by S. M. Reine
She would need to establish her administration. Gerard and Neuma would help with that, but she could only delegate so many duties. She would have to set policies. She would have to change the laws and reach out to the dukes and duchesses and noble Houses of Dis to make sure they knew that their compliance was expected. Elise would have to be the Father, a leader, not merely some soldier in battle.
No matter her doubts and reluctance, she wasn’t going to be able to let any of that show once she returned to Hell. It would take confidence to convince everyone to relinquish their slaves to her, and just as much confidence to kill those that resisted.
Lincoln shifted in bed, stirring her from her thoughts. His mind sparked with activity as he struggled toward consciousness. His thoughts were bright in the gloom—completely human, without a hint of nightmare remaining. It was a relief to see. Elise had feared that he had been possessed so long that his mind would have been broken, but everything looked to be functioning properly.
His eyes opened. When he managed to focus on her, he didn’t look happy.
“How do you feel?” Elise asked.
Lincoln swallowed and swiped his tongue over his dry, cracked lips. “It feels like I’ve been in Hell for a few months,” he croaked out.
“Do you remember it?”
“Too much.” His eyes were dark and desperate. He remembered everything.
“You aren’t responsible for anything that happened during your possession,” Elise said. “It’s policy among kopides to consider people like you victims. Innocents. You won’t be punished.”
“You don’t know what I did.”
She thought of Devadas and Vassago’s mangled bodies, and the way that he had tried to drag her away for torture when he believed that she was human. Elise didn’t have to know what he had done to imagine it. A nightmare in Hell was in her element. He had surely eaten human flesh, hurt slaves, worn their flesh as leather.
“You’ll need therapy,” Elise said bluntly. No point trying to be nice about it. “There are some witches that specialize in counseling people like you.”
“People like me,” he echoed.
“Or you can let me help you. My friends and I have seen this before. We can get you through this.” She rubbed her thumb over the strap holding the Beretta in place. “We can help you get revenge.”
“You mean, here?” Lincoln asked, brow knitted. “At the sanctuary?” The fact that he recognized where he had woken up meant that his memories went all the way back to his first attack on the werewolves. Too bad for him.
“No, not here. James told me that you have demon blood in your heritage, and a cousin that’s a witch,” Elise said. “There’s a chance that you may be able to develop into a warlock—a part-demon that can cast spells.” Lincoln flinched at the sound of it. She pushed on. “I’ve taken over the Palace of Dis, and I could use someone like you in my administration. It wouldn’t be easy. It wouldn’t be safe. But it would put you where you’re most needed—somewhere you can save a lot of lives.”
“You’re not really requesting, are you?” he asked.
Elise lifted an eyebrow at him. “I am requesting. Politely. You don’t have to say yes.”
“And if I say no?” There was an unspoken plea in his voice. He was begging her not to make him refuse. Lincoln Marshall, heroic deputy of Northgate, was too tired to be a hero. He didn’t want to make the decision.
She extracted a rosary from her pocket. She had stopped by his home and found it in his bedroom. Just looking at the cross made her feel queasy, but Lincoln’s face brightened at the sight of it, and she folded it into his hand.
“I understand,” Elise said, leaving her fingers curled around his. “A lot has changed since you were possessed. War has broken out across the entire continent, and the safest places now are Russia, China, over where the fissure hasn’t reached. I’ll have Nash escort you to the nearest ship. You’ll be able to connect with resources for your recovery over there.”
“Thank you,” Lincoln said. A tear slid down his cheek. For the sake of his dignity, she pretended that she didn’t see it.
Elise stood. “I have to go back now.” She didn’t need to say where.
He nodded.
Lincoln might have been able to turn away from responsibility, away from saving people—a selfish choice—but Elise didn’t have that luxury. She never had. She never would.
She lingered in the doorway, looking at Lincoln’s shrunken form in the bed. She hadn’t just been hoping that he would come back to Hell to help in the Palace. Elise had thought that maybe he had feelings for her, and those feelings might have returned now that he had been through Hell and back. She didn’t have to love him for the two to partner, both in the fight and in fulfilling her needs to feed. And maybe, eventually, having Lincoln taking care of her needs would make James’s absence that much less painful.
But Lincoln wasn’t strong enough to be what she needed.
Must have been nice for him.
Elise knew she wouldn’t see him again, so she drank in a final look at him in bed, alive and relatively well, if damaged.
One small victory.
Then she phased away.
Twenty-Two
A lot changed in the weeks that followed the fight at the fissure. There were humans in the sanctuary—lots of humans, former slaves that were delighting in the snow, the cold, and the freedom. Once the werewolves got over their trepidation, they seemed happy for the company. And even though a handful left every few days, most of the humans seemed like they didn’t want to go anywhere.
After so much mourning, there was finally life and joy in the sanctuary again.
A new structure appeared during those weeks, too. It was unlike the rest of the cottages in that there were no plans, no decorations to make it look homey, no garden outside the front door.
