I stumbled and Callon grabbed my arm, keeping me from making the ugliest snow angel in history. I pulled back from him as soon as my feet were solid again, which was harder than you’d think when the snow was up to your knees.
He was trying to be helpful, and I was trying to not tell him to fuck off. It wasn’t because I was okay with him. I was just less okay with the Magician getting me and chopping off my limbs for shits and giggles.
I glanced at Tuesday, happy as a clam hitching a ride on Koz’s back. She was happy and toasty warm, using Koz as a heater. Why couldn’t I be more like her? When she needed help, she took it. How many times had I seen her effortlessly turn to someone and say she needed something? Like it was the easiest thing in the world?
Forget asking—I hated for anyone to know when I was struggling. She wouldn’t be fighting with Callon right now, either. She’d be telling him what she needed. What gene did she get that I didn’t?
Friend or not, I almost wanted to pull her off his back so she could trudge along beside me. Misery did love company, and I was pretty damn miserable right now.
I wouldn’t, of course. Even if she let me, I wasn’t evil enough to want to torture her alongside me. I told the little devil on my shoulder to shut up and fuck off. He left, but he’d be back. He always came back.
I took a few more steps and crashed. Turned out that numb feet weren’t that nimble. I pushed myself up, cold hands getting even colder in the snow.
By the time I was on my feet again, Callon had stopped in front with his back to me. Really? I was struggling enough and now I had to walk around him because he wasn’t paying attention? We weren’t in a bad enough place? He wanted to antagonize me now as well?
I was going to give the little devil that had already returned free rein and yell at him. I didn’t have a chance because he reached around and grabbed my hand, pulling it over his shoulder. I had no choice but to grab on to him with the rest of my limbs or lose an arm. Callon would do it, too—take my arm just to prove a point. He was a bastard like that.
He walked forward, still having an easier time with me on his back than I’d had alone.
Had to admit, this was a hell of a lot better. My pride quickly told me I didn’t have to admit shit. Then it took control of my mouth.
“I don’t need your help.”
“You might not want it, but you definitely need it.” He made that scoffing sound he did whenever he wanted me to know how stupid I was.
I hated that sound. It made me want to shove my fist in his mouth.
He grabbed one of my feet and ripped off my shoe.
“What are you doing?” I asked, choking him only a little as I tried to look over his shoulder.
“Keeping you from getting frostbite because you’ll let your feet fall off before admitting they’re frozen.” He tucked my bare foot under his shirt.
I had a hunch that if I did have any feeling in my feet, it would’ve felt much better.
He did the same to the other, and tucked that under his shirt as well, close to his flesh. He wrapped his hands around them, helping them warm up quicker.
“I could’ve kept going,” my pride told him, refusing to relinquish control of my mouth yet.
My pride had a point. My body would’ve made it a while longer without his help. He should be thankful that I’d speak to him at all.
“Yes, but it’ll be so much easier if you can walk when we get to where we’re headed, especially considering I don’t have any more witches left for you to kill or run off.” His words poked a little hard, but his tone was teasing.
I didn’t know why he thought we were on teasing terms. We definitely were not.
“I didn’t run that last one off. That wasn’t my fault, and you aren’t allowed to act like the injured party anymore.” Good thing I hadn’t thanked him or I’d want to beat him over the head right now.
My arms might have tightened around his neck slightly.
He laughed before he said, “You can’t do it.”
“You don’t know that.” I could definitely choke him.
“Yes, I do. I’ve got a really strong neck. But it is annoying, so if you wouldn’t mind? We both know you can’t make it the rest of the way without me.”
I squeezed tighter.
He ignored me.
We were halfway up the mountain when I saw it. I’d never believed in heaven until I saw the massive building, made out of stone and sitting way up high. There was smoke coming out of the chimneys and the windows glowed in the early twilight. It looked like a painting Baryn had traded for some whiskey once.
“Is that it?” I asked, before I remembered I wasn’t going to talk to Callon anymore.
Yes, I was an asshole. I’d done something wrong to him. That didn’t mean I had to be nice to another asshole who had his own wrongs to account for. Plus, he’d carried on for days when he’d found out what I’d done. He’d made me feel like the worst person ever. He wasn’t walking away from what he did fancy free.
“Yes.” His voice was a little raspier than normal.
It took me a second to place the emotion. Then it hit. He was someone who was happy to be home. One day, I was going to know that feeling too. What it was like to have a place that meant the world to me that I couldn’t wait to get back to. A place all my own.
As we got closer, I saw that there were balconies and lookouts along the building and realized the true beauty of this place. You could see everything coming at you for miles. Something moved, you saw it against the pristine snow. We were staying on a small trail. The rest was pristine. You couldn’t take a step that wouldn’t be noticed.
He kept walking, and the closer we got, the more I could see the shadowy bodies moving around inside.
“Do a lot of people live here?” Looked like it would hold quite a few. Lots of people meant lots of death. I hated lots of death. It made me awkward and stiff, like the corpses I’d see.
