I can call on your good favor one more time.” He leaned in to whisper to the bird on his arm while tying a small parcel to her leg.

  When the birds were gone a few minutes later, Roderick joined Syd in propping up the back wall. The weak sunlight of morning had turned into a bright afternoon and he closed his eyes, letting the warmth hit his face. “I sent them away,” he said. “They’ve already put themselves in danger more than once during this whole thing and I won’t have them caught up in it tonight.”

  “Mmmm. Kind of you.” Syd’s clever eyes flashed dark blue and fathomless at him. “Most wouldn’t give creatures such respect.”

  “Every creature is worth my respect until they’re not.”

  Silence gathered between them and finally Syd asked, “Where did you send them?”

  Roderick let out a long sigh, brushed his hair back from his face. “To keep Yasmin company while we finish this.”

  Eighteen

  I do not know what comes after this night but I am confident we have done everything possible to protect those who call Wilderwood home. Foundations can crumble, walls can be smashed, roofs can collapse. I have never been more sure, or more steady, in the knowledge that Wilderwood is more than the buildings that make up its homes and shops.

  After all, foundations can be restored, walls repaired, roofs patched. The people of this place are what make it home. I know our strength and it is as wild as the land, as creative as the minds that fuel our art and poetry and books, and as steadfast as the beating heart of a common cause.

  If this night ends in fire, let it be the purging kind. Sometimes you must burn in order to rebuild.

  And should the worst happen, know I love you both. Maybe that is foolish, but my heart has never done well denying what it knows to be true.

  —From the journal of Octavia Wilder on the eve of the Battle of Wilderwood, 1889

  The portals cracked open under immense strain. Magic whined in their ears, blurred their vision, stole breath from the lungs of those who needed it. The Faelands didn’t so much as appear as it swept in like a sudden blizzard, bringing darkness curled with frigid cold and the silent march of the Dark Watchers.

  Three portals. Three defensive forces.

  One portal in the woods far behind The Drake’s Rest, the site of that fight the night before. The place where Bellemy Eislen had come back home after two years gone. The Dark Watchers came through with gleaming scimitars that dripped magic and were met with the force of twenty Rangers and the anger of one very old griffin. Their weapons were coated in amber, gleaming with the promise of death to those who would invade this realm.

  One portal on the far edge of the field where a herd of cows had been ruthlessly, brutally killed. The site of terror and panic that had swept through the town, encouraging the red haze of blood moss and the deep amethyst fingers of deathtwig to sprout. Here the Dark Watchers went head to head with half a score of very angry weres in full transformation, all of them led by Gregory. Their claws were tipped with amber, teeth bared, howls echoing through the empty streets behind them. The Montgomery sisters were there, too, defending what had been their home for a millennia, their magic old and powerful, protecting those under their care.

  One portal in the courtyard of Wilderwood Manor. The proximity wards had already alerted them of the other two portals and now Octavia stood before the third - the largest one - and waited. Bel hovered in the shadows, ready to cast the dispelling ward Rowan had taught them. Close the main portal and the others should snap shut, the witch had told them the night prior. It sits on the oldest ley line and every portal connection has a main power source. Sever it, and the rest will die off. You have to close it, Bel. You’re the connector between realms.

  Roderick was at Octavia’s side, senses tuned to any presence that screamed vampire beyond her. Something about him thrummed in the back of her mind and she realized she’d yet to see him fight. But she didn’t need to see the heavy crossbow in his hand and the steeled, coiled strength in his stance to know how deadly he’d be. “Keep them safe. Please.” His gaze raked the area. “When Luther shows his face -“

  “I know.” Octavia was hit with a sudden wave of nausea and she growled. The attention of everyone - Ranger, mage, witch, were - was on her. “They’re here.”

  Reality simmered like summer heat off cobblestones. The very air rippled, disturbed. It made her sin marks itch; maddening, the buzzing of mosquitoes beneath her very skin, anchored in her bones. They were here to take what she loved.

  They wouldn’t be allowed.

  An old instinct, suppressed through hundreds of years of denial, snapped its mangled jaws around her logic. Her fingers curled into claws. But the first pass of Bel’s magic hit her and she snarled. After hundreds of years of repression, the hunter wished to be loose.

  “Octavia. With me?”

  Octavia nodded, licking around long fangs. “Always.”

  The first Dark Watcher stepped through as Luther leapt from the treetops.

  A wave of force swept out as the Dark Watchers emerged, their tactic meant to overwhelm and subdue hitting against the blades and bolts and claws tipped in amber. A were near Octavia went flying as he was too slow to slash at the Dark Watcher before him. She snagged him from midair with a growl. “Stay on your feet!”

  The were was back in the fight immediately, baying, howling, slicing through flesh the next instant, snout open wide as he clamped down on a white armored leg. She backed up again, pressing against the salt and limestone circle in which Bel stood. Another wave of calm hit her; Bel’s empathy magic, like the sway of wildflowers in the breeze. A hammock shifting slightly between the bowed weight of trees. “Don’t waste it on me, beloved.”

  Bel grunted and the calm dropped. “Never a waste.”

  Octavia wanted to look back but she had to keep her eyes on the fight. Her palms itched in the way they did before some of her sin marks lit up so she balled them against her thighs and waited.

  ***

  With shocking speed Luther sped toward Roderick, teeth glinting, eyes bright and wide. He did not look as Roderick remembered the vampire; he was hollow, hollowed with his thin, pale skin plastered to his skull, his long blond hair bedraggled and stuck through with leaves and bits of branch. But he swaggered. Sure. Death with fangs and claws and the memory of Yasmin’s blood on his tongue.

  Roderick’s hand caught him by the collar as he meant to speed by, claws extended toward Roderick’s throat. “Old family trick,” Roderick taunted as he flung Luther into the dirt. “Want to see another?”

  Luther roared, the sound echoing even above the fighting all around them. “You’ve learned since I killed your partner. Good for you.
” He leapt forward, arms out to Roderick, meant to snap and tear. “So have I.”

  Roderick’s vision narrowed. One of the many tricks in the Arman family books. Pushing all one’s senses into a tunnel, forcing them to work together. Eagle sight, his mother called it. Or wolf scenting or lynx hearing, depending. But eagle sight, when paired with steady hands on a crossbow, meant precision. Precision so good he was barred from all archery and target contests after second year in the Academy.

  The bolt went through Luther’s shoulder but the vampire kept coming. Another, through the other shoulder. Roderick didn’t have time for a third as Luther barreled into him, spilling them onto the ground. Roderick’s crossbow flew from his reach and Luther was above him, pinning him, landing punches to his face in rapid succession. His lip split, his vision went white, and Roderick tasted blood.