by Gwynn White
“I guess I don’t know about that,” Rafe said. “How long ago was it? Was it after I got here, after I fell to the Rift?”
Now Coit did turn around, his gaze searching as he examined Rafe’s face as if the werewolf might be playing some sort of joke on him. “How long have you been here, man?” asked Coit.
“Must be going on three years now.”
“And you don’t know anything about September 11, 2001?”
Rafe frowned. “No. Should I?”
“Who was the president when you left?”
Rafe said a name and Coit blanched before turning to me. “How many different worlds are there on the other side of this Rift?”
I was beginning to figure out the issue, and I could see Rafe was, too. “No one really knows how many worlds there are in the Riftverse.”
“Or how many variations of the same world?” Coit said.
“No idea,” I said, trying to soften the harsh truth that I suspected he was just beginning to realize.
“Sounds like our worlds are incredibly similar,” Rafe said. “I take it that 9/11 business was a big deal on your world?”
Coit nodded. “Changed everything in an instant.” His gaze flicked toward me. “If my Earth is that similar to Rafe’s, how are we going to tell which one I should go back to? What if I end up in the wrong world?”
How could I answer that when I wasn’t even always sure when I was dreaming and when I was awake?
“One problem at a time,” I suggested. “First we had to get there, and then I have to see if I can even open the Rift to send things—much less people—the other direction. Then we’ll work on figuring out how to get you where you want to go.”
Rafe was about to say something else when he was interrupted by the sound of explosions from not terribly far away. All three of us ducked, taking cover behind whatever we could find. Rafe and I ended up hunkered down by an old, overturned desk.
Coit stood with his back plastered to one of the few remaining columns. He gestured that he was going to go take a look. I gave a quick nod and he dropped down to crawl back toward the door, moving from one covered spot to another.
He lifted his head up to peek out the door for several seconds, looking first one way and then the other, and then made his way back to us.
“Looks like maybe some kind of rival gangs,” he told us quietly. “They’re coming in from opposite directions. I don’t even know we’re here.”
“I guarantee we still don’t want them to find us,” Rafe said.
“Amen to that, brother.” Coit jerked his chin back the direction we came. “Back in the tunnel?”
“Probably our best move. There’s a good chance whatever this is will be sorted out one way or another in a couple of hours. Gang wars this close to the Rift often don’t go the way the participants expect.” Rafe began moving toward the tunnel entrance.
I didn’t object, but I wasn’t entirely certain I could stand another hour underground. Everything about it made me want to scream. Rafe saw the shiver go through me and reached out to touch me with just his fingertips—but it was enough to help me calm down.
We lowered ourselves down the ladder, Rafe coming last and leaving the hatch propped open just enough to let in a little light.
“I’ve got another idea,” Coit said once we were at the bottom. “You said that branch we passed a few hours back led to another part of the city, right?”
“Yes, but I haven’t had enough time to explore it. For all I know, the passage leads out into part of the city it’s even worse than this. If the tunnel even still goes all the way to the exit I saw. It’s been a while, and I haven’t checked it out.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Coit said. “I’ll go check it out. You wait here—it’ll give me something to do while these gangs finish blowing each other up.”
“I’m not sure it’s a good idea to split up,” I began to object, but Rafe put one hand on my arm and shook his head.
“He’s right,” Rafe said. “We need to know if there’s another viable way out of here in case I’m wrong and these guys stick around longer than I expect. I’d rather take a long way around than risk walking through a war zone.”
“So shouldn’t we all go?” I asked.
“No,” Coit said shortly. “I want to go on my own.” He picked up his pack and shouldered it.
“Are you sure?” I couldn’t figure out what was going on with him, but I knew trading him was my best shot at getting my brother back from the Rift.
“Positive. I’ve got a lot to think about.”
“You’ll need this.” Rafe handed him the flashlight, and the two of them shared a long, level look. It felt like some kind of masculine bonding moment, but I wasn’t certain what it meant, though I knew that the discovery they were not from the same world had shaken Coit.
Rafe had been in this world long enough to stop looking for those kinds of connections—I could see it in his eyes—but he still remembered what it felt like to have those hopes shattered.
“Be safe,” I said to Coit. “Come back to us.”
Giving a curt nod, he said, “I’ll be back in a few hours.”
With that, he strode down the tunnel. Before long, even the bouncing of the flashlight’s beam disappeared around a curve.
Coit was gone and I was all alone with Rafe.
When I turned to say something to him, I was surprised to find him standing closer than I’d expected—and even more surprised when he swept me up into his arms and captured my lips with his.
“I’ve wanted to do that since the moment I saw you,” he said a long time later.
13
It had been four months since I left my city, my home, my family. The whole time I’d been traveling toward Brochan City, my thoughts had been centered on the Rift.
There were people in my world who wouldn’t even say the word Rift, as if to speak of it was to invite it in.
Some people said that was no place on Tehar truly safe from the Rift—not after it took over an entire city, and not once it had been inside your head.
