Wails rose again.
Crow sat with his back to the wall, staring at Will.
“I wouldn’t waste time,” he said softly, nodding at Mandy.
Chapter Ten
Will cupped her face and closed his eyes.
Then he reached.
This was far from the first time he’d pushed into somebody’s mind, but it felt like it. He didn’t know how much time had passed since he’d come here. It wasn’t possible to tell by looking at Mandy. She’d stopped aging when she’d become Grimm. Time in this hell world had no meaning. A day here was actually weeks. He could have been here months…years. It felt like an eternity had already passed.
To say he was out of practice was being kind.
He no longer had the well of power at his disposal anymore. None had ever believed him when he said the power wasn’t his own, but it had simply been the truth. He’d been charged with a mission.
His own soul had fallen into purgatory, but because of what he had done, it hadn’t just been his soul.
He’d never expected to earn forgiveness. But if he could make amends for the lives he’d taken, then he’d do it. So he’d spent another few millennia wandering and doing just that, saving lives instead of ending them. Now, as he threaded through the chaos of Mandy’s mind and found the well of memories she’d trapped herself in, he watched those years in reverse—fast-forward, superspeed.
He plied his influence on it and yanked, grimacing as the memories tangled and twisted and ground to a halt.
She was here. Somewhere—
The fragile landscape around him twisted and he found himself being spat out, like a giant animal had taken a bite of him and found him not to his liking. He hurtled through time, space, memory—and when he finally stopped, he lay on his back, staring up at a familiar sky, one trapped in an eternal, piss-yellow state of twilight.
The netherplains.
Purgatory.
Swearing, he surged up, fury and frustration tearing at him.
Fists clenched, he turned to look for the cave—
And found himself face to face with…himself.
He stopped abruptly.
Slowly, he let his hand fall to hang casually at his side. He’d spent too much time here and he knew the tricks and toils of this place. There were other twisted creatures here that had never shown their faces on Earth, things that could easily mimic a life force.
But this version of himself started to back away, shaking his head.
“No…no…no…” the other him murmured. “Not again.”
Will cocked his head.
The other him screamed at him. “Not again! I can’t watch you die again!”
He breathed in sharply. “Mandy.”
The other him flinched.
“Mandy!”
She/he turned and fled.
Will flung himself after the person who wore his face. They ended up on the ground and the moment he touched that struggling body, he knew he was right. His fingers might be touching a man’s body, but this was a trick of the mind—her mind. She wrenched and bucked and twisted and heaved.
He let her, lying atop her until some of her struggles eased.
“Mandy, it’s me. Really me. I’m here to help.”
She laughed, brokenly.
“Why are you wearing my face?” He pressed his head to the back of hers, willed himself to remember her scent. It wasn’t hard. It was one of the few things that had remained clear all this time. “Let me see your face, Mandy. I want to see you, bring you out of here.”
“Why?” she asked, her voice ragged.
It was a mind-bending experience, because the voice was his, but the tone was hers.
“Why?” she demanded again. “So you can send me back? I’m dying without you.”
He braced his weight and lifted. “Turn around. Look at me.”
She did.
He studied the face that stared up at him and then shook his head. “I want to see you.”
Mandy sighed and lifted the hands that were hers, but not. Then she gave him a wry smile. “Maybe it’s a new fairy tale, Will. The princess and the frog. Which one of us is the frog? We kiss and…”
“You think you’re funnier than you are.”
She wrinkled her nose.
He closed his eyes because that expression just did not work as well on his face as it did on hers.
But it was her.
“And you are still you.” He cupped her face. Felt the hard jaw where it should be soft. Felt the brush of stubble where he knew there was silken skin. He focused on that and bent his head. “Come back to me, Mandy.”
She gasped when he brushed his mouth over hers.
And he knew she was right, although if this was a fairy tale, it was all sorts of twisted, because he was the only frog in this story. But whatever was holding her trapped in that form snapped—he felt it.
She moaned and so did he.
Her body softened—in several ways. It went loose and lax with need, and the muscles that had been rangy and hard were replaced with the softer, curved form of a woman’s. Still strong, the body of a woman who knew how to fight. But it was Mandy’s form beneath him.
And it was familiar.
He shuddered as he realized just how familiar and all those years of dreams drove home. Dreams that weren’t dreams. He caught her lip between his, tugged gently. She sighed into his mouth and opened, her tongue coming out to stroke against his.
Kissing…such an unusual practice, something he knew so little of.
But with her…
He caught her against him and rolled, putting his own back against the hard earth, letting her rest atop him.
Her mouth slid away from his but before he could feel the rush of disappointment, she teased a line of kisses along his ear up to his jaw. “I’m not waking this time,” she said, her voice broken. “I’ll die in the dream, find a way to kill myself if I have to. But I’m not waking up. I can’t keep doing this…”
Those words pricked through the veil of need that had wrapped around him.
