Chapter Thirty-Eight
Lach
It had been decades since I dumped a body in the bayou. I drove to the northern territory, away from the egrets Goemon had warned us about but nowhere near the spot I’d taken Cate. It felt like a lifetime had passed since that day. Maybe because my own life was now on borrowed time. Maybe because of everything that had happened, because everything had changed.
Her. Me. Us.
Everything.
The sinking sun cast an orange glow on the glassy surface of the slow-moving river as I parked and popped the trunk. Some said dead bodies were heavier to carry than people, but they always felt lighter to me.
I’d wrapped MacAlister, along with a few stones, in a Turkish rug from my bedroom to keep my upholstery clean. A sentimental gesture, since I’d probably never see the Mercedes again, but I couldn’t stomach the idea of losing anything else today. Not after seeing the look on Cate’s face when I nipped her away, when I took that shot. I’d needed her to understand what I was doing, but I couldn’t let her stop me, couldn’t risk that she might wind up wearing the same mark now branded on my neck if I let her stay.
My boots squished into the muddy bank, saltwater and decay hanging in the thick air as I hoisted the body higher on my shoulder. Getting rid of the body would ensure no one could confirm Cate’s involvement. I’d charged the wraiths with silence—one of my last official acts as ruler of the Nether Court, but a command they would follow. Although she hadn’t been the one to kill him, I doubted Bain would care. It wouldn’t matter that he had been the one who’d sent his penumbra to assassinate her. Blood spilled was blood owed. And if it had been her blood, I would have spilled every drop from every soul at the Infernal Court and not been satisfied.
But she was alive. With any luck, she was already safely in New York. I tried not to think about it, tried to ignore the relentless urge to follow her, to check on her, to see she was safe for myself.
Because she wouldn’t be if I was anywhere near her.
So, I’d followed through on my promise to buy her time, praying that it would stem my need for her long enough to get my head on straight. Considering I hadn’t managed a clear thought since the moment I first saw her in front of the Avalon, I doubted it would work. But I had to try. I had to do everything I could to keep her heart beating, because the thought of a world without her…
I heaved MacAlister into the river, his body shattering the bayou’s serenity with an ominous splash. For a minute, the bloodied carpet bobbed on its surface until water soaked through the fibers of the rug and it slowly began to sink, as heavy as my own heart. A ripple cut across the water in pursuit of the bloody bounty. If the body didn’t settle to the bottom, the alligators would see there was little to find.
I half expected them to continue to the shoreline in pursuit of me, half expected that the pain in my own chest seeped blood like the body in the water. And as I backed away from my dirty work, the ache deepened, the need to go to her so acute that I stumbled, nearly tripping in the marsh grass.
I was so preoccupied that I didn’t hear anything until a shotgun cocked behind me. I swiveled slowly around to find Goemon aiming at me.
“Most people run from us.” He spit on the ground and resumed his target.
I swallowed, keeping my hands in front of me. There was no point reaching for my own gun. He’d felt me the minute I stepped foot on his land. He had likely known the moment MacAlister’s signet burned its badge of shame into my flesh, the other members of the Wild Hunt sensing it as well. They would have all been pursuing me soon enough. At least it was going to be quick.
“Who was it?” He jerked his head toward the bayou.
“Bain’s penumbra.” There was no point in lying to him. The truth would come out eventually, or my version of it—the one that carefully skipped over the two bullets Cate had delivered herself.
Goemon grimaced. He studied me over the barrel, his eyes mere slits in the bright sunlight. Then he shouldered his shotgun. “I’ve always liked you, Gage. Unlike that asshole Bain.” He shook his head, black hair streaming behind him. “But rules are rules. I don’t make them.”
“I know,” I said warily. I scratched the brand on my neck. It was surprisingly itchy, but I supposed being marked for death wasn’t meant to be comfortable.
His mouth dashed into a thin line before he sighed. “I’ll give you a running start, won’t even let the others know I saw you, if you answer one question.”
“Shoot.” I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. “On second thought. Just ask.”
Goemon barked a short laugh, but something primitive gleamed in his squinted eyes when he turned them on me. “Was it worth it?”
A smile curled my mouth, my fingers already twitching to snap as I answered, “Yeah, she was.”
…
Cats scattered, hissing and arching their backs, as I appeared in my sister’s living room. The feeling was entirely mutual, maybe even a little more so today. The witch on the couch scowled at me, dropping knitting needles into her lap, before she bellowed, “Fi, your asshole brother just nipped into our living room.” Romy glared down at my muddy boots, her dark eyes flashing at her dirty floor. “And he is making a fucking mess.”
Even on days when I didn’t track half the bayou onto her wooden floors, there was no love lost between me and my sister’s girlfriend. But today, I ignored her, searching the apartment for Cate. I shouldn’t have come. I knew that, but I couldn’t run yet. Once I knew she was safe, I could let her go. But not before I told her everything. Not before I told her how I felt.
