Glory Reborn

by Sherry L. Brown

  “Please, Marc. Just give me the number.”

  “Are you all right? I can come get you.”

  I suck up the little bit of liquid running in my nose. It makes a pitiful sniffling sound.

  “You’re further out than Justice, I imagine. Please, her number.”

  “I don’t have her number. But I can give you Locke’s. He’s probably with her.”

  Of course he probably is. Every time I’d met with my sister the past few months she’d been covered with his scent.

  I hang up quickly, with assurances to my welfare, promises to visit soon.

  I am so relieved to hear her voice when he puts her on, my legs release, my body collapsing to the ground. I’d been holding myself up with tense worry.

  “Justice. I need a ride.”

  “Where are you? Are you ok?”

  “I’m fine. I’m in Diamond City. Where ever the hell that is.”

  She’s silent. “Diamond City. I’m looking it up now.”

  I give her the specific house address.

  “We can be there in about two and half hours.”

  I nod my head. Realize she can’t see.

  “Ok. I’ll be a mile from the house. I’m going to hide in the woods till you get here.”

  “Stay safe.”

  “Check on Dezzy first, Just. Please...”

  “Alright, I’ll swing by there first. I’m coming. Just hold on.”

  It’s not till after I’m out of the house, sitting in the woods waiting do I realize. She picked up Locke’s phone. Not Locke.

  I didn’t even take the chance to ask if she had seen Nick.

  What had Sienna said happened last night when they did the spell? I sit on a log and try to remember.

  Did she say they opened a portal? And Nick went through it.

  Dread and fear are a hard ball of worry and anger in my belly.

  Every time I hear a car on the road, I duck down behind the log. Three go by before a black jeep coasts to a stop on the side of the road.

  I stand, and catch sight of my sister opening the driver’s side door and stepping down from the cab.

  Our frames are the same. Thinner, leaner with narrow hips. Our faces similar enough we could be twins. But there’s a pixieishness that balances her features. She shares that with Independence. Even her hair is a blend of us. My dark chestnut color, with blonde highlights the same color as Indy’s golden hues.

  It hits me then, what a picture the three of us make together. For the first time ever, I’m proud of the women we’ve become.

  Fierce. Strong. Capable.

  We survived. And when we find Indy we’ll be a family, sisters reunited.

  “Justice!” I shout her name as I emerge from the trees on the opposite side of the road.

  She meets me in the middle, wraps me up a hug. “I’m so glad you’re alright.”

  “What happened last night? Have you seen Nick? Where’s Locke? How’s Des?”

  My questions have been stacking up while I was waiting.

  “Get in. Des is fine. Worried about you. I haven’t seen Nick. The rest...I’ll explain on the way home.”

  The jeep has heated seats. I sink into it and groan.

  “Are you hungry? There’s a sandwich and chips in the back seat.”

  I turn, and sure enough a small cooler is sitting on the floorboard behind the driver’s seat.

  I pull it into the front, gleefully opening it up and tearing into the sandwich she’d placed inside.

  “Mmmm. This is so good.” It’s turkey with lettuce, tomato and mayo on a soft, perfectly baked roll. Just the way I like it.

  She even has a bag of my favorite chips packed in with the sandwich.

  “Tell me what happened last night.”

  “God. Justice. That wannabe hack Sienna really fucked up. I met her up at the Watchtower." I pause in my explanation to take another bite of sandwich and wash it down with half a bottle of water.

  “Yeah. I...saw her briefly at the compound.”

  “What?”

  “It’s bad, Glory. Nick and Locke.” She shakes her head, presses her lips together.

  The worst feeling slides down from the crown of my head, slithers along my spine and nestles in my gut.

  “What? Just tell me!”

  “They are on the Otherside.” She sucks in a breath. “Merrick and Torren too.”

  “They’re alive. I can feel it.” She continues, “But I don’t know how we can reach them. I don’t know how to get them back. Grayson, Adrian and the others are working on it.”

