Sacrifice

by Sadie Moss

  My heart surges into my throat as something moves in the undergrowth behind me. I take a few more steps, my ears straining as I pray it was nothing more than a squirrel, or whatever other kind of harmless animal might exist in this world.

  But when the sound comes again, it’s even closer to me, and the rustling is too loud for it to be a squirrel.

  Farse it. I press my lips together, mentally cursing everything under the sun.

  The rustling sound comes again. I lean down slowly, my heartbeat fluttering as I unsheathe my borrowed dagger.

  Then I turn.

  A creature larger than any bear I’ve ever seen lunges at me, nothing but dark fur, sharp claws, and a huge, unhinged jaw full of jagged teeth.

  Death incarnate.

  19

  Nish!

  I don’t have any time to leap out of the way. The beast is coming right at me, arcing through the air with a grace that doesn’t match its size.

  I duck and roll through the thick underbrush. The beast sails right over where I was standing, and I’m reminded of the day Nolan was attacked. Just that small memory is enough to get me back on my feet, dagger in hand.

  This thing isn’t keeping me from my baby brother.

  The creature corrects its course, clawed feet sliding in the undergrowth. It whips around, leveling two giant, yellow eyes on me as it snorts through its massive snout.

  Even as my body braces for an attack, I can’t help the awe that fills me at the sight of this thing. I imagine this is what it would look like were you to magically combine a wolf and a bear. It walks on four legs, each one ending in claws that curve and cut into the ground. Its fur is black, striped through with gray and as coarse as a bear’s. And it’s bigger than any beast I ever fought in life.

  Twice as big, at least.

  As if called by my fear, drawn to the stench of terror that must radiate from me, it stalks forward, drool snaking from between his overly large teeth.

  The sight of it moving toward me snaps me out of my momentary stupor. My life with the messengers has so far been one of idleness and luxury, but not so long ago, I hunted nearly every day.

  My body still remembers that. My limbs know what to do.

  The creature leaps at me again—clearly, it has a very particular method of attack, which means I can anticipate its moves. Despite its massive size, it doesn’t seem to be overly intelligent, and that will work in my favor. I lurch to the side, stabbing out with my dagger as the beast flies past. I hit thick hide and the blade sinks in, spraying warm blood over my arm.

  The creature roars in anger, its feet pounding on the ground. Before I can lunge again, it darts at me, shoving me to the ground with one heavy paw.

  Farse. I got cocky and spoke too soon. He’s smarter than he looks.

  Its claws dig into my dress, shredding the fabric as though it’s nothing more than flimsy lace and gouging straight into my skin. I lash out, my dagger glancing off its thick legs in a vain attempt to get it to back away. The beast barely notices the blow and leans over me, saliva falling in a thick, mucousy curtain toward my face.

  No, no, no! Adrenaline floods me as I slash at the bear-wolf’s face. I didn’t make it this far to be killed in a wild territory of the afterworld like some damsel in distress.

  The creature tries to back away from my dagger while digging its claws deeper into my torso. I feel the sharp sting of four talons piercing my skin, and without realizing it, I scream. Finally, I lift my upper body against its paw and grit my teeth against the pain of its claws tearing through me. The little extra boost manages to get me close enough to slash its face, catching one of those yellow eyes with the tip of my dagger.

  The beast yelps, and for the briefest moment, the pressure of its paw disappears, and its claws leave my chest. Moving as fast as I can, I roll like I’ve never rolled before, sticks, stones, and brambles tearing at my face. I come to a stop on my hands and knees and attempt to scramble to my feet, but that giant paw slams against my back again, and I hit the forest floor face first.

  I’m not only pinned this time, but my arms—and consequently, my dagger—are beneath me. Trapped. Useless.

  Hot, fetid breath washes over the back of my neck. A low growl rumbles through the beast, and I can feel the vibrations of it inside my own body through the paw pressing me into the ground. I’m struggling to breathe through the weight that’s bearing down on my lungs, and although I try to press up to my hands and knees, it’s no farsing good.

