by Chloe Jacobs
That was something she’d have to think about later. Now, Dryden came forward. “I will share my power with you, and you will use it to snuff the flames,” he said matter-of-factly.
“I’m sorry, but what power do you have, and how exactly does one go about lending it out?”
He only looked at her like she was missing something obvious.
Greta crossed her arms, defensive.
He came closer. “Take my hand and open yourself to me.”
Wyatt opened his mouth to argue, but Siona put a hand on his chest to hold him back. “It will work, and it might be the only chance we have to save the forest.”
“Why do they care about the goblin forest, anyway? This isn’t their land.” He spoke to Siona, but he was looking between them all with growing suspicion. It was a reasonable question. One she’d been about to ask herself.
Byron opened his arms wide. “This forest provides as much protection and security to our borders as it does for goblin lands. None want to see it razed to the ground.” He nodded to Greta. “And considering all of the progress that has been made between us already, if we have the ability to assist the future goblin queen in order to maintain good relations, it shall be done.”
She winced at the word “queen” and noticed that Wyatt had a similar reaction. He didn’t respond otherwise, making her wonder if his tongue was bleeding from biting it.
She focused on Dryden. “What will happen if I do this? If you have magick that can help, why do you need to share it with me to put out the fire?”
His gaze shifted for just a second, and she thought she saw Leila sending him a loaded look. “I’m not strong enough,” he continued. “But your ability can amplify my power.”
It’s not my ability, she wanted to say, but that wasn’t an important distinction to make now. He might be right. She’d sensed how greedy the darkness was, always wanting more freedom and more strength. But if she gave it Dryden’s power, would that amplify the insidious effect it was having on her?
Beside her, Wyatt was getting more tense by the moment. A live wire of angry volatility. He was telling her not to do it, not to risk it. The words hung in the air even though he hadn’t said it out loud. Whatever she’d done up in the tree house earlier must have been bad. Really bad.
She shuddered as that blinking, knowing eye in her mind fluttered. The last thing she wanted to do was give the darkness more of a hold on her…and yet she also wanted it so much she trembled.
The forest was full of dry timber. If she didn’t try to do something, how far would the fire travel? At this deepest time of night, how many Myleans would wake up surrounded by it, with no time to escape? How many of them wouldn’t wake up at all?
She held out her hand. “Let’s give it a shot.”
Dryden took it. She refused to look at him, or Wyatt or Siona, and closed her eyes.
The rush of power was immediate. Dryden’s ice crashed against the wall of black, smoky magick inside her. For a minute she thought that was it, a stalemate, but then the eye snapped open completely, making her body jerk. Instinctively, she tried to shut it back down, but it was already too late—there was no escape. Dryden’s ice started to crack. Her power penetrated it, like oil that flowed into all the fissures, until it was everywhere, consuming everything.
Her mind flowed right along with it, and in the back of her subconscious she knew she was losing herself again. Not that she cared. The strength of it was intoxicating and pervasive. She was so focused on it, she didn’t automatically notice the sliver of light entering her consciousness, like a blade slicing through mist to clear the skies.
Somehow, she felt more in the moment and realized that she actually had some control. Her magick was still awake, still soaking in Dryden’s power, but she wasn’t lost in it.
Siona. She had to be helping.
It didn’t take long to understand exactly what Dryden’s power was—or to realize that he was indeed a descendant of Lazarus. The knowledge was there, like seeing every gene and chromosome that put him together. It would have been distracting if she wasn’t still hyperaware of everything else. Smoke. Heat. Flames. For once the urge to cause fire was less than the greedy urge to explore this new ability at her fingertips, so she started to put out the flames.
It was easy. So easy. Every time she reached for the magick it responded eagerly, and this time she’d fueled it with a limitless supply of perfect, extreme faerie cold instead of the blistering heat. She blew ice across the flames, sucking the oxygen right out of the air. In no time, the fire couldn’t breathe. It sputtered to embers that glowed weakly under the thick sheet of new ice coating the branches and the ground.
And yet…she didn’t stop. Why would I stop? Her grip on Dryden’s hand tightened. He tugged against her, but she wouldn’t let go. Not with all that power still at her fingertips.
Seize it. Use it. Keep it. The urge became a savage growl of possession until she was screaming into Dryden’s face as he fought to be free of her.
Arms around her waist, jerking her back hard, even as she stretched against them like she was still bent over the branch up in the tree.
She fought to stay in contact with Dryden. Mine. Mine. Mine.
And then everything just stopped, like snuffing a match. For a moment all her senses went dark. She couldn’t hear, couldn’t see, couldn’t taste the blood in her mouth.
When the world rushed back in, the pulsing darkness had retreated, but there was more ash coating her soul…and this time it hurt with the frigidity of ice.
“Wake up, please wake up.” Wyatt held her. His voice filled her ear, startling her out of the furious haze.
This time she remembered exactly what she had done.
She pulled air into her lungs so hard and fast her heart couldn’t catch up. “Get him away,” she bit out through clenched teeth. She went from desperately reaching for Dryden to putting her hands up to ward him off. “Get everyone away.”
