by Skye Malone
No shit.
“I’ll carry her. She’s safe with me, I swear.”
Said the male who wanted to kill her only a few minutes ago.
“Come on, son. What choice do you have?”
A low growl left Wes, but Henry was still right. Short of shifting and carrying her down the stairs while he was bare-ass naked, there weren’t a lot of options.
Henry stepped forward carefully as Wes inched back. Scooping her up in his arms, the male nodded toward the door. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
On that, at least, Wes couldn’t agree more.
Barreling downward through the remaining draugar proved less difficult than forging upstairs through the horde, though Wes suspected the bears’ desire to be out of this place helped. With Lindy in his arms, Henry charged after them, and Wes never let the male out of his sight, terrified the bear would drop her over the banister or leave her for the draugar to destroy.
And Lindy never woke. Not when they reached the Humvee, nor all the way back to the bears’ cabins. Her eyelids twitched and her muscles spasmed while her skin began burning with a fever that only grew worse. They lay her in a bed at Maeve and Everett’s house, and the female swung into action like a force of nature, muscling nearly everyone out of the room.
Wes didn’t budge.
But no matter what Maeve tried, Lindy wouldn’t respond and her fever didn’t either. Delirious murmurs and whimpers left her from time to time, and beneath a sheen of sweat, her skin was ashen. Every so often, she would thrash, but the movements were weakening, as if she simply couldn’t keep fighting as hard. And even though the female never said it, he could read the look on Maeve’s face. Lindy was dying.
His heart was dying with her.
A rustling made him look up from where he clutched her hand. Andrew sat by the bed, and when Wes moved, the man’s eyes flicked up to him.
“It’s not your fault,” Andrew said quietly. “You tried.”
Cold shame sank over Wes, and inside him, the wolf howled in pain. The words weren’t true. If he’d been faster, if he’d bitten her when she asked instead of running like a coward…
Lindy might have survived.
He turned back to her. Beneath his grip, he could still feel her pulse beating like a trapped bird, faint as a whisper.
And his head shook. “I killed her.”
At Andrew’s silence, his shame deepened, crushing the air from his lungs. He couldn’t do this. Couldn’t sit here, watching her die. There had to be something else. Something he missed. In leaving the building in Minneapolis, they hadn’t stopped to see if any of those Order bastards were still alive. But if he found one, if he forced them to tell him how to reverse this damn curse, then maybe… maybe…
A weak spasm shook through her, air rattling in her chest.
He thrust to his feet and fled for the hall.
In the living room, Everett and the others looked up in alarm as he rushed by, heading for the door.
“Wes!” Henry called.
He didn’t stop, shoving past the door and striding out onto the porch. The Humvee was parked just outside, and if the bears were anything like the wolves, then the keys would still be in the—
“She’s your mate, isn’t she?”
Henry’s voice stopped him. A shudder coursed through Wes, his body aching as if every molecule of his being was in pain.
Boots reverberated on the porch as Henry came up behind him.
“I have to save her,” Wes managed, unable to make himself turn around. He started down the stairs again.
“Does she know? What she is to you, did you tell her?”
Wes’s chest quivered, his face tightening against the agony that made him want to howl.
A breath left Henry. “Tell her, son. Now. Be there with her. You—” The male paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was thick with old pain. “You’ll never forgive yourself, if you’re not.”
Henry’s boots scratched on the porch as he turned and went back inside.
Shudders rolled through Wes, and he strode toward the Humvee. He wouldn’t accept this. He wouldn’t just give up, not when she was slipping away with every passing moment.
His hand froze on the door handle.
Hours of driving. More to find an Allegiant. And what if they didn’t have an answer?
What if she woke up and he wasn’t there?
He looked back at the cabin. If he stayed, she wouldn’t make it. But if he left and he was too slow again, she could—
The sudden sound of wings made him tense. Fluttering down from overhead, two ravens landed on the snow in front of him.
Instantly, they shifted into human form.
Wes froze. Tall and thin with black cloaks of feathers covering them, the two regarded him with imperious expressions. He couldn’t tell if they were male or female, and when they spoke, their voices seemed to reverberate in his ears.
“We want—”
“—to see the girl.”
One spoke and then the other finished, seamless, as if they were simply one mind with two mouths.
Without another word, they turned, walking toward the cabin door.
“What?” Wes took off after them. “Who the hell are you?”
They didn’t respond, striding up the steps in perfect sync.
“Hey!” Wes sped up, but somehow they stayed ahead of him even as he chased them past the door.
The bears shoved to their feet, alarm clear on their faces. Ignoring them entirely, the two raven people veered left, heading down the hall.
“Wes,” Henry said. “Who the hell—”
“No clue.” He raced after them. “Get back here, damn you.”
The two people pushed past the door. Andrew made a sound of alarm, and Wes’s heart hit his throat. He charged through the opening to find the raven people standing at the foot of the bed.
Lindy moaned, thrashing harder than he’d seen her fight in hours. Sweat still coated her bloodless skin, and her eyes rolled behind her closed lids.
