by Alex Lidell
This time, I ride the landslide on my back, the wind hiding my scream. I’m aware and yet can do nothing to halt the speeding motion, my hands and feet finding no purchase, for the side of the mountain is riding down right along with me. By the time we stop at the slope’s bottom, the rain is a thick curtain that lets me see nothing beyond my own fingertips.
Lighting cracks again, felling a large tree not twenty paces away. Felling the last of my hopes with it. I’ve lost the tracks. Lost my males. Lost myself. Forever.
Wrapping my arms around my knees, I cry, shaking as badly as the branches.
9
Coal
“I quit,” Leralynn had shouted into his face, her voice conquering the wind to impale him. For a heartbeat, Coal had stood frozen. He’d gotten what he’d come out here for, and yet the victory felt so vile, he couldn’t force his body to move. So he didn’t. He stood there, holding on to Lera as if she’d not spoken, as if he’d misheard.
Lera’s tantalizing face came close to him, her brown eyes hard and shockingly luminescent against her pale skin, her gray uniform plastered to every inch of her body. Her words struck his chest like rocks. “I’m not an Academy student as of this moment, so get your damn hands off me. Now.”
The instant he did so, Lera turned and ran, the fat drops of rain splattering against her footprints. And now she was gone, the storm drowning out any sound, any trace of her.
Coal’s chest tightened. Twisting around, he buried his fist into a tree with enough force to make his knuckles sing. And then he did it again. And again, until the droplets of rain washing down the bark ran laced with red. As if the tree itself was bleeding.
The dark afternoon sky flashed with lightning, followed by the thunder’s roll. The sharp flash of deadly light grounded into a tree far below, the cracking, smoking trunk setting each of Coal’s senses to alert.
“Leralynn!’ Coal’s voice rose in a bellow that the forest swallowed like a bit of debris. “Lera!”
No answer.
Coal swore. The weather was turning foul faster than he’d expected, and from the wind and smell, it would worsen still. A full-on storm, with Leralynn alone in the thick of it. Rain struck Coal’s face with a vengeance, the droplets morphing from sharp needles to thick globs.
Turning, Coal took quick bearings of the forest and sprinted in the direction Lera had disappeared, his ears straining but hearing nothing except the rushing stream and rain drenching the leaves. “Lera!” he shouted again and again, the words echoing mockingly and receiving no answer. No Lera. And with the growing storm, no footprints either.
Coal’s heart stuttered, then tripped into a gallop, a fear-filled heat spreading through his blood. Where the bloody hell could Lera have gone? He couldn’t see her. Couldn’t smell her. Couldn’t hear her. The girl couldn’t have gone far, not exhausted as she was. Ten steps, perhaps. Twenty considering her stubbornness. Any other cadet would be huddled beneath the first kind-looking bush, sobbing and rocking herself.
Lera was most certainly not any other cadet. She was a warrior in her own right, too stubborn and proud to step away. To ask for help. To show weakness. Coal should never have left her, no matter what she’d demanded. No matter whether she was under the Academy’s control or not, whether he had the right to bodily drag her off or not.
Coal had gone too far. When he’d realized Lera was playing him, the punishment had stopped being about River’s orders and become personal. Because Coal had been stupid enough to trust the girl. Because Lera had looked so much like the woman who’d brushed his soul and left. Because Coal was an irresponsible bastard who’d never deserved River’s confidence.
Coal’s only job now was to get the girl back to the Academy alive. And if she complained, River could whip him for kidnapping for all he cared.
“Leralynn!” Coal twisted around, surveying the drenched woods again and again and again, searching amidst the shades of gray, between the gleaming green leaves. Water smashed his mouth each time he opened it to call her name.
No answer but the pounding rain. No smell but that of wet earth and the tang of lightning.
Coal’s muscles tightened, the frustration and fury pressing so hard against his lungs and chest that it was a miracle the bones didn’t crack. A growl that sounded anything but human escaped his chest as he sank his knuckles into another tree, the exploding pain in his fist a momentary relief from the roaring inside his blood.