“About thirty between the main house and some cabins scattered about. It used to be a resort before the Bloody Death. Took a while to get it back into shape, but it was built solid, so the bones were all there.”
I didn’t care about the house anymore. Thirty people, thirty possible deaths to see. Maybe thirty. If they were all beasts, there was a chance I wouldn’t see anything. What were the odds of that? Probably not good.
Still, it was worth a little more talking to find out. I could go back to ignoring Callon later.
“Are they like you guys? You know, half beast?” Currently, I didn’t think he was even half beast. I thought he was a complete animal. But again, answers were nice. I could elaborate on his genetic makeup at a later point.
“About a third.”
Twenty humans, then, and twenty possible deaths. Wasn’t great, but wasn’t quite as bad, especially if they didn’t swarm in all at once. But this wasn’t like the Gathering. They wouldn’t keep their distance. They knew Callon. Probably felt at least somewhat secure he wouldn’t eat them. This could get ugly.
He stopped.
The guys immediately turned to look at us, Tuesday barely awake on Koz’s back.
Callon nodded at them and said, “Give us a minute.”
He waited until they walked inside before he said, “Breathe.”
Callon turned his head toward me. “I spent a long time only in beast form. When I first started shifting back, it was a lot. I’d be raw after a few minutes of human company.”
I took a deep breath, realizing I’d been holding my breath on and off since I saw the people. I forced the air deep in my lungs, trying to calm myself down and prepare for what was coming.
And then, because my pride still wouldn’t shut up, I said, “Don’t talk to me like you’re my friend. I’m fine.” I didn’t need help. I could do this. I’d be fine and I’d take care of myself.
“I know. You’re always ‘fine.’”
He made that I’m stupid sound. Then he waited as I dragged in a few more slow breaths.
&
nbsp; He took a step forward. “Is there a certain range?”
I let out a long sigh. Was he going to keep talking to me? Of course, I knew why he was asking. If I didn’t tell him, I’d be screwing myself.
Damn him. “Depends on the person and the death. Usually, though, I’m safe at about ten feet away.”
He nodded before we finished our trek toward the house.
“Being nice doesn’t change anything.” It was only fair that he realized. Maybe he’d stop talking to me if he did.
We stopped right in front of the two massive wooden doors. Callon turned his head to the side, his voice soft as he asked, “Are you capable of walking if I put you down?”
“Definitely.” My feet were still pretty numb, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t stand on them.
He opened the door.
“Why aren’t you putting me down?”
His hand paused on a huge brass handle. “Because I know you can’t walk.”
“Then why’d you ask me?”
“To see if you’d lie about it or if we’d made any progress.”
I tightened my arm around his neck, imagining how nice it would be to choke him, just a little. Only until he passed out. I wouldn’t actually kill him.
“Still just annoying,” he said, laughter in his voice.
I didn’t say anything else.
Then I couldn’t as I took the place in. It was a haven of warmth and wood. We walked into a room that only had a staircase and no furniture. This part alone was the size of Baryn’s shack, and it was only for the stairs?
He made a right and came to a room that had stuff, and not only wood but furniture covered in fabric and a huge table. A fireplace, so large I could’ve lain down in it, took up a huge chunk of the wall. Curled metal grates stood in front of a roaring fire. That was the best thing. It was warm.
A short, stocky blond guy walked into the room. “Callon!”
“Hey, Shifty,” Callon said, stepping back when Shifty stepped forward.
Shifty lost a little of his smile.
“I’ll explain later. Where’s Issy?” Callon asked, his shoulders tensing underneath my arms.
“Issy is fine,” came a weak female voice. Shuffling steps preceded a woman walking into the room. If I’d been standing, I would’ve stepped back to stay out of range, although no one would need my vision to see this death coming. The grey of her skin and the dark smudges under her eyes told you everything you needed to know.
I couldn’t put an age to her, because the sickness had stolen so many years already. I couldn’t tell if she was thirty or forty, but I had a feeling it was the former, since her hair didn’t look to have a strand of grey in the chocolate brown.
Callon didn’t budge as she got in range, and I didn’t blame him. I was probably the last thing on his mind right now.
She stepped over to a chair and put a hand on it as she dragged a breath in. It whistled as she forced it back out, each rise of her chest seeming to steal a little of the life she had left.
I braced myself for her death. And braced. And waited.
Finally, when nothing hit me, I began to relax. She might look like death, but the reaper wasn’t on her doorstep. It didn’t add up, though. She even smelled of death, her skin pulled too tight over her bones. Her hands shook and her head looked too big for her body.
“Are you—”
“I’m fine.” She waved a dismissive hand, tired of a question she was probably getting constantly, from the looks of her.
She smiled at Callon, finally getting her breath back from the short walk. “Zink and Hess are in the kitchen getting food. Koz is getting his girl settled.” Issy looked at me. “Who’s this?”
If she’d ever been involved with Callon, she didn’t have a jealous bone in her body. Although, as her attention shifted to me, I tried to untangle my legs, realizing how idiotic I must look clinging to his back.
Callon’s hands kept my legs wrapped around him, thwarting my attempt to stand on my own and regain some dignity.