There was no sign of her, and I whipped in Romy’s direction, ignoring the finger of panic tracing my spine. “Where is she?”
“Not having a freaking heart attack like some of us.” Romy glared as she picked her needles back up, and that casual annoyance made my blood run cold. She shouldn’t be acting this unnerved by my sudden appearance. Not after that phone had rung.
“Where is she?” I demanded, not waiting for an answer I feared wouldn’t come. I thundered into the adjoining kitchen, continuing past its cluttered counters to the hall.
Romy was on her feet now, padding behind me. “Fiona! Remind me why your family is allowed past my wards again.”
My sister finally appeared, wearing her usual disdain, but it slid from her face when our eyes met.
“Where is she?” My words softened, pleading with my sister, with the gods, with whoever might be listening. “She called, right?”
Her gaze cut to Romy, who subtly shook her head. Fiona pursed her lips before waving me on. “Come with me.”
Each step felt heavier than the last as I followed her back to the kitchen, a pit opening in my stomach. She should have been out of the city by now. Maybe she’d gotten lost.
Fiona twisted her hair up, tying it off in a messy knot. Always good in a crisis—that was why she was the only number saved on that emergency line. She sifted through a few takeout menus until she unearthed the phone from the pile and plucked it free of the charger. “It didn’t ring.” She cocked her head as she passed it to me. “And there are no missed calls.”
My eyes fixed on the screen, willing it to light up now.
“What’s going on, Lach?” Fiona’s eyes probed me, her breath uneven. “Is it Ciara? Shaw?”
“They’re fine.” I shook my head. “Roark just checked on her.” Fiona hadn’t spoken to me since I’d phoned her about our sister’s betrothal to Bain. There wasn’t time to catch her up now. I would explain everything she had missed when Cate got here. Things had progressed too quickly, going from possibility to certainty with the breathtaking velocity generally reserved for stupid ideas like picking fights or falling for the one woman you shouldn’t even touch.
But her fist banged the counter, the cat at her feet darting to safety. “Will you tell me what the fuck is going on? Why would someone be calling that phone?”
There was a rush of air, and Roark appeared near the table.
“For fuck’s sake.” Romy clutched her chest.
Fiona moved to Romy’s side, stroking soothing circles on her back. She shot a look at Roark as she dragged Romy toward their bedroom. “He’s expecting a call. Good luck.”
But he already knew. He always did, even though I’d blocked him as soon as I felt Cate’s panic bleating in my own chest, shielding him from what I’d found when I arrived in that room and realized what I had to do. I’d reached out for a split second as I left the bayou, asking him to check on my family and telling him where I was heading.
I didn’t bother shutting him out now as I paced into the living room, waiting for the phone to ring, as I replayed those desperate minutes, my instructions to her, that final, inexorable choice. Where had things gone wrong? She was good in a crisis, trained for it. Even after shooting MacAlister, she’d tried to stop the bleeding. She was thinking clearly despite the shock. She had followed what I was saying. The memories ratcheted my steps faster, my instinct beckoning me to return to New Orleans. She was still there. I wasn’t sure how I knew, but I felt it.
Roark moved into my path. “Everything is secure in New Orleans.”
But it wasn’t—she wasn’t. My arms curled over my head, my palms covering the mark of the Wild Hunt. I’d sent her to that garage, knowing everything was in place for her escape. I had acted to protect her from them, but I had miscalculated something. Panic gripped me, as unshakable as that new tattoo.
His eyes skirted the brand, his face stony as he saw the memories through the signet ring connecting us. “You protected her. You did everything you could in the moments you had. She will be fine. Give her time.” Rational, collected words that called to a control I no longer possessed.
I didn’t give a shit what he thought. It had happened too fast, and there was more she needed to know, more I needed her to understand. She needed to know why she had to follow those instructions. She needed to know that she would be safe if she listened, if she stayed out of fae territories and let that ring keep doing its job. I should have nipped her sooner instead of stealing that kiss. I should have sent her directly here.
Roark shook his head. “You had a split second.”
Because I’d hesitated, unwilling to let her go, and there hadn’t been the time it would have taken to travel the distance to New York. I’d left myself no choice but to send her to the much closer garage. If she was still there, if she was still in fae territory—even the Nether Court—she wasn’t safe. I had to go back.
“No!” He grabbed me as if he could physically hold me back. But I could—I would—return. What choice did I have? Roark’s grip crushed my shoulders. “We will find her, but you can’t return there. The Wild Hunt is on, and you don’t stand a chance if you step foot back in New Orleans.”
I’d left my city unprotected. I’d abandoned my throne. I was a dead man walking.
And I wouldn’t change a thing if it meant Cate was still breathing, but I wouldn’t rest until she was safe.
