Thunder Road (Rain Chaser Book 1)

by Sierra Dean

  Seemingly satisfied that she had our attention, she began to flap her wings wildly. I choked up on the tire iron, though I wasn’t going to use it to lay the smackdown on a goddess. I’d be better off just killing myself.

  As she flapped her wings, her figure expanded, growing taller and wider. The wings transformed into a long cloak of feathers with a high collar framing her now-human face. She wore a crown of bird bones with a crow skull resting at the center of her forehead. Her skin was pale and similar in shade to an opal, shifting from rose to blue hues depending on the light. Her hair was a shade of red I’d never seen on a human, deep garnet, like a ruby, and glowing with inner flame.

  She was something to behold, terrible and beautiful and simmering with quiet menace. Her two sisters, Macha and Nemain, were equally fierce, but not as common to see. At least not stateside. Together they were harbingers of war. Badb also foreshadowed carnage and grisly death.

  So you can imagine how stoked I was to see her when I knew Manea was biting at our heels.

  “Rain Chaser.” Her voice reminded me of dry leaves skittering through a graveyard. It was chilling and somehow managed to convey the inevitability of death in every syllable.

  I bet she was a hoot at parties.

  “Badb of the Morrigan. Your presence honors us.” I bowed my head in a sign of respect. Next to me, Cade gave a curt nod but let my greeting speak for us both, like he didn’t trust what he might say if he opened his mouth.

  Badb waved a hand, dismissing the formalities. “You’re causing quite a stir, Tallulah. The winds are atwitter with your name.”

  I wasn’t sure I needed the wind or anyone else spreading my name among the gods. It was hard to fly below the radar if everyone knew who you were. Especially when you had a penchant for breaking the rules more often than not.

  “That’s nice,” I said.

  “Mmm.” Her lips formed a thin line, and she looked us over. “I’ve come to offer a few friendly words of advice, if I may.”

  Like we could stop her.

  She moved towards us like light dancing across water, graceful but spooky in how disconnected it was from human motion.

  I backed up instinctively and ended up with my butt pressed against the open trunk of the Dodge. The smart thing to do would be to put the tire iron down, but it made me feel better having it in my hands, even if I knew I wasn’t going to use it.

  Badb was close enough now to see all the fine details of her face. Her eyes were coal black with no iris, just solid black circles in the middle of the whites. It was creepy the way they reflected whoever she was looking at, as if they were mirrors made of ink or oil. Everything about her was meant to entice, intrigue, and repulse. This form put people off their guard, made them uneasy.

  It was working incredibly well, because my skin was crawling, but I also wanted to stroke the feathers of her cape.

  Her gown beneath the feathers was made of smoke. Not merely resembling it, actual shifting layers of deep-gray smoke. Behind her insects were skittering across the highway, trying to get out of the orbit of her presence. All the previous chattering of birds in the trees had died away, and even the wind was gone.

  All was silent.

  Badb and Manea were pretty on par as far as scariness went, but Badb had the upper hand at the moment, in that she was standing right in front of me.

  She touched my cheek, and I recoiled. Her skin was warmer than I expected, but I still didn’t want her hands on me. No good could possibly come of having her here.

  “You’re a beautiful girl. Isn’t she beautiful, Luckless One?” Her dark eyes darted to Cade, reminding him he had not escaped her notice.

  “She is,” he replied quietly.

  “What a pair you two make, mmm.” She cocked her head much as her bird form had. So much of her resembled the crow still, the sharp mannerisms and jerky gestures. It was more than a little creepy. “It’s a shame you’re otherwise bound to your lieges. I would love to have my time with either of you.” She smiled thoughtfully, and it didn’t make me feel any warmer. “Or both of you.”

  Yeah, a threesome with the goddess of carnage and painful death was so not on my bucket list.

  “You flatter us with your attention, Badb.” Cade at least remembered what he was supposed to say. “But you said yourself, we are bound to others. Ardra does not share.”