  Her fist clenches on the steering wheel. Her knuckles turn white.

  Justice is usually cool as a cucumber. But it seems that she’s barely holding back.

  I let my head fall back against the the head rest. I close my eyes absorbing her news.

  “Why didn’t you stop them?” I ask her.

  She sighs heavily. “Because I didn’t know...”

  “What do you mean? Like you didn’t know they were performing a spell from her notebook last night? Or you didn’t know what the spell was?”

  How to stuff all this magic back in? I can still feel it, vibrating under my skin in a low hum.

  “I didn’t know they were performing a spell. I didn’t realize the experts they had brought in to read her work were actually going to use it!”

  I rub my forehead at the stupid futility of it all.

  “God, Glory! How could you not read the journals?” She accuses.

  “Because she was a liar, a manipulator. She was straight up crazy! Like lunatic level, Justice. She abused us mentally and emotionally for years. She abused you! Don’t you remember?”

  She’s shaking her head.

  “That doesn’t matter. She had visions, she believed...whether or not they are true...” She shrugs her shoulders. “It would just be nice if you pulled your head out.” She continues, “Quit being blind to what’s going on around you. Knowledge is power.”

  Knowledge is power. The tears well up in my eyes from the truth of her words. How they echo so closely to that last conversation I had with our mother.

  “I shielded you as much as I could.” I tell her.

  “I know. Glory.”

  Out the window the afternoon shadows are lengthening.

  “You shouldn’t have.” She states, “We are in this together. Our purpose is together.”

  Her hand encloses around mine. Gives it a small squeeze before returning to the steering wheel.

  “Just tell me, Just. Tell me what’s so important about the journals. What else is in them?”

  “A prophecy.”

  I fight the urge to scoff. Remain silent so Justice will fill in the blanks.

  “You remember how she held the title Machi?” At my head nod, she continues, “That at one time was a position within a religion. An old religion.”

  “A dead religion.” I supply helpfully.

  “Yes. But did you ever think to ask yourself...if the title was more? That she actively practiced this old, dead, religion?”

  “Actively?”

  “How was she able to create us? Huh? It’s the only thing that makes sense. This religion is old. Old magic.”

  “Are we talking middle-ages old?”

  “Older.”

  I try to visualize the timeline in my head. “Are you saying our mother is thousand of years old?”

  “Yes.”

  “The last Machi of an ancient, magical, religion?”

  “Yes.”

  Both of us are quiet. The white noise wheels passing over pavement, air passing around us.

  “And the prophecy?” I ask, circling back around to what she is trying to tell me.

  “The gist of it is we were made to protect Indy. That Indy is the ‘chosen one’ to bring peace and balance to the universe. She is the one that can straddle this side and the other.”

  I digest her pronouncement. Does it mean anything to me? Change the outcome of my life? Change anything at all?
It’s too perfect. Too neat. Too Disney.

  “Give me the exact words. What she wrote down.”

  “Two shields and the sword. The light, the dark, the in-between. In the final war, one death to win. One death to lose. One death to go on.”

  I repeat the words over and over in my mind.

  “It just sounds like we are all going to die.” I state my profound conclusion.

  “Yes.” Justice doesn’t sugar-coat it for me.

  “It’s amazingly vague.”

  “Yes. That’s why we have work to do.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We are meant to be the shields. The work finds us even if we don’t try. Desdemona is proof of that. They have a secret team. Well, so can we.”

  Chapter 33

  He’s home. Back.

  Justice texted the info late in the evening a week later.

  The team made it through. Locke, Merrick, Torren, and Nick. It’d been a week of stress. Everything tasted like sawdust, all my muscles ached with tension, and no matter how much I tried to focus on other things, my mind would not release the worry for him.

  Realization dawns. Straight hedonistic relief. I am a woman grown. A wolf with no ties.

  I can take what I want. I am free. I am untethered.

  And what this wolf wants is Nick.

  Nick. Nick. Nick.