I certainly knew I was not immune. I heard it whispering to me all the time. That’s something I didn’t even tell Coit. I was too afraid he would decide I was crazy, too dangerous to travel with.
At night, the Rift infected my dreams, tempting me to do terrible things. Things I was ashamed to even remember in the light of day.
I didn’t know if sex with Rafe is one of the things the Rift wanted me to do.
But gods, I wanted him.
Stepping farther into the tunnel, I sat down next to Rafe on the blanket he’d spread out, right up against his side. He was warm and I could feel his muscles even from this angle. He put out more heat than I’d expected.
“You’re a really good kisser.” I didn’t want any kind of awkward silence to set in.
Then again, the last thing I want right now was chit chat.
“So are you,” he whispered. His hands, strong and steady, were already on my shirt, slowly and gently undoing my buttons with his fingers. I relaxed against the wall of the tunnel, tilting my head back and closing my eyes, letting out a slight sigh.
Kiss my neck.
As if he’d read my mind, his mouth lowered to the side of my neck. First his lips, and then the tip of his warm tongue caressed my skin.
Do I taste salty?
Rafe’s hand moved down my shirt, undoing my buttons with precision. Once this was complete, he pulled my top out of my pants. His hand slid inside, pulling it open until the cool air brushed against my skin.
He slid the shirt off my shoulders, trailing kisses down to the hollow of my collarbone. My skin was cool, my neck hot. I shivered at the touch of his hot breath and warm tongue.
That combination of strength and gentleness left me aching with desire for him.
I wanted to kiss him on the lips again, but he was doing wonderful things to my neck, and I didn’t want that to end. At least not yet.
I started to lif
t his shirt. My steady hands at sight of the battle were gone—they now shook and trembled.
A low, nearly inaudible moan escaped my throat.
Being with him was so right.
I didn’t know if that was the Rift-call talking or me.
I don’t care.
Warmth.
Strength.
Every inch of him seemed to possess both in abundance. I pulled his shirt off over his head, forcing him to stop kissing my neck for a moment. His lips returned, seeking out my face. My cheeks. My chin. My lips.
As my lips parted to welcome him in, I slid down to lie on the floor. To hell with it. There’s no telling if we’ll get out of here, anyway. I can’t wait. I don’t want to.
My hands went to his belt. I fumbled a bit, but got it undone.
My eyes were now open, the kiss briefly over, and I watched him hovering over me, his gaze locked with mine.
Rafe smelled like the woods, the scent of him coiling through me, like a strand of green vine twining around my magic and sending desire shivering through me.
He stretched out next to me on the blanket on his side, slipping one hand up and down the skin of my side. He was chiseled from stone, sheer perfection, save the scars on his chest. I reached up and ran my fingers across the thick, ropy skin of them—five in all, a single set of claw-marks, matched by the ring of tooth-marks around his shoulder.
“This is how you turned?” I asked.
“Yeah.” His voice was soft. “I had no idea what had gotten me at first—when I realized I was under attack, I thought I was going to die.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I came close. A lot of wolves don’t survive the first shift.”
I leaned over to skim my mouth over the scars, the textured skin contrasting to the soft skin of my lips.
Rafe let his head fall back with a deep sound in his throat.
“Where were we?” I asked, smiling against his chest.
Rafe grasped one of my calves and pulled me toward him.
“You’re wonderful,” I said to him, my palm resting on his cheek.
He dropped lower, kissing my forehead, my cheeks, my lips, my neck, my nipples. Everywhere his lips touched was like a fire sparking through me, all running down to that hot center of my being, where the pleasure of this moment spooled, waiting to explode—like the magic I hold inside me, but entirely physical.
As he took me into his arms, the magic wrapped itself in and around and through the two of us at every point of contact and my head swam with the power of it.
14
I was still asleep when Coit returned, his voice startling me awake. Without thinking about it, I sat up, and the blanket covering me fell to my waist.
“Oh, whoa.” Coit skidded to a halt, putting one hand out as if to ward me off, the other covering his eyes. “Put some clothes on.”
I felt a blush climbing up my cheeks, but didn’t say anything as I scrambled into my discarded clothing. Glancing around, I discovered Rafe at the top of the ladder, peering out.
“What’s the story?” I asked.
“Everything looks quiet out there,” Rafe said.
“Good, because the other exit is totally blocked.” Coit ran a hand over his hair, cropped short when I met him, but beginning to get a little shaggy.
“Cave-in?” Rafe asked, propping the hatch open with a stick and moving back down the ladder. A thin light trickled into the tunnel from outside. I realized I’d lost all sense of time in the eternal darkness underground.
“Yep. About a third of the way in, if Rafe’s directions were any good.”
“How long we’ve gone?” I asked, rubbing my eyes.
Coit eyed me up and down. “Just about long enough, from the look of things,” he said.
I rolled my eyes. “Does it look clear up there, Rafe?”
