“So they brought me to hell and left me there?” I asked.
“The first time you met the Magician, you nearly lost everything. If he had found you sooner, you wouldn’t have won. So they left you to Maura until it was time for people to hear the whispers of a girl who could work a miracle.”
We were standing in front of the gates of the village now. A man was passing a baby through the gate.
He turned and, not long after, disappeared into a golden mist.
“They left me in hell,” I said.
“Some people are born in heaven. Others are born in hell, clawing their way out from the day their life was cursed. Heaven isn’t worth anything if you haven’t seen hell first and know what you have. I’m not saying that justifies what they did, but you’ll know what you have.”
“I’m dying. I won’t have anything,” I said.
“No, you’ll have more happiness and joy than you ever dreamed of.”
She let my hand go, and I was waist-deep in the Hell Pit. The field of flowers had been a hallucination. This stuff was playing with my mind. I wished it had continued. I didn’t want to die like this.
Either way, this had to end quickly. I knew the scars I’d leave for the people watching while this all played out. I could hear my mother crying, the image of her collapsed on the bank scarred into my brain.
I’d feared what having the mud swallow me whole would be like, but now I worried it would take too long. What if one of them broke free before I died?
“Take me already,” I said, moving deeper until I was up to my shoulders in it.
Why was I still standing here alive? I tried to move, and it flowed around me, just like water would. I wasn’t frozen like the Magician had been. It wasn’t even uncomfortable. It felt more like a warm bath.
As I waited, the mud right around me began turning colors. The muddy brown turned blue, then clear. Why wasn’t it swallowing me whole like it had the magician?
“Don’t you want to kill me? Just do it already.”
The blue water around me spread wider until it was a few feet out. Then the water closest to me turned green, and that began to spread out. Finally, it was replaced by sparkling gold where I stood. It began to fizz where it touched my skin, like some sort of carbonation was happening, tingling wherever it touched me.
Then it got even stranger. This glittering fizz touched me everywhere, seeming to seep into my skin, and I felt a sense of relief and calm and serenity. It was as if I were feeling the emotions of whatever this thing was, and it was nothing expected. Malice and anger weren’t a glimmer. Whatever was happening to me, whatever was filling me, it wasn’t evil. It was beautiful.
I could feel magic flowing through me. I lifted my arms, my hands glowing in front of me, tingling and glittering like the gold of the water.
I was so enraptured by what was happening that I didn’t realize right away that everyone had grown quiet. No one was crying anymore, at least not that I could hear. A quick look showed stunned faces.
I looked back to my hands, at how they glowed. I shoved up my sleeves, to see my arms were the same. I shed my jacket, the cold completely gone.
The intensity of the relief filled me until I felt as if I were about to burst with happiness. I felt like someone who had been living in hell was about to walk through the gates of heaven. Tears of a joy that didn’t belong to me streamed down my face. And just when I thought I was going to be completely overwhelmed by the magnitude of emotion, streams of glittering silver and gold were trailing out of me and rising like smoke.
Hazy forms of people started to appear all around me, slowly rising, all smiling as they looked upon me.
Soft words traveled across the air. “Thank you” from one. Then another, until it was a chorus surrounding me.
This thing hadn’t been trying to harm me. It had been seeking release. The souls of the wronged had been stuck here, attached to the discarded magic and rotted skins, waiting to be freed. Waiting for my strange gift to release them. One day I was going to die, maybe violently, but hopefully peaceful in my bed, Callon lying beside me. But that day wasn’t now.
At the bank, no one was holding Callon back anymore. He stood, watching with everyone else. Even from over there, Callon’s beast ears could hear the thank yous.
The mud was now almost completely changed to a glittering lake of brilliant blues, greens, and golds that began to lower. I don’t know how long it continued, but finally there was nothing but regular mud under my feet, the shadowy figures were gone, and the crows who’d haunted my every step for years flapped their wings and flew away. They’d been trying to signal the need for the passage of souls for too long.
By the time the last of the lake disappeared, and the last shimmer faded from the sky, exhaustion overtook me. My knees gave out. Before I crashed to the ground, Callon was lifting me in his arms.
Epilogue
I dug in the garden beside Dal on a warm spring day. We were planting it on the south side of the lodge, in spite of there being a larger garden that was tended to by the gardener and his helpers not even thirty feet away.
She stopped digging, sitting back on her heels. She stared at me more than she gardened. I didn’t mind anymore, or not as much. Sometimes I stared too now. Since her and Dax had been here awhile, I’d been forced to adjust. They’d been leaving “next week” for months.
“How many Hell Pits are you going to go to?” She dug another hole for a tomato plant. I’d found out those were her favorites when she’d determined that half the garden was going to be tomatoes.
“Callon is gathering information, and we’re plotting out a map. Figured we’d leave in a couple of weeks.” The map had actually been finished a week ago, but I’d been putting off the departure. Part of me hoped the rest of the Hell Pits would come to me so I didn’t have to leave here ever again.
“Maybe I should stay here while you’re gone? Bookie won’t mind running the farm for a while longer. Otherwise, who’ll tend the garden?” she asked.
“That would be great. It might be hard to find someone otherwise.” I purposely didn’t look at the other, larger garden being tended not far from us.