“This is Teddy. She’s going to be staying with us for a bit.”
“You all right?” Issy asked me. She had kind eyes that reminded me of Maura.
Issy’s eyes went to where Callon’s hands were holding my feet captive under his shirt.
“A little frostbite but nothing too bad,” Callon explained, answering for me.
“There’s water on in your room. I told some of the boys to bring it up when they saw you making your way up the mountain.” Her voice held a whisper of worry.
“Thanks.”
Huh, guess Callon did know that word.
Her eyes shot back to where Callon was grasping my feet. “Do you want me to help?”
The woman could barely walk. He’d have to carry us both.
“She won’t let you. I don’t know if she’ll let me, except I’m going to make her,” Callon said, watching Issy as she nodded, sitting in the chair she’d been holding on to.
The sound of voices getting closer had me trying to untangle my legs again.
“I’m going to go get her settled and I’ll be back down,” Callon said.
“Come by my room instead. Feeling a little tired.”
His entire back stiffened. “Sure.”
Without saying anything else, he carried me up the huge flight of stairs and then down a long hallway.
“Is she your…” Sister, friend? I didn’t get the sense it was romantic.
“She’s family.” The words were clipped.
I bit my lower lip. I shouldn’t have asked. I, of all people, knew when you should keep quiet. I didn’t even know why I’d talked to him. I was still mad.
He walked to the last room on the right and pushed the door open with his hip. A huge bed took up the center of the room that had massive windows arching high. A wood-burning stove stood in the corner, with several buckets of water on it. The smell told me this was Callon’s room, and the view told me why. There wasn’t a threat you couldn’t see coming from those huge windows.
He set me on the edge of the bed and then turned around.
“I don’t need your help. You can go.”
He watched me for a few seconds, and I kept my eyes toward the wall, not returning the look. He walked to the door and then paused, and then walked back to me.
This time I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get rid of him easily.
“I wasn’t going to buy you. I had to find out what was going on. There was too much talk.”
I didn’t acknowledge he was speaking.
“Would I have kept you here to stop the Magician from building an immortal army and killing everyone he came across? Yes. You’d do the same, whether you admit it or not. If I walk, you don’t have a shot in hell. You know that or you wouldn’t have gone along with Hera in the first place.”
I wasn’t ready for this conversation. Not yet. The knowledge of how I’d been duped was still too fresh and strong. I knew what he was saying, but I couldn’t accept it yet.
He squatted in front of me, forearms resting on his thighs, and eyes on my feet.
“Can you feel them?” he asked, looking at the skin that had turned white.
I knew what this really was. An olive branch.
I was angry, but the steam had been let off enough that I wasn’t ready to snap the branch. Everything he said was true. I wasn’t ready to admit to that yet, but I’d take the branch until I decided the next course of action. Maybe I’d take it and then beat him with it later.
“Yes.” Feeling had been coming and going in the forms of pins and needles a little while after he’d shoved my feet up against his skin.
His head stayed downward but his eyes shot to my face.
I shrugged. “More than I did.”
He got up and walked over to one of the buckets, testing its temperature before bringing it to me.
“It might sting a bit, but it’s not that hot,” he said as he put it down in front of me.
The warning didn’
t prepare me. I sucked in some air between my teeth as my feet hit the warmth. My ankles thought the water was lukewarm, but my feet thought it was boiling.
“How bad?”
I tried to unclench my teeth. “Not horrible.”
Those steel eyes called me a liar in a thousand different ways, all without saying a word.
“Stay there for a while. It’ll subside.”
I nodded. I couldn’t walk, so I wasn’t sure where he thought I was going.
He turned to leave. As much as I wanted to punish him for everything I’d discovered, I couldn’t. As he kept pointing out, I wasn’t completely innocent in this situation. My gut kept agreeing with him.
But there was one thing I needed to know before I said anything else about the other thing nagging me.
“Callon, did you want me here so I could to steal a life to save Issy?” I asked, stopping him before he got to the door.
He turned around and slowly shook his head. “No. Even if I wanted you to, she wouldn’t.”
I bit my lip. I didn’t like the idea of giving anyone false hope. That had never been an issue before. People didn’t usually come to me when they were looking for hope. They came looking for death. But no matter what secrets he’d kept, I owed him this if I could give it to him.
He was waiting. “Was there something else?”
“I’ve been wrong in the past.” I gripped the blanket underneath my hands, wondering if this was a mistake but knowing it was too late not to say it. “I didn’t see her death.”
He angled his head toward me, eyes narrowing as if his super ears hadn’t heard me right. The shape Issy was in, I wouldn’t have believed it either. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Last time I’d seen someone that looked as sick as her had been Maura, and she’d died in a matter of days.
He took a step back toward me. “Are you sure?”
Living as I had, I knew what was running through his mind. If I didn’t know Callon so well by now, it might’ve sounded like he didn’t want to believe me, but I knew that wasn’t it. He was afraid to. Hope could be a mighty scary thing. I’d been there and done that for the first eighteen years of my life.
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