Coal twisted about, unable to stop, to think.
Where would the girl have gone? Where, where, where? Coal’s heart pounded in rhythm to the rain. He raced along the stream searching for any clues as to Lera’s course. She’d have surely run—though stars knew how she could run—as far away from where Coal stood as possible. But that still left too much ground. Upstream or down? Toward the Academy or away? The overlook that had drawn her attention, perhaps, or—Coal’s foot slipped on wet earth, his breath catching as he reclaimed his balance and looked down.
The slope down was wet and steep enough to have almost taken him along. If Lera had been here… Now that he looked closer, Coal marked a distinct trail cutting down the slope. Not the narrow streaks of sliding feet, but a wide swath of disturbed mud that a body sliding down would leave. Five paces lower, a tree held a scrap of gray cloth, stuck on a sharp, broken-off branch.
Coal had let Lera leave, and she’d fallen.
Thunder cracked as if in mockery. Yes, the skies said. It was you. You. You.
10
Lera
It’s sometime later—minutes, perhaps, or maybe days—when a set of sharp teeth closing around my upper arm draws my face from my knees. The rain has slowed from a torrential storm to a heavy downpour, though my sluggish mind can’t work out whether this fact is of any importance. I’m almost surprised to see that I’m still here, huddled against the base of a tree, branches whipping overhead. Surprised to note that none of them have cracked my skull.
The teeth release and bite again, this time harder.
Turning my head, I find a drenched gray wolf with a black muzzle and intense yellow eyes. My throat closes, my hand reaching out with desperation even as I fear I’m stretching toward a mirage. Wet, warm fur closes the distance to me, a large lupine tongue lapping the dirt and rain and tears off my face.
Wrapping my arms around Shade’s wolf, I bury my face in the animal’s neck, breathing the earthy scent of him. “I knew it was you last night,” I say finally into the wolf’s fur. “Can you shift?” Can you shift now?
Yellow eyes blink with recognition but little comprehension. Taking my hand between his teeth, the wolf pulls me toward a massive cluster of tumbled boulders. When I don’t budge, the wolf growls his annoyance and lets go of my arm. His narrowed gaze leaves me with no doubt that he is preparing to resink his teeth into me and is hesitating only while deciding on his choice of target.
“Wait!” I find my limbs with difficulty, my gaze never leaving Shade for fear he too will disappear. “One blink for yes, two for no. Can you shift at will?”
The wolf growls. Snaps his teeth impatiently.
“Can you understand my speech?” My chest is tight. “One blink or—” The wolf turns his head, his eyes following an errant squirrel. I curse under my breath. What exactly Shade’s wolf understands has been a subject of speculation even in Lunos and now seems even less promising. By the time the wolf’s attention returns to me, the animal is shifting impatiently on his paws, his glistening teeth on snapping display.
“Don’t you dare bite just for the fun of it,” I mutter, using a nearby tree to climb to my feet. Shade may not understand my words directly, but the wolf has made his plans for his teeth all too clear.
The wolf snorts. Turning, he raises his tail and trots off, turning his head once to ensure I’m following.
Half walking, half crawling, I pull myself after Shade’s wolf, who, fortunately, leads me only twenty paces off to a small protective cave between three of the massive boulders. Blinking at
the pit in the cave’s floor, I realize the wolf has already dug out the bottom to clear away the worst of the wet mud and create an extra barrier from the wind. Climbing inside, I curl around my wolf, his thick fur and lupine breath warming my shaking core.
COAL
A wolf’s howl raked across Coal’s soul, a sound that should have had Coal reaching for a weapon but spurred him into a run instead. He was at the bottom of the hill Lera had slid down, the slope so long and steep that Coal had to switchback down it to avoid cracking his head. To his left, the forest continued in a shivering cluster of aspen and pine. To his right, a rock formation held up the base of another rolling hill.
“Leralynn,” Coal hollered, his throat raw. “Where are you?”
