Chapter 11 Silence Between Heartbeats #2
“Whoa, whoa!” Zane caught the wolf mid-leap, wrestling him away from Seri’s vulnerable form, Brummy’s claws tearing up his arms and chest. “Easy, buddy!”
The wolf roared as Zane wrestled him to the floor and, even grounded, his eyes stayed locked on the shadows sloughing off our beloved like a snake shedding its skin.
“He keeps shouting, ‘Dark, Dark, kill all Dark,’ ” Zane grunted, and Addison rushed forward to help, whispering soothing words as he took hold of Brumous’ collar and pulled him back, his skinny arms straining against the wolf’s fury and strength.
As Mrs. Wentzel snapped a dishtowel through the air as if to clear smoke and Seri’s breathing settled, Cas and I exchanged glances.
“They almost got her,” I whispered.
Black blotted out his green irises and his fangs dropped as the monster inside him peered out.
“Not now, Casimir,” I warned, my voice as deadly as I had ever made it. “Not the time. Not when Seri needs us.”
He quirked his head just slightly to the left, and something infinitesimal shifted between us, two alphas negotiating territory. The leash on his monster, fraying…
Then a whisper, so faint that even my dhampir ears almost missed it, froze us both.
“Simmy? Koko? Zoodle?”
Seri’s eyes remained closed, but her lips moved. Color was slowly returning to her cheeks, the blue tinge fading from her lips as the fiery glow died down and oily shadows stopped leaking from her pores.
“We’re here.” I bent closer to Seri. “You’re here. You brought us home, you magnificent, infuriating woman.”
I gathered her in my arms and held her against my chest. She was still so cold, but warming gradually, like dawn pushing back the night. She cracked her eyes open, fatigue pulling her face tight.
“There you are,” I crooned. “There’s our beloved.”
Cas flashed out of the room, and I knew he needed a moment to cage the beast before the leash snapped. Zane, his clawed arms and chest already healed, came closer and peered down at her.
“Hey, darling.” He brushed his lips against her forehead. “You with us?”
“More… or less.”
I reached into the pocket of my coveralls and pulled out a pack of cookies. The blue wrapper was burned, a piece of marshmallow goop clinging to one corner, but they were still cookies.
“Here, baby. These will make you feel better.” I held them up. “Sugar improves the general mood. Your Zoodle says it’s a scientific fact.”
“Bro! You’re giving her burnt ones? ” Zane howled. “She just saved all our lives, you bastard! She deserves the good ones. The kind you stash in your ammo!”
“You carry … cookies … with your … ammo?” Seri rasped.
“That is classified intel.” I gave Zane a murderous look.
“Not anymore,” he smirked, rocking back on his heels.
Seri let out a little sigh, and her eyelids fluttered down. Our poor girl was wiped out.
“Rest, beloved. We’ve got you.” Zane kissed Seri’s forehead again, and setting the cookies aside for now, I exhaled in relief as Brumous sniffed all over her.
Then Cas stalked back into the kitchen like a storm gathering speed.
His hair was a wild mess, half in and half out of the braid Seri had done for him this morning, every line of his face carved from ice.
In one hand, he clutched her bedazzled rulebook with a single-minded determination that would have been comical if I hadn’t seen the lingering shadow of the monster in his eyes.
This was his way of processing fear. Where Zane deflected with humor and I went quiet and intense, Cas created order from chaos. Rules from fear. Structure from the terrifying reminder that we’d almost lost her.
“Later, Cas—”
“No, now.” His voice cracked slightly on the last word.
“Relax, mother hen,” Zane cackled, scratching behind Brumous’ ears. “She just needs, like, five years of sleep.”
Cas ignored him, finding the page he wanted and holding the book up like a holy text.
“Rule Number Twenty,” he read, voice clipped. “Seri will not use her magic unless given explicit permission or in life-threatening situations.”
“It was.” Seri stirred against my chest.
The stubborn set of Cas’ shoulders said he wasn’t buying it. He flipped to another page, finger tracing down until he found what he was looking for.
“Rule Number Nine: Seri will follow all instructions immediately and without question during emergency situations.”
“No one ever said it was an emergency,” she mumbled weakly.
My chest shook as Zane giggled, causing Brumous to follow suit with a cheerful, confused yip. Even Mrs. Wentzel smirked as she salvaged what remained of her dinner preparations.
Cas’ nostrils flared, and he turned to yet another page.
“Rule Number Four. Under no circumstances does Seri engage in combat.”
“I formally request an amendment—”
“Denied!” Cas used his teeth to snap the cap off a pen and underlined the rule twice for emphasis.
The gesture was so Casimir that I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing out loud. My older brother, who could rip a man’s spine out without blinking, wielded a pink glitter gel pen against our beloved like it was a sword.
Turning to a blank page, he furiously scrawled something.
“Rule Number Thirty-Three: Seri will never engage in reckless overuse of shadow travel that results in total magical depletion and unconsciousness.”