Wyatt squeezed her closer and tucked his chin into the curve of her neck, like letting her go would be letting a tornado loose.
“Get them all away from me!” Her knees buckled so that the only thing keeping her upright was him.
Siona watched. Her gaze was guarded and sad, but she almost looked guilty, too.
Not your fault, Greta wanted to say, but the lump in her throat was too big. Her own guilt and disbelief overwhelmed her. I wanted to save Mylena. Instead, I just unleashed another monster on it.
“Wyatt,” she sobbed, fingers clenched tight.
“Shh. It’s okay.” He murmured into her ear and brought them to their knees on the forest floor. “Just rest.”
None of the others could touch her. She couldn’t risk it again. Only Wyatt was safe. And oh, God, that was a lie. Her teeth chattered. Her vision blurred. Her body was a pulsing mass of agony. Nothing was safe, nobody. Not from her. The darkness inside was wide-awake and salivating with hunger. It had a taste for power, she didn’t think she could keep it down even if she wanted—
And that was the worst part.
She didn’t want to keep it down.
“Rest, Greta,” Wyatt whispered, rocking with her. His breath warm on her neck. “You’ll be safe. I’ll stay with you.”
She closed her eyes. She didn’t want to, but the cascade of pain and exhaustion was too much, and she couldn’t keep them open for a minute longer.
Chapter Seventeen
“Isaac!”
She knew she was in a dream. She had to find him, even though it was going to hurt like hell to see him like that again. “Please,” she croaked.
Crashing footsteps sounded through the woods. Tears choked her as she ran in that direction.
Everything was so wrong. She was never supposed to be the one responsible for Mylena. She was never supposed to burn down the forest or traffic with faeries. And she was never supposed to have magick, especially magick so terrible it made the deadliest of creatures cringe in fear of her.
She
was just supposed to be the ordinary, loner human who stayed mostly on the sidelines hunting the Lost, maybe offering advice or her sword arm every once in a while. Isaac was the one who needed to rule the goblin kingdom…because that’s what he’d been born to do. That was his destiny. Not hers.
She felt his presence. He had to be close.
The morning sparkled, sunshine filtering through the branches of the trees and bouncing off the snow dotting the ground in melting little patches. When she looked up she even had to squint.
It was warm enough that she didn’t need her coat. Granted, it was a dream, but either way, she stripped it off and left it behind, walking into the woods without looking back.
After what felt like an hour, she bent and pressed her fingers into the pads of a massive footprint in the mud. There you are!
Now she had real evidence that she was on the right track and picked up the pace. She covered his footprints with her own, going as fast as she could, but jerked to a stop when she came through a thick copse of evergreens and found herself in a secluded glade. Their glade.
The snow here was all gone. The ground was brown with mud and crispy, dead grass, and the sunshine that had felt so good now seemed to make everything look stark and barren. This wasn’t anything like the romantic spot the goblin king had always brought her to in her dreams. But it was still the place, and if he was here that had to mean he remembered what it meant to them. He had to remember her.
“Isaac!” She spun around, searching, but faltered as she caught the scent of freshly spilled blood.
Something large had been dragged off to the edge of the clearing, into the shadows, leaving rivets in the ground that had softened with the thaw. The blood trail smeared with the muck, creating dark puddles before disappearing ominously into the bushes from where the distinct sounds of sloppy, greedy chomping emerged.
Slowly, she took a step forward. She rested her hand on the hilt of her sword. Her instinct was to draw the weapon, but she spread her arms out at her sides instead. “Isaac?” she whispered now, pulse racing, muscles tense.
The sounds halted, and she could imagine him in there with his head tilted to listen, maybe readying himself to launch out at her with claws pointed and sharp. Not for the first time, she wondered what would happen to her sleeping body if she got herself killed in one of these all-too-real dreams.
This is Isaac. No matter how far gone he was, if he could bring her to the glade where they’d had their first kiss, she had to believe there was a way to reach him.
One more step closer. She crouched a little, squinting to make out the shapes in the shadows. A hulking figure shifted, leaning forward over its kill. Eyes gleamed red, staring out at her.
Isaac?
She didn’t say it aloud, but his head snapped up. Was that a line of blood trickling down his chin? She shuddered.
Isaac, it’s Greta. Recognize me. Please. You know me.
His lips pulled back in a snarl, showing off just how sharp his teeth were. Wasn’t there anything of the boy she knew in this…creature?
Come out. She didn’t go any closer, staying at the edge of the tree line where the sunshine still reached. Wait, stay there.
Weak knees. Thin breaths. She didn’t know if it was anticipation or fear that she felt. “Tell me I’m not wrong about this,” she whispered.
Greta.
Her hopes skyrocketed like fireworks. Was it real, or did she just want it to be so badly that she’d started hearing things in her head? Fabricating the dream to fit her expectations?
He didn’t move forward, but he didn’t shrink farther into the darkness, and he didn’t attack. He didn’t move at all, as if he was going to wait her out and see if she would give up and leave. But she could wait a long time. For Isaac, maybe she could wait forever.
Her thighs burned holding the crouched position. She reminded herself that this was a dream and she was in control of it, and felt better immediately. The only thing she couldn’t control was her own emotions. Patience is a virtue. Every hunter knew that.