Certainty heated my blood until it prickled and throbbed, until it coiled and snaked from that aching absence in my chest across my skin. Roark was speaking, reasoning with me, bargaining. I couldn’t hear him as a new weight settled over me—a beckoning, demanding tempest brewing as it cried out for her.
“You can’t—” The shrill ring of the phone in my hand cut him off.
Fiona nipped in, summoned by that sound, but I wrenched the door to the balcony open as I accepted the call.
“Where are you?” I gripped the balcony railing, relief surging through me despite that strange, new magic smoldering inside me.
“He said I could trust him.” Channing’s voice gasped.
The magic ignited my blood.
“What did you do?” I seethed.
“A bargain.”
His rasp dredged up the memory of another rattling breath. A blood-soaked chest. MacAlister’s triumphant glare as I took that final shot. Succeeding even in death by dooming us both. I knew the sound of imminent death when I heard it.
“He swore he would take her away, so when she called, I phoned him like I was supposed to, but…” Channing coughed, choking and gurgling. “He…he shot me.”
“No shit.” Killing him was a much easier way out of a bargain.
I didn’t bother with a goodbye as I crushed the phone to dust in my hand, destroying it like she should have done to the one Channing had just used. I stared at the remnants of it as a new plan began to form. Magic glimmered on my skin, attempting to settle into place, to bind me to life instead of death. I brushed it off, blowing the dust of the phone off the balcony before I stalked inside to find the others gathered. The stricken look on Fiona’s face told me Roark was filling in the gaps for her. Romy clutched her hand, and my heart strained at the love in that touch. My sister scanned me as I entered, probably looking for the mark of the hunt, but her eyes paused on my left hand and went wide. I shoved it into my pocket and directed my attention to my penumbra.
“Call Garcia,” I ordered, “and have an ambulance sent to Cate’s place before her stupid brother dies.” She would never forgive me if he did, and while Channing was a fool, he had led her to me. He had delivered the one person I wanted. She’d been right under my nose the entire time, in my city. I’d given up the search so long ago, and then she had walked in and made that demand. Called me a monster and offered me that esmeraude ring, tugging it just far enough from her finger to stifle its magic—
“We should call Ciara.” Fiona snapped me out of the recollection.
“No,” I said firmly. “Someone has to run things now. We need Ciara in New Orleans, but Shaw should come here.” He would throw a fit, but I could only protect one of them, and he was my baby brother—whether he liked it or not.
“Ciara won’t be safe,” Roark argued as Fiona went to make the call.
But she would be with Roark to guide her. He’d kept me alive, a miraculous fucking feat.
“You will keep her safe.” Not an order. A fact. I slipped off my signet, the twin to his, and the magic prickling on my skin flared, searing across my hand, over my wrist as I surrendered that final shred of my old life to my fate. The magic sealed around me, binding my flesh, my life, my soul into something permanent and irrevocable, and on the other side of that bond, I felt the faint, beautiful beat of Cate’s heart. Nothing more bled past the other magic protecting her. It wouldn’t get past that glamour concealing what I already knew from the world, concealing the truth from even her. The stifled bond felt like a cruelty, as though even my selfless act demanded some retribution. But, like breaking our bargain, if that was the cost of keeping her safe, I would pay it. Because she was alive, even if Bain had her, even if she was in danger every moment. My heart still beat only because hers did.
I held the signet out to him and gave one final order. “Protect your princess.”
But he didn’t take it as his gaze fell on my palm. Not on the ring but on the glimmering gold tattoo that laced it, crossing to my wrist and over the back of my hand. “What is that?”
Something impossible. Something inescapable. Something worth fighting for.
He continued to stare until I reached over and thrust the signet into his hand. “Your duty is to the throne. It was never to me. Go to Ciara.”
Roark finally lifted his eyes to mine, his brows lowering as he tried to hear me…and failed. He shook his head, dazed. “Did you know?”
Yes. No.
How could I have ever known?
How could I have ever not?
And perhaps it was the lifetime we had shared, but Roark nodded even without the signet linking us, understanding what I couldn’t say, what I couldn’t quite comprehend myself.
“If Bain finds out that you two are…” He drew a long breath before his shoulders squared. “He’ll summon the Wild Hunt for her, too.” His fingers closed over the signet as he accepted his new charge.
“Then let’s hope she keeps that esmeraude on her finger.”
He nodded grimly.
Roark tugged his lip ring, a tattoo snaking across his temple. “The second you step foot in London, it won’t just be the Wild Hunt gunning for you. I don’t suppose there’s any point in suggesting that you keep your distance.”
There was not. Not with this sacred and unbreakable new magic binding me to her. Not when every breath without her burned like I was drowning. Not when she was in my enemy’s hands. Not when she was mine.
And if I had to walk into hell to get her back, let me burn.