  I close my eyes against the pull. Yes. I’m free to take.

  Nickolaj Sutton.

  I slide on a pair of boots. My pajama pants legs stick in the tops of them, but I don’t take the time to pull them out.

  Instead over my camisole and hoodie, I pull on my leather jacket and stuff my hair under the beanie I pull from it’s pocket.

  I throw my oversize purse over my shoulder and grab the car keys from the countertop.

  My headlights illuminate the huge snowflakes hitting the blacktop of the highway. Usually, I’d be re-thinking my decision right about now. But I’m not.

  I’m going over there and I’m going to work out this sexual frustration in the only probable way. Confront it head on.

  We’re both consenting adults. And this is getting ridiculous.

  Distracting.

  We’ll do it once. Maybe twice. I’ll get my fix and then I’ll get out of there. Problem solved.

  This time of night there are lights lining the drive to the main building. But I have to rely solely on my headlights to navigate me up the gravel mountain road, through the trees and to his house.

  I park, jump out, not giving myself time to rethink my decision.

  There’s lights on behind the windows, and I push open his front door.

  He’s there, shirtless. Staring out into the night through the tall windows. His amazing shoulders on full display. The remnants of the protection runes on his skin, just barely visible. I’ll hold him down and scrub them off myself if I have to.

  When I shut the door behind me, he turns. His arms are crossed, one hand holding a cut crystal highball glass with just a smidge of amber liquid inside.

  Loose pants low on his hips, his cut hip muscles on full display.

  His eyes narrow in question. But his lips say my name with complete confidence.

  “Glory.”

  “Nickolaj.”

  He doesn’t ask what I’m doing here. No.

  His eyebrow lifts in sardonic challenge.

  Don’t stop now. He seems to broadcast.

  I let my purse, my jacket, my beanie fall to the ground right there in the foyer.

  Peel my hoodie and boots off and leave them in a pile, advancing to him.

  Do my hips sway? Yes.

  Do I lick my lips in anticipation? Yes.

  Do my eyes eagerly run along his muscled form? Hell yes.

  I step into his personal space and take the glass from his hands. Knocking back what’s left of the liquid. I throw the glass over my shoulder and enjoy it’s crash and tinkle against the marble.

  I am Shiva. His destruction is my purpose. It’s balance. And I revel in it.

  I grip his neck to bring him down for my kiss. But before I can join our lips together, he takes my wrist in his hot palm, spins me so that my back is now to his front.

  He keeps my one hand trapped in his, while he pulls me to him with his hand on my hip. My rear nestles his hard-on.

  His lips land on my shoulder and sweep up my neck to the bottom of my ear.

  “That was Waterford crystal.” His baritone vibrates against my neck. He follows his words with a nip of teeth on skin, and it pulses directly to my clit.

  I inhale sharply, and his arousal presses into my backside. I use my free hand to reach around me and stroke him.

  He answers by sliding his palm from the outside of my hip, dipping underneath the elastic of my pajama pants.

  The contact of flesh on flesh feels fantastic. His fingers slide beneath the top of my panties and when his fingertips glide over the smooth flesh of my mons, he groans.

  Waxing may be my new favorite grooming habit. I smile a little wickedly to myself.

  He stops a hairsbreadth from where I want him to go.

  “If we do this, there’s no turning back. No regrets, Glory. No pretending it didn’t happen. No running away.”

  I give an indignant half-huff, half-laugh. I could go into full-woman analyze mode on his words, but the mood I’m in, I’m throwing all my caution in a bucket and lighting it on fire. I’m committed to satiating my desire with a night or two in Nick’s bed. We’re both consenting adults with zero commitments.

  “Oh. Nick.” I spin slowly in his arms. His palm glides smoothly with me, from my hip to the top of my butt.

  I put my arms around his shoulders. Stare into his deep blue eyes. Pools of darkness, reflecting lust and desire back to me.

  “There were no regrets the first time I had my way with you. And there won’t be any this time either.”