Wes rushed over to her, keeping one eye to the ravens as he grabbed her hand. “Lindy? Lindy, please, can you hear me?”
Her breath spasmed in her chest, ragged gasps that set her lurching on the bed.
“What are you doing to her?” Andrew demanded.
The ravens cocked their heads to the side, the gesture entirely birdlike.
“This one—”
“—is something new.”
In the blink of an eye, they moved, suddenly standing by the headboard on either side of the bed. In perfect sync, they reached out, each putting a hand to her.
Lindy gasped, her body spasming so hard that her back arched up from the mattress. Her eyes flew open, staring unseeing at the ceiling while her mouth opened in a silent scream.
And then she sagged back to the bed, her eyes falling closed again.
Alarm rolled through Wes in a cold wave. She wasn’t breathing. Oh gods, she wasn’t breathing.
“Lindy?” He patted her face and then looked up at the two people standing like silent sentinels on either side of the bed, cold expressions of satisfaction on their faces. “What did you do? What the hell did you—”
The ravens disappeared.
29
Lindy
Whispers carried through the dark, twisting around her like someone moving past only to come around again. The sound was ethereal, like a lullaby carried on the wind. Familiar too, like a mother soothing her child after a nightmare, even if her own mother had never done any such thing.
But Lindy couldn’t make out the words.
Mist swirled through the darkness before her eyes, gray over black, but refracting light around the edges like a rainbow. She couldn’t focus; the world was a blur swimming in and out of view with only whatever was right in front of her seeming to have any definition at all.
But what was in front of her made no sense.
Firelight played through the shadows and danced on a dark wall
. Something moved past her, but she couldn’t make out the shape of it.
“Hello?” Her voice slipped away as if drawn down a long tunnel.
A young woman’s chuckle drifted around her, pleasant, friendly.
Lindy tried to look around, the world blurring as she turned. “Where am I?”
Not there yet.
The young woman’s words came as if in a dream, passing into her mind even though she couldn’t say who had spoken.
“What does that mean?”
Again, a chuckle passed around her as if on a breeze. You did well.
Lindy floundered, confused. “I don’t understand.”
The poison was not poison. The poison was the idea.
“What?”
Come.
She felt a hand take hers, drawing her forward through fog and firelight. Ahead, a figure in robes like ashes and embers moved in and out of view, leading her onward. Rainbow light danced around the edges of the form, as if the shape didn’t quite share Lindy’s same reality.
Memories rose of old stories, and her confusion deepened to wary alarm. The goddess. The one for whom the Scythe was named. Lindy’s voice trembled as she spoke. “Niorun?”
The figure turned, the deep hood of her robe hiding her face entirely, and yet somehow, Lindy would swear she smiled.
Pressure on her hand returned, drawing her forward, and the shadows grew thicker. She couldn’t see the figure anymore, only feel a grip on her hand, but from the darkness the sounds of growls and shrieks arose, along with a flapping of wings like birds flew somewhere nearby.
Fear closed her throat. What was this? Where was Niorun taking her? Lindy was back to herself after nearly dying, and…
Maybe that was just it, though. Maybe she wasn’t back.
What if she was dead?
The realization pressed on her chest like a fist. All this time thinking her life was over, and now it was. She thought she’d be ready for it, but now she knew there was no such thing. Life was possibility. This was nothing. No hope, no future. Utter finality. And to it, she’d lost Wes, lost her family and friends. Lost everyone to spend eternity here, in the darkness, just another one of the monsters, and for what? She hadn’t even saved anyone.
She’d failed.
And she’d give anything to go back and live again.
Niorun paused, and then a hand cupped Lindy’s cheek, cool and soft, and a feeling of gentle comfort stole over her like a warm blanket on a winter’s night. Child…
Again, she felt as if Niorun smiled, though in the swirls of deep shadow and darkness, she couldn’t see the goddess’s face at all.
The poison was not poison, but something new.
White light shone in her eyes, and she gasped. A high ceiling rose above her, distant and cloaked in shadows like an enormous cathedral. She lay on the floor, the surface cold and slick like marble beneath her back.
She sat up. The cavernous hall stretched away on all sides around her, and pillars like white trees rose from the ground to support the distant ceiling. Daylight burned beyond the towering archway to her left, while far to her right, the space emptied into a long, dark corridor where the walls danced with firelight. In all the great space, she was utterly alone, except for one old man dozens of yards away, pushing a broom slowly across the floor.
“Where am I?” she called. “Where’s Niorun?”
The old man kept sweeping.
Shivers rolled through her, and she started to chafe her arms against the chill, only to pause. Dark tattoos still covered her body, and her fingertips were black as if dipped in ink. She trembled, looking up at the old man again. “Am… am I dead?”
He glanced over at her, his head bobbing slightly as if to allow for the possibility. “Perhaps.”
Without another word, he returned to sweeping.
Wetting her lips nervously, she pushed to her feet. The dark corridor stretched beyond the old man, curving so she couldn’t see the other end even though the walls were cast with a patina of firelight. In the distance, there was the sound of laughter and joyous song. But her chest tightened at the idea of heading toward it.