  “She is sharing you with Seth.” Badb feigned a pout and pulled a strand of my hair loose from its messy bun. She wound it around her finger, and the black strands looked extra dark against her glimmering opal skin.

  I cleared my throat and turned my head so the hair fell out of her grip. “You came to tell us something.”

  “Did I? Oh yes, I suppose I did.”

  Fuck me, talking to a goddess was like asking a toddler to read an advanced physics dissertation. Seth might be cold, but at least he was good at getting to the point.

  Badb regarded Cade for a while, then returned her focus to me. “Manea has marked you.”

  Duh.

  “I know.”

  “No. Manea has marked you among our kind. She has promised great gifts to the one who brings you to her. She doesn’t only want Seth to pay with the life of his child, she wants you to pay for embarrassing her.”

  Cade was staring at her, and I know they were both waiting for me to react, but I’d gone numb.

  I could handle having a price on my head.

  Dealing with a pantheon of gods out for my blood, on the other hand, wasn’t exactly in my job description.

  Chapter Ten

  “Tallulah.” Cade shook my shoulder gently, then a little harder when I didn’t answer.

  I finally came back to myself and fixed Badb with an intense look. I wasn’t trying to intimidate her, that would be nigh on impossible, but I wanted her to know I wasn’t going to curl into a ball and wither away on the side of the road because of what she’d told me.

  “So the gods are out for my blood. Big deal.”

  Huge deal. Massive deal. Inside I was pissing myself.

  “Mmm.” She narrowed her eyes at me, the smoke of her dress swirling and settling into new shapes and patterns. “I like you, Rain Chaser.”

  “Well, I’m a lot more likable when I’m alive.”

  This made her smile, and I immediately wished it hadn’t. Her teeth were like those of a shark’s, layer after layer of pointed, white daggers. They were teeth designed to rend flesh from bone. Up until then she’d at least passingly resembled a human. I was harshly reminded that there was no humanity to her whatsoever.

  “Why are you warning us?” Cade asked.

  “Sport.” Badb was suddenly two feet away, but I hadn’t seen her move. “Manea has nothing I want. Death will follow where I lead whether she likes it or not.”

  Seeing my expression fall, she added, “I didn’t bring her to you, pretty one. I have no interest in seeing you die.”

  “So…” I wasn’t sure what else to say. She didn’t want to kill me, but was warning me for fun? “You’re, like, giving me a head start?”

  “I am telling you to be mindful of the mountains. The Ourea have a taste for blood that makes we Morrigan look charitable. There are those among us who care nothing for a mortal life and won’t bother with Manea’s offer. But there are others willing to send their people for you. Gods have no desire to dirty their hands in human deeds, but we do love having Death owe us a favor. Imagine what Ares could do.” Her eyes glinted sadistically.

  I didn’t need to imagine what the god of war would do with an unspecified gift from Death herself. Nor Chalchihuihtotolin, the god of disease, who was not one of the nicest deities on a good day. These were definitely not gods I wanted out for my blood.

  This was very, very, very not good.

  “Are you offering to help me?” I asked.

  “Haven’t I helped you already?”

  “Telling someone they’re about to be hit by a bus does nothing to move them out of the path of the bus,” I pointed ou
t.

  “At least I am not driving the bus,” she countered with a graceful shrug. Indifference had never looked so chillingly beautiful. “But perhaps there is something I can do. I want you to have some kind of a chance.”

  Badb reached into the hidden depths of her robe, and when her hand returned, it was holding something. “Give me your arm.”

  Oh, I really didn’t want to.

  I extended my arm, and she fastened a thin silver bracelet around my wrist. Upon closer inspection what I’d thought were simple chain links were actually skeletal hands grasping each other. I gave a little shudder.

  “What is this?” It had the earmarks of a death charm, and I wanted nothing to do with death.

  “It’s a proxy charm. If mortal harm should befall you, you cannot die. No matter how badly something hurts you, you won’t perish. And whoever has made the attempt will suffer for their efforts.” She gave another huge grin, and I had to look away.