The wolf howled again, as if in clear answer. The sound came from the base of that rock formation on Coal’s right, where a dark entrance to a cave that a smart animal might claim could be seen. This time, Coal did draw his boot knife as he closed the distance, his breath misting in the cold air.
A scraping echoed from the cave’s mouth.
Then something that sounded like a shush.
An indignant feminine yelp.
Before Coal could fully process the significance of the sound, a gray wolf streaked out from under the rocks, its teeth bare and ears laid flat as it headed right for Coal. A ripple of something Coal couldn’t explain raced through him, a perverse instinct that had him throwing away the knife instead of holding it toward the predator. Predictably, the idiotic move was a mistake. In the next heartbeat, the wolf hit Coal’s chest, knocking him flat into the earth.
Coal fell hard, a stone digging into his shoulders. His heart pounded, his mind unable to focus as a deadly maw hovered above his face. The wolf’s saliva dripped down, landing with the rain on Coal’s cheeks, the predator’s yellow eyes burning into him.
Darkness flashed before Coal’s eyes, the great weight atop his chest an echo of the islanders’ shackles. Coal’s heart tripped, hesitating for a moment before sprinting so quickly that Coal could feel it against his neck. The stench of rot and blood filled Coal’s nose, his mouth thick with a pain that was not yet here, but would come.
GHHHHHHHRRRRRRR
The wolf’s low growl came again, rising from deep in its chest while hackles rose in a thick gray ridge along its back. The animal’s breath was so close now that Coal felt it along his skin.
Coal’s hand closed around a stone, but just as he readied to smash the animal’s skull, the significance of the feminine voice finally penetrated. Lera. It was Lera. Alive. And here. Somehow—though stars only knew what made Coal certain of it—the wolf was protecting, not harming, the girl.
Muscles shaking with effort, Coal opened his hand and let the stone roll free.
Unimpressed, the wolf pulled his lips back from glistening canines and snapped them inches from Coal’s face.
Coal lifted his chin, exposing his neck to the predator as he met the animal’s bright golden eyes. Daring him to finish it. Asking him to.
A heartbeat passed, marked with the wolf’s panting breath, the great lupine muscles as taut and trembling as Coal’s own. A second beat. A third.
“Come on, you flea sack,” Coal growled, flashing his own teeth. “Finish it.”
The wolf snorted and bent on his front paws, his shoulder blades rising. Then, pushing away from Coal’s shoulders, he streaked off into the forest.
Heart still pounding, Coal jumped to his feet, his gaze darting in confusion as he sheathed his knife into his boot. His mind raced with his pulse. He was alive. Whether this was a good thing, he didn’t know.
“Are you all right?” Lera’s voice gripped Coal’s throat, turning him toward the rocks. The girl was pale and wet in the mouth of the cave, shaking in her torn gray uniform, her hand gripping the rock with bone-white knuckles—which told him she was a breath away from collapsing.
“Leralynn.” The world narrowed to the girl standing in the cave’s mouth. With the next breath, Coal was moving, launching himself to grab Lera before she disappeared again. Catching hold of her, Coal shoved both of them into the cave, his fingers digging into Lera’s arms so hard that he was bound to leave bruises. But he couldn’t let go, or spare a thought for why.
11
Lera
Lunging forward, Coal grabs the tops of my arms, fingers digging into my wet tunic and the flesh beneath. His nostrils flare, his shoulders rising and falling with quick breaths. Before I can respond, he shoves us into the cave, his powerful thighs flexing fluidly. In the shadows and damp, his blond hair is dark, blue eyes flashing with icy flame. The water running down his face makes the perfect chiseled lines of it only more beautiful. More deadly. More arrogant. When Coal’s predatory gaze finds mine, heat rushes through my core.
“Are you damn insane?” Coal shouts into my face, the fear and fury rolling off him so thick that it settles like copper on my tongue. “You could have died.”
My heart stops, my body freezing like a trapped rabbit. I can’t face him. Not now. Not like this. The path to the rune-inscribed tablet is gone, and with it, my hope of reversing the males’ memories. This Coal who is now shaking my shoulders knows me as little as I know him—or the him he thinks he is—the void between us as vast as any realm. A fury to echo Coal’s surges through me. Fear. Hate.