As if they were tethered to each other through sight, Isaac never once took his gaze off her, and she refused to look away from him, either. If she did, it would be over. His entire body was a coiled spring, waiting to release and leap onto her.
“You know me.”
She willed him to remember—
“You said my name.” He rolled a lock of her hair between his fingers, his gaze fixed on her mouth. “You invited me in. You gave me the power.”
“You can put up walls, Greta. But sooner or later I’ll break down every last one. There won’t be any secret you can keep or any part of you I don’t know…intimately.”
“The truth is right here.” He kissed each of her eyelids, flattened his hand over her heart. “And here—”
Memories. All her memories of Isaac cascaded through her, pouring out in a river she couldn’t stop—
“I know who and what you are, and I’ve already told you it doesn’t make any difference—”
Did he know those were the very words he’d said to her? It seemed fitting that they should echo in her head now.
Finally, a paw inched forward. Her heartbeat tripled. Was he tired of waiting? Was he moving to tear her throat out? Or had she reached him, and now he was coming forward, hoping she would give him a chance?
He slowly uncurled himself from his…breakfast. She blanched as a hunk of mangled flesh that must have missed his mouth plopped from his fur to the ground between them.
He lunged out of the shadows.
She scuttled back on her hands as fast as she could, but he loomed over her, bloody paws in the ground on either side of her head, his jaws snapping less than an inch from her nose.
“Isaac, you don’t want to do this,” she stammered, the pulse point in her throat hammering madly. His gaze dropped right there, saliva gathering on the points of his teeth. She shoved against him, warding him off.
The contact was as physical as anything could get. It slammed into her like a horned bull coming at her full tilt.
“Remember. Please remember,” she begged. She pushed the memories at him, praying for something to work—
“It never mattered what you are, or what I should have done. Not since the very beginning. I fought my own uncle to keep you safe. I’ve fought my own people. I have no intention of letting the demon have you now. You’re mine—”
He stopped midgrowl and tilted his head—
He reached through the rift, grasped hold of her arm. His eyes blazed with purpose. They held her as surely as his claws and with a final squeeze he pulled. She screamed as the portal tried to suck her back in, not wanting to give her up. “I won’t let you go,” he promised—
Her heart burst. He had to feel it, too. That raw, honest bond that had been between them since the very beginning. It hadn’t broken. Not yet. If a demon couldn’t break it, and a portal to another world couldn’t break it, Isaac going Lost wasn’t going to break it.
She flattened her hand over his chest. As she looked up at him, his eyes cleared.
His muscles were tense under her fingers, but the red film over his eyes faded a little more the longer she held the contact, and she could see the familiar amethyst tint in his pupils—
He sits beneath a snow-covered tree as Greta cuddles in his lap. Her mouth is soft. She’s still asleep. He gently traces the curve of her jaw, the roundness in her cheek, waiting for her to embrace the reality of the dream and come to him. She arches her back, and a groan breaks from her parted pink lips. He watches her with both love and agony plain on his face. “You are such a jumble of contradictions,” he murmurs. “All that ferocity in such a tiny, vulnerable package. If only you knew that the moment I glimpsed the depths of pain beneath that gruff, prickly exterior, I’d have fought all of Mylena for the right to be the one you would let down your guard with—”
Another memory, but obviously it wasn’t one of hers. This had to be his.
Isaac. It
was Isaac.
“It’s me,” she whispered. “I’m here.” Optimism and hope made her heart beat in choppy, irregular patterns. A constant, low rumble barreled out of his throat, but he remained still. Slowly, she dared slip her hand up his chest and along the tight cords in his neck, watching as his muscles twitched and jumped wherever she touched.
Her fingers trailed across the harsh line of his jaw. His fur was coarse and scratchy, coated in mud and dried blood, but she ignored all that, looking for Isaac beneath it all. The boy whose cocky grin could melt her heart, whose laughter knocked the pain out of her heart, whose whispered promises gave her hope for the future. He had to be there, somewhere.
Surprisingly, he let her touch him, and the longer they stayed in contact, the more he seemed to change. She realized that where her fingers touched, the fur covering his face had slowly started to recede, and she could actually see skin now.
“I knew—”
She felt dizzy. Her gaze focused on those jagged teeth. She hesitated and another memory ripped through her—
She looked down the rock face to the monster growling up at her. His claws dug into her ankle and he pulled. Her knee buckled and she scrabbled to hold on.
His nails went deeper, and she screamed. The savagery in his eyes was cold, making him seem like nothing more than a vessel for all of nature’s violence and rage.
“Isaac, don’t do this,” she begged, pressing her cheek to the frozen rock. He yanked harder. Her grip slipped—
Suddenly, the Isaac looking down at her now promised just as much violence, just as much rage. Maybe more. His lip curled and he reared back.
An arching pain in her side. Her head swam. The glade wavered before her eyes.
She drew her hand back with a hiss, but as she severed contact, Isaac’s roar shook the fabric of the dream itself.
No! She jumped to her feet, stumbled, and went back down to one knee in the dirt.