  I wasn’t sure I liked the whole no matter how badly something hurts you part. Did she have a different charm that also deflected pain? I’d take twelve.

  I toyed with the bracelet, looking at the tiny hands shining in the low light. “Thanks?”

  Why did it feel as though she was marking me for her own than protecting me? I already owed fealty to one god, I had no interest in owing Badb anything. She scared the crap out of me, and the idea of her coming to call on me for a favor in the middle of the night—or any time, really—was terrifying.

  She pursed her lips like she’d tasted something sour. “Your gratitude overwhelms me.”

  Wait, was she being sarcastic? Since when did the gods understand sarcasm? They were always so rigidly literal that I didn’t quite know how to process this new development. So I said nothing. It felt like the safest alternative.

  Badb moved to stand in front of Cade, and he stiffened, a tic appearing in the muscle below his jaw. “My Luckless One.” She lifted a hand as if she was going to touch him, then let it drop once more. “You would have been so marvelous by my side. I would have put you to such majestic use, but instead you waste your life with Ardra.” The way she said Ardra’s name made it sound more like a curse than a moniker. Evidently there was no warmth of feeling between the goddesses.

  “We don’t choose our path,” Cade answered, boldly meeting her gaze dead-on. I bet he was just as spooked by her as I was, but he was doing a much better job hiding it.

  “The fates committed such a folly, marking you for her.”

  “Then take it up with Clotho.”

  Badb frowned. “They won’t let me near her anymore…” As her voice drifted off, a demented smile softened her features. What on earth had she done to the spinner of fates to ban her from their presence?

  Nope. I didn’t want to know.

  “Thank you for this.” Now that I was able to speak, I wanted to find a way to get rid of her. “And thank you for the warning.”

  “All I ask is that you keep it interesting.”

  “Interesting?”

  She nodded. “Amuse me. I’m in such dire need of amusement these days.”

  Badb didn’t need to tell me what would happen if I stopped being amusing. This wasn’t my first day on the job. Her protection came with strings, and if she got bored, I knew I’d be on my own. Less than a day into this trip and already things were going about as badly as could be expected.

  Thanks a heap, Cade.

  “Will we see you again?” I asked cautiously.

  “Not unless things go very, very poorly for you.” She turned, took a step, and then her bird form took flight in a flurry of feathers and wing beats, vanishing like the fading light of day.

  The bracelet glinted on my wrist every time we passed under a streetlight.

  After Badb left, we’d worked quickly to change the tire and get back on the road. To say the atmosphere in the car was tense was like saying the ocean was damp. We hadn’t spoken a word to each other, yet the weight of worry and fear filled up the front seat as if it were a tangible entity. Fen felt it too, because he’d begun to whine occasionally from the back.

  “She could be lying,” I offered.

  “And she could be telling the truth.”

  Neither option gave me much comfort. If she was lying, then my new bracelet must serve a more nefarious purpose. If she was telling the truth, we were basically fucked. I let out a sigh and fidgeted uncomfortably in the driver’s seat.

  Cade glanced over at me. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Do you need my permission?”

  “This idol you took from Manea…what is it that’s so important to her?”

  Reaching behind me into the backseat without taking my eyes off the road, I hauled my purse up from the floor and dropped it in his lap. Cade hesitated, like something feminine inside might rub off on him, infecting him with secret estrogen poisons.

  “Don’t worry, the tampons don’t bite.”

  He growled under his breath and started rifling through the bag. I didn’t need to tell him what to look for. Once he found it, he would know. His hand went still when he touched what he was hunting for, and he withdrew it after a moment’s hesitation.

  The skull sat in his palm, yellowing teeth grinning up at him, the hollow eye sockets especially dark in the low light inside the car.

  I hadn’t had much of an opportunity to look at it myself, so I kept stealing glances at the thing while he turned it over in his hands to investigate every inch of it. The skull was old, bleached white but going gray with age. The entire surface was intricately carved with gorgeous, fine details. The dominant image was flowers. Marigolds.