She smiled and went back to digging.
“While you’re here, maybe you could help Tuesday with the wedding? She wants to get married after she gives birth.” I wasn’t sure if Tuesday was happier about the baby or the fact that she could blame the baby for the nonstop eating.
I didn’t have the heart to tell her that Koz knew she had a healthy appetite, and half the time it was him leaving cookies in their room, not me.
“I know she’d want you involved. She’s becoming very attached to you.”
Dal leaned closer. “She knows we’re not actually her parents, right?”
“She doesn’t care.”
She leaned back. “Okay, then.” She pulled out a missed weed before she made a new hole and put a few seeds in it. “How’s it going with Bitters? Is he still refusing to leave Issy’s cellar?”
“Yeah, but I think it’ll be okay. I caught her smoking his weird pipe last night and giggling.”
“Yep, that’s how he gets his foot in the door before he takes over.”
“How long do you think he’ll stay?” I was the one that stopped digging this time.
“Callon owes him a debt? Decades.”
“Yeah, but it was to not do something.”
She was shaking her head. “Doesn’t matter. He takes his debts seriously.”
“Shit. Do you think there’s any chance—”
She watered a couple of holes as she said, “You’re my daughter. I’d give you my life, but I’m not taking him back.”
I knew it was too much to ask. Life was easier.
The sound of raised voices carried onto the lawn as Callon walked out the front door with Dax on his heels.
Callon turned toward Dax. “You’re her father, so I’m not going to punch you, but back off.” He turned and kept walking.
/> “Do you think this is going to keep happening?” I asked.
Dal tossed down her shovel and leaned back, letting the sun hit her upturned face. “No. It’ll settle down. Dax really does like Callon. He’s just mad about a few things.”
“It’s been months of this, though.”
Dax smiled as he headed our way. At least he hadn’t chased Callon down.
“It’ll take him some time, but he’ll get there,” Dal said.
“Callon didn’t do anything that anyone else wouldn’t have done. I mean, I did sort of torture the guy a little and chain him to me.”
“I know, but he feels that Callon should’ve been gentler with you.” Dal smiled widely as she watched Dax walk over. She’d been with him close to twenty years, and she looked like she was still crushing on him.
He stopped in front of her. She held out her hand, and he pulled her up, wrapping an arm around her waist as they kissed each other hello. Seriously? It had been decades. Weren’t they a little bored?
“How’s the garden coming?” Dax asked me.
“Good. Everything okay?” I pointed vaguely in the direction Callon had disappeared.
“It’s fine. Just laying some groundwork. Nothing to worry about.”
“All right, then.”
Dax smiled and then turned back to Dal, who was winding her hand through his hair.
I knew where this was going. I’d seen it too many times before. I stood, brushing the dirt off my pants. “I’m going to go check on some stuff.”
“Sure, see you later,” Dal said, pulling out of Dax’s arm and tugging him in the direction of the lodge. At least they were going inside this time.
“See you in a bit,” Dax said, following her.
I walked into the forest. “Callon?”
An arm went around my waist, and then I was turned and pressed against a tree, his mouth covering mine.
He pulled away after a few minutes.
“I’ve been waiting to get you alone all day. I swear your father stalks my every move,” he said.
I ran my hands through his hair. “Is he driving you crazy?”
“Yes, every minute of the day, but it’s okay.” He dipped his head, nipping at my lower lip.
“You sure? Do you want me to talk to him? Try to get him to lay off?”
He laughed. “No. If I were him, I’d beat the shit out of me. He’s letting me off light.”
“What do you mean?”
He brushed the hair from my face.
“I felt something for you the first time I saw you. You were beaten down but not beaten. All that you’d gone through, and you kept on fighting. I should’ve tried to help you right away, not abandon you.”
“Well, I fixed that problem,” I said, laughing.
“I’m glad you did. You’re a survivor. You’ve got this burning soul inside of you that won’t go out, no matter what. If I have to get chased by your father every day for another year, you’re worth it.”
“Only a year? I’m not sure they’ll be going back that soon.” I wouldn’t be surprised if they never left.
“Then he can chase me all day for a lifetime, as long as you’re in my arms every night.”
“You can’t get rid of me, remember?” I pulled his head to mine.
Actually, twenty years didn’t seem so long when you thought about it. Tiffy had been right. I had more happiness and joy than I’d ever dreamed of.
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Also by Donna Augustine
Ollie Wit
A Step into the Dark
Walking in the Dark
Kissed by the Dark
The Keepers
The Keepers
Keepers and Killers
Shattered
Redemption
Karma
Karma
Jinxed
Fated
Dead Ink
The Wilds
The Wilds
The Hunt
The Dead
The Magic
Born Wild (Wilds Spinoff)
Wild One
Wyrd Blood
Wyrd Blood
Full Blood
Blood Binds
For Ashleigh, who saved me ass on this one!
Acknowledgments
I cringe to think of what my books might turn out to be if I didn’t have these people helping me along the way! Thank you, Camilla, Christine and Lori. Special thanks to Donna, who always goes above and beyond. It’s noted and appreciated every single time.
Savage One: Born Wild Book Two Page 24