Torn by Fury
Page 31
Elise knew this forest. She also knew this meadow, though it shouldn’t have had any flowers in it. She was near Oymyakon, Russia. The outlet for Araboth. But she didn’t remember getting there. She had collapsed in New Eden and Leliel had been seconds from putting her out of her misery.
Somewhere between then and now, she had been healed, and it definitely wasn’t Nash’s work.
Judging by the sound of voices, there were more people in the trees that she couldn’t see. She hoped that it was the werewolf pack. She wasn’t sure if she cared if it wasn’t.
Something indented the long grass a hundred feet away from her. She got to her feet and was shocked to find that she was steady, without a hint of the weakness that had been plaguing her. But she was weaker than before in some other way. Weaker without James.
Her obsidian falchion caught her eye. It had fallen nearby. She picked it up, shook off a few stray petals.
Elise recognized the body in the grass as she approached. Her pace quickened, and she was running by the time she reached him. All of the flowers seemed to flow around him as a central point, as if they had erupted directly from his body.
James was lying on his back, one arm behind his head, the other hand resting on his stomach. He looked like he was asleep. But even when he was asleep, he should have been in her mind. He was always there. He had been for years.
“James?” Elise said. She was too afraid to speak any louder than a whisper.
The steel falchion rested beside his head. It glowed with magical residue, and when she stooped to pick it up, she felt the memory of its power whisper through her.
We have worked miracles.
She dropped it again. She didn’t want to touch it.
An engine growled nearby. Elise looked up to see a familiar truck pull up through the trees, bouncing over a road that hadn’t been maintained in years.
That was the truck that Anthony had taken from Ireland.
It parked at the edge of the field. The engine cut out and the door opened.
“Elise!”
Anthony and his new aspis, Brianna, dropped out of the truck and rushed across the field. She wanted to be happy to see him, to know that he had arrived safely in Russia, but she couldn’t feel anything.
She kneeled beside James. It was wrong to look at him and only see him instead of feeling him. He looked older than he should have. No longer ageless, but perhaps approaching forty—the same age he had been when he had first entered Limbo. His face was imprinted with lines. His hair looked gray rather than white.
It was only then that Elise realized that his hands were ungloved and there weren’t any runes on his skin, either.
Elise finally opened her senses, searching for his heartbeat. It thudded in his chest, steady and slow.
If he wasn’t dead, then why was he gone?
“We’ve got a problem,” Anthony said, stopping beside Elise. He leaned his hands on his knees as he panted. “Just got a call from Lucas—Shamain’s ripped right back open, but Shamain’s not really there anymore, and there’s a big fucking hole in the sky over Northgate. And it’s just going to get worse. Like, actual apocalypse worse.”
She barely heard him. She didn’t care. She smoothed the gray hair off of James’s forehead and searched for him again in her mind.
He wasn’t there.
The panic began to choke her.
“Wait, did he finally die?” Anthony asked. He didn’t sound all that worried about it.
“No, he’s not dead,” Elise said, grabbing James’s hand. He was freezing in Oymyakon, just like she was. She looked for Summer and Abram again. They were at the SUV now, gathering blankets out of the back. Already working to make the new arrivals comfortable.
“Jeez, Elise, you look like hell,” Anthony said, plucking at her jacket. “We should get you to the car. Do you need to feed? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she snapped, and she realized that it was true. She was completely fine. She was also still a demon—she could read James’s senses as she would have been able to read any human’s. That meant that her sudden relief from the anathema powder hadn’t been because she was healed.
But James didn’t show any sign of magic. He didn’t seem to be a witch at all.
Brianna fell to her knees beside Elise. “Oh my God,” she said, staring at James as though she had never seen him before. “Oh my God, it’s not even—I don’t—oh my God.”
Elise tried to get up, but her legs gave way under her. She sat back down among the flowers. Hard.
“What? What’s wrong?” Anthony asked, looking between them.
“It’s James,” Brianna whispered. “He’s human.”
DEAR READER,
THANKS for joining me for yet another book! The next book in the series, Sins of Eden, is coming later in 2014!
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Thanks so much for your ongoing support. Happy reading!
Sara (SM Reine)
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