Blocking them out, he shoved his hands under her shirt, a formfitting, toughly made thing that clung to her skin and got in the way. Cut it off, he thought. Just…
“Touch me,” she demanded, her voice ragged and soft. “Hurry. Make love to me before I start to wake up. One more time, then I’ll…”
I’ll kill myself if I have to…
With a roar, Will tore himself away from her.
Something was different.
I lay panting on my back, staring up at a miserable sky.
A miserable, unfamiliar sky.
The dream had been going so nicely.
Will had found me as he always did.
He’d touched me.
We were that close…
Although something was off.
I didn’t know this place.
Before, the dreams had always been some place where we’d been together. Worked together. Known some measure of…well, for me, they’d been happy.
But here…?
A low, furious curse split the air and I sat up, slowly.
That was when I started to feel afraid.
Because this place was familiar. Sort of.
And the dark-haired man…
He turned and I found myself looking into Will’s face.
The eyes were dark, almost black, but they were Will’s eyes. Hard, remote, flat. Will’s eyes. The color of his eyes, his hair…wrong. But it was Will.
I scrambled upright.
“No.” I started to shake my head as memories swam up. I wasn’t doing this again, wasn’t reliving all of those things, all of those memories. The times he’d died, the times he’d killed himself—or tried. I wasn’t doing it—
He moved and I spun, took off running.
I didn’t even make ten feet before he caught me, his arms coming around me. He wrenched me off my feet and spun me around. “Stop,” he demanded, that cool and flat and uny
ielding voice.
“Let me go!” I struggled, whipping my head back and forth, kicking my feet.
“No.” But he did—sort of. Enough to twist me in his arms. He held me braced against him, one hand forcing my chin up so that I stared into his eyes. “You need to wake up.”
“Wake…”
I blinked at him. What kind of trick was this?
“You were injured. There was…” He stopped and for a moment, looked uncertain. Will never looked uncertain.
Narrowing my eyes, I started to twist away again. “Let me go.”
He kissed me.
“Wake up,” he said against my lips. “You need to make yourself wake up.”
“You need to let me go!” I glared at him, whipping my head back. “I don’t know who you are—”
“You do.” He pressed his brow to mine. “You know me. Let yourself look, Mandy. You know me.”
I tried to recoil.
Tried to pull away.
But he wouldn’t let me.
“If…” I swallowed, then had to clear my throat before I could try again. “Assuming that I might know you…then you know what’s been going on inside my head. You know what I saw, because you were there. All of it happened to you.”
His lids flickered.
“Tell me your name…Will.”
His jaw clenched.
“Your true name.”
She was desperate.
Will could see it in her eyes.
She thought it was some trick of whatever had toyed with her and tormented her. He didn’t know what she thought this might prove and he didn’t know what to do to make it better.
Reaching up, he went to touch her cheek.
She twisted away.
Slowly, he let his arms fall, let her step back.
She did, staring at him with eyes that revealed nothing and showed everything.
She was scared and hurt, shut down and locked up.
He wanted to hold her and she wouldn’t allow it.
He could see it.
“Mandy…”
She backed away, shaking her head.
“You never once told me. If that’s part of why I never had a chance, part of why I lost you, then I deserve to know!” She practically screamed those final words and he could see the rage and pain in her eyes.
“Tell me!”
He inclined his head. “You saw it all, Mandy,” he said, absently reaching up to brush his thumb across the scar that ran under his chin. It was still rough after all this time and just that light touch was enough to bring back memories. The thought of her sharing those memories was enough to make him want to scream. “You saw. I think you already know.”
She sucked in a breath.
“I want to hear it from you…Will.” She simply said his name now.
He held out a hand and looked around. “I’ll tell you. But you have to let me get you out of here. This place isn’t safe.”
“Name.”
“After you let me pull you out of this snare you’re trapped in,” he promised. He hesitated and then added, “You have my word.”
He didn’t know if that would count. Because she did know.
But she took his hand.
He pushed at the veil inside her mind.
It was that easy.
They went flying back, the world folding and refolding as her mind grabbed them and shoved them back where they belonged, inside her head, not trapped in a world created by poison and memories.
She was breathing.
He heard it even before he opened his eyes.
She was breathing, normal steady breaths—the breaths of somebody awake.
And she was watching him.
He lifted his lids and for the first time in too long, he was staring at her.
Long black hair that lay tangled and dense around her shoulders, freed from the braid that normally held it confined. Her vivid blue eyes were clouded and confused and her lips were parted.
He bent over her then, sudden and desperate.
Somewhere behind him, he heard a cough, but he didn’t care.
One kiss.
One real kiss.
She shoved her hands into his hair and he pulled her against him. Her mouth was smooth as silk. He remembered that. Her tongue teased and taunted, flicking against his lips until he opened. He didn’t remember that, because he’d never had a true kiss from her, not really.
She drew a groan from him and kept it up until he thrust his tongue into her mouth, dying for a real taste. He was too rough, he knew, too rough and aggressive and she clung to him as though she needed this as much as he did.