This building was built from ancient trees ripped from the earth, roots still clumped with dirt. Moss clung to the bark. Mud had been packed in the holes and smoothed down the sides until it looked like a small, hollow hill overlooking the sanctuary. Anyone standing in the doorway of the new structure would have a good view down the waterfall to where the pack lived—and anyone looking out of their cottage windows would see the mausoleum watching them like a scion.
Once spring came and the snow melted, ivy and grass would climb the walls of the new structure. The forest would consume the building, permanently entombing the contents.
When Rylie finished smoothing the inside walls, she stood back, fingernails caked with mud and arms slicked with her own handprints. She was sweating and exhausted. She hadn’t slept since she started building it. Summer and Abram stood at her back in silence, equally muddy, equally tired.
Summer felt like she should say something to Rylie—words of satisfaction at what they had accomplished, some kind of condolences. But she didn’t know what to say. She didn’t have any words for what had happened anymore, much less feelings to express. She had spent so long being sad about Seth that she didn’t know how to address his homecoming.
Mostly, Summer just felt relief.
Abel was waiting outside when they emerged for the last time. He had been in hiding since they started the building—avoiding the slaves as he healed, and dealing with the grief in his own way, Summer imagined. But he couldn’t avoid them anymore. The full moon was rising that night, and the pack needed to be together.
The entire pack.
Summer realized that he was holding Seth’s shrouded body in his arms, carrying his brother from the sanctuary below to the mausoleum. The sound that Rylie made at the sight of it was horrible, somewhere between a gasp and a choke. But she didn’t start crying again. She just followed Abel inside.
Abram led Summer away to give them privacy.
When the time came for the change that night, Summer watched the pack from a distance, hanging out with the humans that looked on with mixed curiosity and wonder. She wouldn’t run with the pack that moon. She would keep
her human skin, her human thoughts and human feelings, and she would watch the sky for a hint of white-feathered wings.
The wolves changed one by one, instead of all together, like they usually did. As each one changed, they trotted into the forest, drifting through the trees like gray specters.
Rylie and Abel went last.
Their human forms fell away, replaced by the beast. They stood together in the center of the sanctuary, gazing at one another with eyes that said so much more than words ever could.
They ran into the night together.
Softly, slowly, a chorus of howls rose from the trees. It could have been one wolf crying, or all thirty-six of them—their voices were united, and it was impossible to tell. They howled the grief that their human forms couldn’t express, mourning the loss of the pack mate that had never quite been pack.
The sound came from everywhere in the trees, like the forest itself was mourning.
Summer closed her eyes and let it sink in.
They sang for hours, until the snow stopped falling again and all of the humans had gone to bed, leaving Summer alone on an icy bench. The song only faded when the pack moved deeper into the mountains where she couldn’t hear them.
When the howls were silenced, she realized that she heard a familiar noise, like the rhythmic pulse of wind—wings beating on the air.
Her eyes flew open. She gazed up at the sky.
Nash descended on her, wings dimmed until they barely glowed at all. He was normally so meticulous in his appearance that seeing his muddy suit in tatters was a shock. He hadn’t changed since the fight at the fissure.
He landed and immediately seized her. His embrace was warm and all encompassing. Sometimes, Summer thought she would have been satisfied staying in the Haven—a tiny world, a prison—if it meant being able to spend her entire life in his arms. And as she listened to the beat of his heart and dug her fingers into his back, she wished that she would never have to leave him again.
But she could feel the tension in his muscles, and she knew what it meant.
He hadn’t come back from the deliberation in Heaven just because he missed her.
“All of the angels are going to war now, aren’t they?” she asked, eyes closed, the point of his chin pressing against the top of her head. “The war’s going to get worse.”
“Yes,” he said. “They’ve decided to take decisive action. We can only hope it’s not too late.”
Summer’s eyes prickled. “You’ll go with them, won’t you?”
Again, he said, “Yes.”
She expected the answer, and it still hurt like being punched in the stomach. “I want to say I understand, but I don’t. You don’t owe anything to anyone. You’ve already done more than any of those assholes—and they’re only doing it to save themselves. They don’t even care about humanity. And this is your second war, Nash!”
He hooked a knuckle under her chin, lifting her face so that she had to look at him. “We all fought in the First War,” Nash said gently. “And we’ll all fight again. If we don’t, all of humanity may fall.” He stroked his thumb along her jaw, tracing its shape to the soft skin behind her ear. “I don’t fight for them, Summer. I fight for you.”
He took her hand, pressing a hard square into her palm. He closed his hand around hers so that her fingers curled around its hard edges.
Nash watched her intently as she lifted the box. Her breath caught in her throat.
It was a ring box.
“Is this…?” She couldn’t seem to finish the sentence.
“A promise,” Nash said simply.
Summer almost didn’t want to open the box. The mystery of what was inside was dizzying, tantalizing. It could be anything. Maybe it was another summoning stone. Or it could be a note that said, “Just kidding! I’m not really about to leave you to fight a bloody war against Hell,” which would be the best thing that Summer could imagine Nash giving her.
But she did open it, and it wasn’t a note.