I hate Coal for letting me leave. Hate him for following. Hate him for forcing me into that stream. For making my heart beat harder just with his mere proximity, the intense gaze of his blue eyes.
“Are you listening to me, damn you?” Coal’s face is inches from mine, every ounce of intensity focused on me alone. Without even the sky to dilute the force of Coal’s attention, I feel as though a thousand tiny claws grip every part of my body.
My thighs tighten. So do my fists.
Coal grabs my right wrist just before my knuckles can hit his jaw. Forcing my arm back and against the stone, he captures my left hand as well. “In case you’ve more brilliant ideas.”
I pull against the restraints, their lack of give somehow reassuring. As if I matter enough to bother holding. My chest tightens, my throat thick. “What are you doing here?” I demand. “You wanted me gone, didn’t you?”
Coal’s jaw tenses.
“Then you win,” I shout, throwing my weight against his hold. Again. Again. The male’s grip doesn’t waver. My heart quickens, pounding harder and faster until I’m certain it will bruise my ribs. “What more do you want from me?” I shout into the male’s face.
Coal leans farther into my space, violence shimmering beneath his skin. With wet black clothes clinging to his body, his every lithe muscle is on display as surely as if he were naked, power coming off him in dizzying waves. It’s as if the very elements of weather that turned me into a drowned rat have enhanced the male. When Coal speaks, his breath is so close and hot that it runs tingling wisps over my skin. “The truth. What the hell were you buying yourself time to do on that overlook? What’s the bloody game you’re playing at?”
“Nothing.” My voice is hoarse, broken.
Coal growls. “Stop. Lying.” He shakes me again, hard. “You’re hiding something, Cadet.”
“I told you, I’m not a cad—”
Coal pulls me even closer, his grip on my wrists white-hot steel.
Too close. He’s too close, the heat and power of his body washing over me, waking too many senses. My blood quickens, my muscles fighting his unyielding hold even as unwelcome wetness slickens my folds. I can’t think, not with Coal’s body an inch from mine, his eyes pinning me as surely as his hands hold my wrists. Worse still, the magic inside me thrashes against the shackles of the mortal world, pulling so hard that it hurts. As a human, I felt the male’s power wash over me like a great wave, sweeping away every hold and shield. As a fae, the sensation is tenfold. A hundred. For the power comes not just from Coal, but from my own rebellious body that can’t be this close to the male, this insanely tangled with him, without rousing.
Coal doesn
’t know he’s my mate, but my damn body does. And it cares little for anything else. Not that Coal is all but a stranger now. Or that he’d forced me into an icy stream until my lungs howled and my very blood slowed. My male—my precious, violent, terrible male—is still mine. With a snap that’s as vicious as a whip’s crack along my core, a cord of power inside me snaps free and rises to the challenge of Coal’s body. My own budding magic, perhaps, or an echo of Coal’s, or something else entirely. I don’t know. Don’t care. For it fills my every fiber with an ache that wants what it can’t have. My words fight their way through a storm just to escape, my sharp canines bared. “Go. To. Hell.”
The male growls, and there is nothing human, nothing mortal in the primal power of the low sound, which rumbles through his whole chest. The vibrations rake through me, lighting each ridge inside my soul. Inside my channel. My need.
My sex clenches over the emptiness inside it, each unfilled throb sending a fresh wave of anguish through me. The shivering in my body morphs to a tremble that has nothing to do with the cold.
With a strength that is too great to be my own, I rip free of Coal’s hold, my elbow cracking into his ribs with enough force to send a distant echo of pain through me.
Coal grunts, the surprise in his eyes flashing once before transforming to an inferno. Grabbing my shoulders, he throws me onto the ground, heedless of the stones. Heedless of anything. When his hands grab the top of my shirt and rip the fabric in a single vicious pull, the bite of cloth only drives the roaring need inside me higher and higher. The amulet bounces along my skin, shivering with a magic that Coal can’t see.