But then it was over.
He’d just wanted the one kiss.
She sat back, panting and staring at him, her eyes wide.
Her mouth was wet from his and he licked his lips, tasting her there.
Rising to his feet, he backed away.
If he stayed there, he’d kiss her again.
Then again, and he would weaken, because she was his weakness.
He was a man prone to them, always had been.
“Your name, Will.”
His weaknesses had caused harm before…but not to him. To others.
He clenched a hand into a fist as he turned away.
“Which one?” he asked, lifting a shoulder in a shrug. A sour laugh escaped him and he looked back over his shoulder at her. “Most of them are lost, even to me. I’ve forgotten so many of them. I’ve been Will longer than anybody.”
She was staring at him, her face pale and taut. Slowly, he turned back to face her completely, his heart hammering inside his chest. “There was a lion’s den once. I was thrown in. But I didn’t die. So they tried burning me and when that didn’t work, they decided I was a god and I was able to escape, ran to what would become Europe. I met Sina not long after that. A hundred years, two hundred? I can’t remember. Before that, I served a Roman centurion. Before that, I marched in an army with a man called Goliath. I think my name was Seth then.”
“Your name,” she demanded, color flushing her cheeks red. “What is your name?”
“Cain.” He watched the denial flash in her eyes. “My name is Cain.”
Then he looked at Rob. “Take her back.”
Chapter Eleven
I stared at his retreating back for a long moment and then leaped upright.
Blade in hand, I wheeled to face Rob. “Don’t.”
Rob held up his hands. “I’ve no dog in this race. Well, other than the fact that he can kill me dead easy enough.”
“Get her out of here.”
Lip curled, I took a step toward Will. Will. Cain. My head whirled, spinning like a damn child’s toy. What I knew of him—or the name, at least—could fill a thimble. He was telling me…
My head. Yeah, it was spinning, all right.
Am I my brother’s keeper…
Cain. Abel. Kids of the two people supposedly created by God in the garden.
“There is no supposedly.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I don’t like when you climb inside my head, sweetheart.”
One black brow rose. “Your shields are woefully inadequate at the moment…sweetheart.”
The words were mocking and cold, his eyes flat.
But behind that flat gaze, I saw the wall he was rebuilding. I took a step toward him. “I’m not leaving. I don’t care who you were. I care who you are—I care about the man I’ve fallen in love with. I. Will. Not. Leave. You.”
He lifted a hand, his lashes sweeping down to shield the depths of his fathomless gaze. His thumb brushed over my lips and I felt that caress down to the tips of my toes. My stomach twisted. My breasts felt full and they started to ache, my nipples drawing into near painful points. All from that one light brush. Something shifted in his eyes, an answering awareness.
I caught his wrist, closed my hand around it.
His pulse slammed against my thumb, once, twice, three times…all in the span of ten seconds. For a
Grimm, his heart was racing.
He sighed and I felt the caress of his breath as surely as if he’d touched me, let his hands roam over me.
Then he spoke.
The spell shattered.
“You will leave.”
I tightened my grip on his wrist, staring at him.
He dipped his head and murmured into my ear. “You will leave. You will return to the mortal world, Mandy. Go back to Greta and Rip. Carry on the fight there. Live your life…forget…this. I’ve told you. It was never meant to be.”
He pulled away, twisting his wrist out of my grip.
Forget this? Forget him?
A weird noise filled the cave. It took a moment to realize it was me. I was growling. Growling low in my throat, and lunging for him.
I took him down only because he let me.
“I…uh. Yes, I think I’ll step outside for some…dreadfully important…”
Rob’s voice faded away into a blur as Will rolled and pinned me beneath him. I swung out.
Silver flashed.
Only Will’s speed saved him.
He wrenched away the knife I’d forgotten I still held, slamming it down onto the stone floor of the cave. “Enough!”
The fury in his voice would have shocked me if my own hadn’t threatened to swallow me whole. I swung out again and drove my fist into his jaw. His head flew back. It wasn’t even a heartbeat later that I had both wrists stretched over my head, his body now pressing intimately to mine.
And I felt, for the first time, the proof that he wasn’t as immune to me as he would have me believe.
His cock burned into my belly.
A muscle pulsed in his cheek and his eyes all but devoured me as he stared at me. “Enough,” he said again.
“No.” Slowly, I shook my head. “It’s not. Don’t you get it, Will? It will never be enough.”
I wasn’t talking about my struggles or my refusal to leave.
I was talking about this.
My time with him, my need for him.
“I could have two thousand years…or two hundred thousand with you and it wouldn’t be enough.” Tears burned my eyes now and I didn’t try to fight them. “But if I leave here, if you force Rob to take me back, and be prepared to knock me out, because I won’t go willingly, but if you do that, then you need to understand…I’m already dead.”
Grimm's End: Grimm's Circle, Book 9 Page 10