  The death flower.

  It was incredibly beautiful, in a macabre way. Cade ran his thumbs over the carved lines, handling the skull like a sacred, holy item, though I had no memory of such things being used as talismans for any of the gods. Best I could tell was it had been an offering to Manea that she’d become very attached to.

  “Why did Seth want it so badly?” he asked.

  My shoulders raised in an automatic shrug. “If I had a dollar for everything Seth made me do without explaining himself, I’d be staying in much nicer hotels.”

  Cade laughed in a halfhearted way, then held the skull up so he was staring it right in the eye holes. It beamed back at him unflinchingly.

  “And you stole it?”

  “Ugh, no. I’m sick of everyone saying I stole it.”

  “She didn’t just give it to you.”

  “No.”

  “So you stole it.”

  “I won it.”

  Cade’s lip curled when he looked at me, clearly not buying this explanation for a second. “Sure you did. You and the goddess of death went head to head in a poker match, and she anted up a beloved item she was willing to kill for.”

  “Rude.”

  “Not rude. Right.”

  “I didn’t say I won it from her personally.”

  “Well, you didn’t win it from any of her guards. The undead ranks of Manea don’t seem like the type to play games. Or disappoint their mistress.”

  My lips formed a thin line, and my cheeks warmed with a blush. “They’re not all undead.”

  Cade was silent, but I could feel the weight of his gaze heavy on me, inescapable. This only made me blush more.

  “No.”

  I squirmed again. “Like you’ve never done anything you’re not proud of.”

  “I’ve never done Prescott McMahon,” he countered.

  I made a disgusted face and almost drove off the road in an attempt to punch him. “I did not have sex with him.”

  “Are you trying to tell me you’re actually temple pure, Sparky?”

  “Are you?”

  He went quiet and looked out the window. “No.”

  “Well, not that it’s any of your damn business, but neither am I. It doesn’t mean I’m going to let someone who can actually kill me with his touch put his dick inside me.”

  Okay, so…if I was be
ing totally honest, I had slept with Prescott. Once. One time. And not for the sake of collecting the idol. But Cade didn’t need to know this. No one living or dead needed to know. Whether or not I’d used our past to help me get the skull didn’t matter.

  “So you duped Living Dead Boy into giving you something precious to his goddess, and when he asked for it back, you…” He left the end of the sentence hanging for me to finish.

  “Oh, I ran away, and he tried to murder me.”

  “I feel like that’s a response you evoke in a lot of people.”

  “Evidently folks feel very strongly about me.” I gave him a beaming smile.

  “At least about killing you.”

  I was about to reply when the first rock hit the highway. We were driving through the Rockies, and landslide warnings were posted every few miles, but I still wasn’t expecting a giant boulder to crash into the asphalt in front of us.

  I hit the brakes and yanked the steering wheel, sending the Charger into a spin, the tail end of the car coming to a stop mere inches from the enormous rock. Panting, I kept my hands locked on the wheel, afraid if I moved them, they’d be shaking too hard for me to do anything.

  Cade had reached his arm across me when we’d braked, and his hand was now protectively covering my left boob. I cleared my throat, and he immediately jerked away like I’d burned him.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Fine. Fine.” I repeated the word, trying to convince myself I meant it. “Fen.” We’d braked so suddenly I wasn’t sure he would have had time to prepare. The carrier itself was buckled in, but that didn’t help his tiny body inside.

  I shifted the car into park and unbuckled my belt, bracing one hand on Cade’s shoulder as I climbed halfway into the backseat to check the carrier. Inside he had curled into a little ball, but his trembling was a good sign he was okay.

  “Fen?” He lifted his head, giant ears perking up at my voice. “Are you okay?”

  He pipped a reply.

  And then the next rock hit us.

  Chapter Eleven

  This boulder smashed into the side of the car, sending us spinning across the highway until we came to a stop on the gravel shoulder of the road. I fell backwards, landing in Cade’s lap, my head smacking hard against the passenger window.