It was a ring with an opal trapped within a delicate lacework of gold wire. It looked fragile and elegant. The stone itself was beautifully imperfect, as if Nash had somehow caught a sunset over an ocean within it. She lifted it out of the velvet, her heart frozen in mid-beat.
“Holy crap,” Summer breathed. “That thing’s bigger than my cat.” That was only a hyperbole because pretty much nothing was bigger than Sir Lumpy.
“If you’re comparing it to your beloved feline, I’ll assume it’s meant to be a compliment,” Nash said, lips curved into a lazy smile. But the smile didn’t hide the worry in his eyes. Like he seriously thought that Summer was going to reject the ring—and reject him.
A laugh bubbled out of her that sounded too sharp, almost like a cry. “Shut up and put this on my finger,” Summer said, shoving it at him.
“Is that a yes?” He held the ring out, trapped between his first finger and thumb. There was the faintest tremble in his hand. Nash Adamson, richest man in the Haven, ancient angel, and former soldier of God, was nervous.
She slipped her finger through it. Then she flung herself at him, arms around his neck and legs around his waist, and he staggered from the sudden weight.
Summer couldn’t speak. Grief wasn’t the only thing that was too powerful for words.
They kissed under the new moon, surrounded by the howls of the wolves and watched by Seth’s memorial. Nash’s lips tasted salty, and she wasn’t sure which one of them was crying.
He was still going to leave. A ring didn’t change that. It couldn’t stop the war or save the lives that had already been lost in it.
But it was a promise that he would be back, and it would be enough for Summer to keep living.
Summer tried to stay awake to see the wolves come home the morning after the moon. She really did. But after laughing giddily with Nash for a while, followed by body-wracking sobs, and then all the comfort sex in a warm, shady grotto, she was just too exhausted to make it until morning. Consciousness was way too hard.
She woke up a few hours later to find that Nash had kept one promise—he hadn’t left her while she slept. He was still warm underneath her, wings spread around them to shelter her from the drizzle of snowmelt. He smelled like freshly cut grass, a wood stove in winter, the heat of the sun on wet soil. He was leaned back against a tree, she was leaning against him, and there was no bed more comfortable than being in his arms.
She smiled at him, curling her fingers in his shirt. That huge rock was still gleaming on her finger. “What time is it?” she asked, snuggling under his chin, like she could climb inside of his heart if she just flattened herself hard enough against his chest.
“Almost sunrise,” he murmured into her hair.
Summer peered through the canopy of his feathers. Crystalline snow hung on the tips of his wings. Beyond that, the sky was navy.
Footsteps approached beyond the trees.
Rylie and Abel had returned. They were human and snow-soaked, feet dragging with exhaustion. If they were human again, with the pack trailing behind them, then it really was sunrise. A new dawn, a new day. The beginning of life after Seth.
Summer wanted to show Rylie what Nash had given her, but she didn’t get up. Once she got up, Nash would have to leave. She just wasn’t ready for the day to start—or for the war to continue.
She watched Rylie and Abel pass in silence. Their hands were joined, heads bowed together, shoulders touching.
They were in their own world. Everything else could wait.
Rylie and Abel retreated to her cabin together, and they didn’t come out for a long time. Summer took that as a good sign—that even in grief, staring in the face of war, they could all find happiness.
She could only hope that it would be enough.
The pack mourned Seth for what felt like an eternity. Abel watched them pass in and out of the mausoleum without joining them, separate from their grief. Everyone visited at least a handful of times. Even all those humans that had stuck around afte
r the fissure battle. Abram was almost as frequent a visitor as Rylie, who seemed like she never left the damn grave.
But eventually, Summer drew both of them away, and a night came when nobody was visiting Seth’s body.
It was only then that Abel went into the mausoleum carrying a bottle of tequila.
He had been drinking enough that he had a hard time walking straight—no small feat for a werewolf, whose speedy metabolism meant that he needed enough alcohol to kill three humans before he could get drunk. But he had been working hard at it for days, and recuperating from silver poisoning seemed to have made it a little easier to get drunk. He finally had a satisfying buzz that numbed the horrible shock of seeing Seth dead again.
Until he had taken Seth’s body from Elise, Abel hadn’t really believed that his brother was gone. Rylie hadn’t been talking about what had happened, after all, and there hadn’t been a body. He’d thought, maybe she was confused. Maybe Seth had just gone missing.
Seth had always been the smarter brother. If anyone could have survived the Breaking and everything that followed, it should have been Seth.
“But here you are,” Abel said, staggering to Seth’s side. “Look at you, you ugly fuck. Here you are.”
He had been placed in the center of the room. There were flowers around his body, some candles, a cross with his name in the middle. The reverence made Abel want to gag. He kicked aside a basket of flowers and knocked a candle over. Abel stomped it out before the flames could spread. It cleared enough room for him to stand by his brother.
Abel stared at Seth’s face. Stone aside, it was him. No sculptor could have captured his features so perfectly. That acne scar on his chin. The nose that came from their mother. The shared slope of their brow. It was some magic bullshit that had preserved his body, but it was definitely him.