  The growling sound above me deepens.

  This is it.

  I’m going to die. For good this time. Extinguished like a flame as if I never existed at all.

  But then, over the low growling at my ear, I hear an unholy roar coming closer. Not the roar of a predator like the one about to kill me.

  The roar of three very furious men.

  Turning my face against the brush, I glimpse Callum first. He emerges from the trees with his sword held high, his long brown hair flying, and death in his eyes. He leaps at the creature, but instead of skewering it with his sword, he plows into it with his full body, the weight of the blow throwing it off me.

  I suck in a thankful breath, surprised at how much it hurts. Branches crackle under me as I sit up. The entire front of my dress is drenched in blood, and four puncture wounds are exposed beneath the ripped fabric.

  But I’m alive.

  “Move, Sage!” Callum thunders from behind me. I hear the dull thunk of sword on bone, and the crash of the beast stumbling entirely too close to me.

  He doesn’t have to tell me twice. I roll to my feet and half run, half crawl away from the danger, reaching Echo and Paris as they race headlong from the woods toward Callum and the creature.

  “Thank Kaius!” Paris grunts, grabbing my arm to stop me. He rips the bodice of my dress open to check my wounds, and I’m too surprised by it to cover my breasts. Quickly, he reaches into the weave and wraps it around my torso—I can feel something strange and soft against my bare skin, as though I’ve been trussed up in a spiderweb. Then he leaves me to join his brothers in battle.

  He hasn’t healed the wound, but the strands of the weave stem the bleeding. Pain still burns through me, and my hand shakes as I reach for my satchel, which fell off during my fight with the beast and now lies half-open on the ground. I tug out the cloak I packed, wrapping it around my shoulders so that it drapes over my destroyed dress. Blood stains the rich fabric, but I don’t care about that.

  My gaze is locked on the three messengers.

  Callum, Echo, and Paris flank the beast, their swords aloft. They look utterly terrifying with their faces set into grim, straight lines. Then they move, their swords flashing like lightning in the slanting beams of sunlight from up above. They work together more fluidly and efficiently than any fighters I’ve ever seen. Each man is a piece of their triad, and they parry together as such, slowly wearing down the beast from three sides.

  Within minutes, the massive creature in the center of their formation is disoriented, stumbling on its massive paws with blood seeping from wounds all over its body. Callum lifts his sword and, as if that’s some signal to the others, the three of them surge forward, three wickedly sharp swords sinking into the beast’s underbelly.

  The creature sways, blood and drool sliding from his teeth. Callum reaches out and, with a push, knocks the bear-wolf on its side. Then Paris steps in with a double-sided axe and lops off the beast’s head.

  All three men stand around the creature for a few moments, breathing hard and surveying their handiwork. The battle was quick and fierce, but Paris’s golden blond hair has barely shifted, and not a single man has blood on him.

  To say I’m impressed would be a gross understatement.

  I can’t stop staring at them, entranced by the sight of them despite the burning pain eating away at me like acid. Shock is setting in, and nothing feels real. Nothing except the three messengers before me, looking more powerful and dominating than they do even when th
ey spar.

  But my admiration is short-lived, as all three men suddenly round on me, a different kind of murder in their eyes.

  I shrink back, their rage sending chills up my spine. Sure, they came barreling to my rescue and saved my life when the beast overpowered me. But they only had to do so because I ran away, which makes this whole debacle my fault.

  I’m used to seeing Callum angry, but right now, Echo and Paris look just as furious. All three of them stalk toward me, breathing hard and fast.

  Without a word, Callum swoops in, and I brace myself, my stomach twisting into a knot. I don’t know what I expect him to do. Hit me? Shake me? Rage at me?

  But he does none of those things. Nor does he manhandle me, tossing me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes or grabbing my bicep with bruising force.

  No. Despite the tension hardening his muscles, his touch is shockingly gentle. He slides one arm beneath my shoulder blades, then bends quickly to put the other behind my knees. I grab the cloak and hold it in place over my ruined dress as he lifts me against his strong chest.