“Clear enough, I think. Doesn’t seem to be any gunfire, anyway. You two ready to make a run for it?”
Topside again, everything seemed quiet. I hadn’t realized how use to the sound of butting explosions I’ve gotten over the course of the night—their absence seems startling today.
We crept up to the doorway this time peering out the various Windows along the way.
Nothing.
“Okay,” Rafe said, his voice low. “We are aiming for that building right there.” He pointed toward one that stood practically alone, the various structures around it have been crumbled at some point. “Better to go in short bursts, I think. Across the street to that building then to the one next door, until we worked our way around.” His finger traced a line in the air illustrating the short bursts of movement.
“Any suggestions for getting across that last open stretch?” I asked.
“Yeah,” said Coit. “Don’t get shot.”
I rolled my eyes, but nodded. “All at once, or one at a time?”
Rafe shrugged. “We don’t have any way to cover each other, so we might as well go all at once on the count of three. But try to stay low and quiet if you can.”
I frowned at him. “I could cover the two of you.” To illustrate I directed a tiny bit of magic at a pebble on the floor several yards away. The white-hot blast of energy hit it and it poofed away into a cloud of dust.
“But we don’t have any way to reciprocate. It’s just as efficient for you to come with us and watch our asses.”
I thought about his ass crossed my mind, but I refrain from actually saying anything allowed.
Rafe whispered out a count, and we took off, ducking behind stones that had fallen into the street possibly years ago, their sides blasted black with firepower—either by a sorcerer’s magic or from one of the guns that sometimes fell through the Rift.
We made it to the last building before our target without any incident and huddled behind the scant protection offered by the single wall still standing.
I stared out across the expansive rubble between us and our destination. “Why that building in particular?” I asked.
“We can cut through it to get to one of the main streets leading to the old Temple.”
The Temple.
People didn’t talk about it much anymore, but that was the center of the Rift’s incursion into this world.
When objects began to fall through a hole in the world, the people of Tehar built a temple to surround it. And then they worshiped it. And it grew.
Eventually, we learned to fear it. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do with a god? But by then it was too late—we had already invited it into our world, incorporated it into our lives, and given it the opening it needed to destroy us.
Brochan City had been decimated before I was born, but every Teharan since its destruction had grown up with its cautionary tale and simple moral: treat new magic warily and with respect.
I never thought I would see the Temple.
Of course, that was before Brodric left.
“Ready?” Rafe asked, bringing me back to the present.
“Do we go over the rocks or around?” I gestured at the way the rubble spilled out into the street, covering the should have been an otherwise easy path.
“Let’s skirt it unless something makes it necessary to cut across,” Rafe replied. “Coit? You good?”
“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” Coit said.
Rafe did his counting to three thing again and I briefly wondered if that was something that was common on his world before we took off.
We made it halfway to the building before they attacked us.
Part II
Fire and Air
15
They poured in from both sides of the street, small groups of men firing with their other-worldly weapons. As we ducked down behind a brick wall, little puffs of debris flew up from the ground wherever the bullets hit.
It took me a while to figure out that they weren’t actually aiming at us, but at each other. There were ten or more on each side, each trying to destroy the other entirely.
“Dammit,” Coi
t cursed.
“At best,” Rafe agreed, peeking through an old window in the wall.
Do you think they saw us?” I asked.
I don’t see how they could have missed us.” Rafe glanced around the wall one more time. “But they seem to dealing with each other at the moment.”
“We make a run for it?” But Coit was shaking his head even as he spoke. “Too likely to see us, I guess.”
“Wouldn’t it be better now while they’re distracted with each other?” I asked.
Rafe pursed his lips and tilted his head from side to side, as if he were a scale weighing various options.
“It’s not that much ground to cover,” he said musingly.
“Then I say we do it.” It might not work, but I was convinced that it had to be better than simply hiding behind these bricks, waiting to die.
“Okay,” Rafe said. “On three.”
He did that counting thing again—I really was going to have to ask him at some point if it was common in his world.
Coit didn’t seem confused by it, so it had to be.
Their two worlds, I reminded myself. Rafe didn’t seem nearly as freaked out as Coit about the discovery that they were not, in fact, from the same world. I understood Coit’s dismay, though. Part of him had believed—or at least wanted to believe—that if Rafe came from the same world, then the Rift must open up to it and give a passage to that world fairly often. The realization that that might not be true was absolutely devastating.
We took off running, crouched low to the ground, not daring to look to the left or to the right, but keeping our eyes intently on our goal. Every pop of gunfire made me flinch, every tiny dust explosion acting as a reminder that we were in the middle of a gunfire battle.
And then, out of nowhere as far as I could tell, an enormous blast of actual fire came out of the sky overhead and slightly behind us, scorching out a line between us and the combat.
A wall of fire sprang up in the street, consuming things that as far as I could tell weren’t meant to be consumed by fire. Even the rocks seem to act as fuel.