Somehow, she wasn’t sure she could ever come back.
“The battle is coming.” The old man’s tone was conversational, as if he’d merely commented on the weather, and he never stopped sweeping.
Lindy’s attention snapped back to him. “What?”
“The pieces are moving into place. I would have the strong at my side, even if there is little chance we will prevail.” He turned toward her, half his face in shadow while a smile pulled at his lips, and when he spoke again, zeal filled his voice. “But the battle will be glorious.”
Two ravens suddenly flew down from the shadows overhead to land on his shoulders, and in front of her eyes, his body seemed to change, as if two images were suddenly laid overtop one another. A battle-scarred warrior stood before her, a patch over his eye and a spear in his hand, his body towering with strength. And a wise old man with a staff regarded her, a knowing look in his one eye while the rest of his face was lost in shadow beneath his broad hat.
The man smiled, merely a caretaker once again. Carrying the ravens on his shoulders and the broom in his hand, he turned and walked away down the dark hall.
“What do you mean?” she called after him. “What is this place?”
A breeze stirred behind her. She turned.
In the archway, a beautiful woman stood with her body surrounded by sunlight. Wide open fields stretched away behind her, on which the distant forms of people moved as if they were sparring in preparation for battle. On the horizon, towering mountains stood capped in crisp white snow beneath an endless sky.
“You did well,” the woman said.
Lindy trembled, not sure how anyone could say that after everything that’d happened. “Who are you?”
The woman laughed, the sound like distant chimes carried on the wind. “I taught seidr to the gods in the days before man.”
An uneven breath left Lindy. “Freya?”
With graceful steps, the woman walked closer, light dancing around her like gold. “They never were opposites, you know. Chaos. Order. They need each other.” She smiled and gently placed a fingertip to the center of Lindy’s throat. Something felt like it snapped, only for her skin to burn where the woman’s finger touched.
Freya lowered her hand. “For what is to come.”
Lindy reached for her throat. Something tingled under her skin.
The woman looked into her eyes, her voice echoing as she spoke. “Time to wake, child. They need you.”
Lindy opened her eyes to gray light and the feeling of something soft beneath her. A warm hand clasped her own. The logs of the cabin ceiling stretched overhead, and cool sheets covered her body.
Which hurt.
She groaned and immediately heard a gasp somewhere to her right as someone tightened their grip on her hand. She looked over to see Wes crouched at the bedside, and wet lines traced where tears had fallen down his cheeks. Her father stood behind him, staring at her with shock.
A smile pulled at her lips to see them both alive, though worry threaded through her for why Wes had been crying. “Hey,” she managed, her voice weak. She tried to rise and go to him, but everything hurt.
Immediately, he moved to help her. His hands slipped around her shoulders, taking her weight and lifting her.
Something stirred beneath her skin. Dark, but not like the voracious power that craved to devour and kill. Strange and wild, it rippled through her in an instant, only to brush against something that felt like it was inside him, whispering across it like smoke over fur.
Wes froze.
Eyes locked on him, she couldn’t breathe, but he didn’t die. Didn’t scream in madness or terror. Instead, he blinked at her, something almost holy moving through his gaze, as if she’d taken his breath away.
Tenderly, he lifted her until her back was against the pillows.
“What…” She cleare
d her throat. “What happened?”
The two men looked to each other, and Wes’s mouth moved like he was struggling to find the words.
“We thought you were dead.” Her father’s voice was tight.
She stared at them both as foggy memories played back. A hooded figure in shadow and rainbow. A grand hall of marble and distant firelight. An old man with ravens, and a woman who—
Her fingertips brushed her throat. The skin tingled inside.
For what is to come.
A shuddering breath entered her lungs. “Is Frankie okay?”
Her dad nodded.
Lindy hesitated, feeling her way toward the words gingerly. “And Mom? The woman with the… the leash. Did she…?”
Andrew looked away. “They tell me Carolyn, um…”
“The ceiling collapsed,” Wes said quietly when her father couldn’t finish. “It fell right where she…” He grimaced. “I’m sorry.”
Something in her chest ached in spite of everything, and it didn’t feel like the grip of her mother’s power.
It felt like a child wanting her mother to have been different than she was, and for that person to still be alive.
Lindy closed her eyes.
Her father made a soft noise. “I’m going to go let Frankie and the others know you’re okay.”
Nodding, she tried for a smile.
The door shut behind him. Her eyes slid to Wes to find him watching her.
“Are you okay?” she asked quietly.
The corner of his lip rose. “I should be asking you that.”
Her gaze dropped away.
“I am now,” he amended gently. A heartbeat passed, and when he spoke, his voice was tight. “I thought I’d lost you.”
“I thought you had too.”
He took her hand, and she squeezed his fingers hard.
“I’m sorry, Lindy,” he said, pain thick in his voice. “I should’ve… I shouldn’t have walked away from you. Or left you. Or not done what you asked. I… I just spent so much of my life scared I might hurt someone with what I am that I…” He shook his head, a futile expression on his face. “I’m so sorry. Can you ever forgive me?”