  Then he sets off through the woods without a word, Echo and Paris trudging behind us.

  20

  The walk back through the Unclaimed Expanse is long and entirely silent. The landscape changes around us twice more, and although the shift seems to leave the men as disoriented as it made me, they don’t seem surprised by it.

  They change course a few times, as if the cardinal directions themselves have been changed by the magic of this wild, inhospitable swath of land, but after what feels like an eternity, we reach the outskirts of Ironholde.

  My mission to find a portal has failed, which hurts nearly as much as knowing that Nolan still needs me. But the moment I see the men’s dwelling come into view, I feel a strange wash of relief.

  I’m safe. I’m home.

  I can’t stay here.

  Inside, Callum lays me gently on the couch, but the softness of his touch doesn’t match the sheer rage in his eyes. There’s a muscle ticking in his cheek as if he’s about to explode, and I’m not sure if it will be safe for me to be around when he does—or for anyone to be around him, for that matter. I’ve never seen him so angry.

  The massive warrior remains strangely silent, however. He isn’t the first to break the tense quiet.

  Instead, it’s the man I least expect.

  “What the farse were you thinking?” Echo growls, throwing his sheathed sword to the floor so violently that a small statue on a nearby table shakes. His normally relaxed, good-natured expression is twisted with anger, but I see something else beneath that facade—fear.

  I don’t understand it.

  How could anything in the world frighten these men?

  I sit up, even though pain makes me lightheaded. I barely remember to hold the cloak closed over my chest as I stand on wobbly legs.

  “Am I a prisoner here?” I demand, my voice turning raspy as emotions run hot through my blood.

  Kaius bound me to them, but he gave them no specific instructions on what to do with me. And they’ve certainly never made it clear what they expect of me, other than that I stay out of their way.

  Paris steps forward. He’s still carrying the double-bladed axe covered in the beast’s blood, and it looks even bigger and more gruesome up close. “If you were, would it keep you from racing off into the wilds like an idiot?”

  “I’m not an idiot,” I shoot back, ignoring the fact that I had a similar thought not too long ago. But my own ire is rising to meet his, and I cross to him and jam a finger in his chest, my other hand still clutching my cloak. “I didn’t go into the Unclaimed Expanse to pick farsing wildflowers. Did you ever stop to consider that maybe I had a reason?”

  “There’s not a reason in the realm for you to leave the safety of this house,” Echo snaps.

  “The way you all treat me like an inconvenience isn’t enough of a reason?” I say coldly, my finger falling from Paris’s chest as I shove into Echo’s sphere, glaring up at him.

  He grabs my shoulders, his grip like steel. I can feel him practically vibrating, as if it’s taking all his self-control not to explode. Fear still lingers in his eyes, even more pronounced than before, and as his gaze rakes over my body, his lips curl back in a snarl.

  “How could you be so stupid as to think you could survive out there?” Paris punctuates his words by dropping the bloodied axe on the floor. Red droplets spatter across the white marble, but none of the men seem to notice or care.

  “I was fine!”

  “This is fine?” Grasping the fabric with one hand, Paris jerks the cloak off my shoulders, exposing the jagged tears in my torso.

  I clutch the edges of my dress and yank them up to cover my breasts. “You have no right to—”

  “Enough!” Callum roars. He strides across the room and grabs my arm, hauling me against him. I’m barely balancing on my tiptoes, staring up into his vivid green eyes.

  “You would be dead had we not followed the soul-link to find you,” he tells me, his voice low and rough.

  The last time I was this close to him was the night he dried me off after my bath. The first night I spent in this house. I remember suddenly the delicate slide of his fingertips on my thigh, and then—despite the horror of today, despite the pain and the mangled mess that is my torso—I think of last night.

  His body in front of the mirror. His hand fisting his cock. His gaze only for me.

  Callum’s eyes widen, and he lets me go so abruptly I almost fall to the floor. I stumble backward, and Echo catches me with an arm around my waist. But I can’t look away from Callum, and he doesn’t look away from me.