  I meld my lips to his. What starts as a languid dance soon turns to a passion feud for dominance.

  He starts to pull away, and I suck his lower lip between my own. Bite down with enough force to let him know he’s not going anywhere.

  He growls in response and the sound makes me want more. Crave more.

  I press my body against his, unhappy with the barriers between us. My shirt. His pants.

  We take care of them with tugging, urgent, near-violent hands.

  Years of pent up lust. Unleashed.

  I hop onto him, wrap my legs around him when we are both free from pants, underwear.

  He hits me there.

  He pushes my back up against the windows. Readjusts and slams home.

  We dance vertically. I am pinioned against glass and man. And I am flying.

  I bite his shoulder when the pressure becomes too much. I explode.

  He reciprocates with a bite of his own during his own explosion a moment later.

  Without releasing me, he starts walking to the fireplace.

  He wobbles a little.

  “You ok?”

  He smiles. A hint of predator fang shows.

  “Just got a little blood flow problem.”

  I smile as the marble entranceway to his bedroom opens.

  “I can fix that. Let’s get horizontal.” I whisper into his ear.

  Chapter 34

  This is new. Post-coital cuddles. My head is resting on his chest. My vision is on the wall, but not, and the tapestries hanging there. I’m liquid.

  His hand trails up my arm, then across my shoulders and languidly down my back.

  Loops of soothing.

  Loving.

  Below the tapestries, there’s a large trunk. On top of it is something that wasn’t here the last time I was. The night of the wild hunt.

  I know because I can feel it’s low-key magical vibrations.

  “Is that it? What you went to the Otherside to get?” I dance my fingers lightly across his chest. Curious and yet satiated, relaxed. This is my wolf bathing in his scent. Cedar and Bergamot.
r />   “Yes.”

  “What was it like? The Otherside?” I ask him.

  “Alien and familiar at the same time. Some places, the places we went, mirror earth. The lines bleed together so you are unsure if you are on this side, or the other. Time passes differently. Non-linear.”

  Not knowing reality. A frightening experience. I contemplate his words.

  Prophecies and purpose swirl in my mind.

  “Nick. I have to ask you something.” I tip my head back to look at him.

  His hand stops it’s path in the middle of my back.

  “Did you - do you know about my mother’s prophecy?” The sword had only just reminded me. A week ago Justice, Des and I agreed that our renewed purpose on this planet was threefold.

  First, we would work to keep the Otherside exactly where it is at. The other side. It starts with information. Communication.

  Knowledge is power.

  Second, we’d work to find Indy. Give her all that we know. Protect her.

  And finally, a lasting agreement that we would do everything in our power to help the humans on this side. A large debate ensued on whether or not they could handle the truth.

  Everything bad in fairytales, the bible, legends is true. Prepare yourselves accordingly.

  Or if we should keep our mouths shut and work surreptitiously.

  “Yes.” He answers after a moment.

  I have to get up. This feels as if a real conversation is about to take place.

  No more soft caresses. I find my panties. Pull them on.

  I opt for one of his t-shirts, finding one draped over the back of the chair in the corner.

  I throw it over my head. “I’m parched. Gonna go upstairs and get some water.”

  He follows shortly after me.

  Opens his refrigerator and pulls out a chilled bottle of wine. He uncorks it and pours two glasses without a word.

  I’m tickled seeing him perform such domestic tasks for me. In tight boxers, no less.

  I taste the wine, after a sniff. A bouquet of honeysuckle and crisp apple. Delicious.

  We stand at his grand kitchen island appreciating the refreshment. Appreciating each other.

  “Tell me about the night of the Hunt. What happened?” Nick asks after a time.

  I don’t see any harm in giving him my side of things. I haven’t seen or heard from Sienna. But when Justice dropped me off at home, my car was in the drive, and her scent was in the driver’s seat. Kind of her to drop it off for me, but I’d not seen hide nor hair of her since.