  Can he sense my arousal through the link?

  Can he glimpse my memories?

  Does he know?

  A sudden wave of lightheadedness flows over me, and my knees buckle. Pain tears through my chest, and I cry out, covering my wounds with both hands as I fall.

  Echo sweeps me into his arms before I hit the floor, cradling me gently as a sudden stillness falls over the room. The men are no longer raging, no longer ranting or yelling. It’s almost as if they’re all holding their breath.

  “Kaius curse it.” Echo’s voice is soft but strained. “I’ve got you, little soul.” He looks up, and his tone shifts a little as he addresses his brothers. “We need to heal her. We should’ve done it the second we left the Unclaimed Expanse.”

  I’m too dizzy to process his words properly, or even to thank him. I’m exhausted, and I don’t want to fight with these men anymore. I don’t want to fight the urge to be near them.

  So for once, I don’t. I close my eyes, sinking against him as he carries me to the couch and lays me down on the cushions.

  When I feel cold air on my breasts, my eyes flutter open and I reach for the remnants of my dress. I can’t let them see my naked body, not like this, all cut up and bloody.

  Paris grabs my hands and pins them back down to my sides. “Sage, let us heal you.”

  “Modesty be damned, woman. Let us take care of you,” Callum says gruffly, and as if to punctuate his statement, he lays a hand on my breast.

  There’s nothing remotely sensual about his touch. His palm is over a ragged cut that crests the top of my breast, and it burns as he reaches into the weave to collect his magic.

  But the gentle Callum is back, the one who toweled me off in the privacy of my washroom, his gaze burning pathways over every inch of my skin. I can’t help but make the connection between this moment and that one, which means as he begins to weave the magic in and out of the cuts on my chest, all I can think about is the feel of his hands on my body.

  Echo kneels at my feet and lifts my dress. I didn’t even realize I was wounded anywhere else, though the fight against the bear-wolf was so quick and deadly it shouldn’t come as a surprise. I can’t see anything but his mess of dark hair over Callum’s shoulder, but his fingers roll my legs open and probe the skin of my knee and upper thigh.

  Pain flares where
he touches me, as if awakened by the reminder of the injury. But as he draws on the weave and begins to heal the broad cut on my leg, the agony subsides. And in its wake, I feel only the warm pressure of his fingers, the brush of his palm against my skin.

  I’ve never been touched by a man where he’s touching me now, nor where Callum is touching me either. Except once—in a dream that’s been seared into my brain as surely as any true memory.

  Paris appears above me, leaning over the arm of the couch so that he’s upside down in my vision. He cups my face and tsks, his fingers turning circles on my skin. “Little soul, your pretty face.”

  “There were brambles,” I murmur, flushing as Echo’s hand slides a little higher on my leg. I still feel lightheaded, but it’s for an entirely new reason now. I feel like I’m floating, like none of this is real.

  And how can it be? Nothing I’ve ever experienced has felt this good. Pleasure and pain shouldn’t mix like this, into an almost overwhelming blend of sensations that makes my entire body hum with need.

  Paris reaches into the weave and begins working magic on the tiny cuts on my face. He’s intent on his work, the brush of his fingers as light as pixie wings as he moves them across my skin. I watch him, unable to tear my gaze away from his perfect, inhumanly beautiful face. He purses his lips slightly as he concentrates, but after he’s healed several of the scrapes, his movements pause. He gazes down at me, his face only a few inches from mine.

  “Did you truly want to leave us?” he asks, his voice so soft I have to strain to hear it. “Did you mean to break our hearts?”

  Callum’s fingers move to the apex of my breast, and I don’t have a chance to respond to Paris’s strange question, because the big warrior’s fingers are fuel to the fire already burning inside me. I tear my gaze from Paris’s to look down at Callum’s hand. He’s tracing the slowly healing wounds, the weave trailing from his fingertips and knitting my torn flesh together. Now that the pain is fading, I only feel him—the soft scratch of his calloused skin, the warmth coming off him, his breath fanning over my skin as he moves to the next puncture wound.