Her eyes slitted open, focusing on him with surprising clarity given her state.
“Oh, did you add that one just now, Simmy?”
“Oh, c’mon, Director General of Everything.” Zane waved a hand. “She saved our fang-rotted asses! That deserves a little leniency!”
Cas glared at him, then returned to the book, pen flying across the page.
“Rule Number Thirty-Four!” His voice rose. “Seri will ABSOLUTELY not shadow walk through an enemy of any kind whatsoever at any time for any reason!”
“Hardly seems fair,” she breathed against my collarbone.
If Cas tightened his jaw any further, he was going to crush his own molars. This time, he wrote something so forcefully, the tip of the pen punctured the paper on the period.
“Rule Number Thirty-Five,” he said, slowly and clearly. “No talking while I’m reading the rules.”
And Seri laughed.
It wasn’t much, just a soft, slightly delirious sound that lasted only a moment, but it was a laugh. Real and unexpected and alive.
Cas froze mid-tirade, the rulebook slipping from his fingers and landing on the floor with a soft thud.
My palm cradled the back of her head, checking for bumps that could explain a concussion.
Even Zane stilled, his teasing smile turning into something dangerous, the look he got when he was about to do something profoundly stupid for someone he loved.
“Did you just laugh?” My thumb brushed her earlobe as I pulled back to look at her face.
“Cas, write it down,” Zane whispered with mock solemnity. “August seventeenth. Serafina Rose Cimmerian murdered her husbands with cuteness.”
“It’s the nineteenth,” Cas corrected, bending to retrieve his book.
But I saw the way his shoulders loosened, the ghost of a smile at the corners of his mouth. The sound of her laughter had eased his fear far better than any words ever could have.
“To bed!” Zane declared, raising his arms like a victorious general. “For cuddles and storytime! I’ll start. Once upon a time, three monsters fell in love with a princess—”
“Shower first.” Cas was back in efficiency mode. “Then hydration. Then mandatory rest period for all lunar witches.”
“What about … the camp?” Seri’s fingers twitched against my throat, her eyes barely open. “Those bad shadows?”
My stomach clenched. She’d been at death’s door minutes ago, and still she worried about others, about the bigger picture. Always putting everyone else first.
“Oh, don’t you worry, blossom,” Zane blurted out. “That place is getting power nuked once you’re settled.”
“Nuked?” Seri gasped.
“We have a nephilim friend who we call in cases like this,” I explained.
“He’s slopping over with Divine power. He can purify that place in a heartbeat.
We’ll just be there to square things up with the camp director, pick up our SUV, and see if the fire pit has any evidence leading back to who set the trap. ”
“We know who did,” Cas spat.
Elbowing his side, I hissed at him to shut up. Our girl didn’t need any more stress right now.
“You don’t have to worry about us, either, bubbles,” Zane was telling her. “Dude’s fiancée is a level ten healer who brought him back from near death multiple times. She’ll keep everyone alive while he sends those moon-damned shadows back where they came from.”
Even though I could see she wasn’t processing half of what we were saying, she nodded, which was good enough for now.
Brummy ran around us in happy circles, his mind-voice crashing into our heads courtesy of Zane.
Seri safe! All hana safe!
The wolf’s feelings that Zane shared with us were a jumble of relief and joy: Our scents, the warmth of a den, the absence of evil. Brummy’s concept of ‘ohana was intrinsically tied to Seri, always to her, but he’d graciously allowed my brothers and me inside his pack.
Catching him, Zane wrapped one arm around the wolf’s neck.
“That’s right, buddy. Our ‘ohana is safe.”
As I carried Seri toward our bedroom, my brothers followed, and we started shedding clothing the second I crossed her bathroom threshold.
I pretended not to see Cas’ white-knuckle grip on the body wash bottle and how Zane’s jokes came a half-beat too fast, words tumbling over each other like he was trying to outrun his own thoughts.
As for Seri, she drifted in and out of consciousness, never fully awake, but responding to direct questions with mumbled answers, as we cleaned her and ourselves, and the real rules hung unspoken between us brothers, the ones about stolen moments and pulse checks and how three idiots could suddenly taste their own death in the curve of a witchling’s smile.
Her head lolled against my chest as Cas dried her, and Zane’s fingers flew to the pulse point in her neck.
“Sweetheart?”
“Five more minutes, Papa,” she puffed into my skin, and my lips curved into a smile that was half humor and half heartbreak.
“Damn, you hear that, boys? Told you I was her Zaddy!”
Rolling his eyes, Cas scooped her up, and we followed him into our room only to find Brumous pacing next to his creation, a nest of our hoodies and sweaters in the center of the bed.
“Good boy,” I said, earning a small tail wag, but his blue eyes were locked on his lady, his moon, his goddess.
She was asleep before we finished tucking her, face peaceful in a way that made my eyes sting.
The three of us stood there for a moment, watching her breathe.
It was something we’d done too many times since we found her, this silent vigil, this reassurance that she was still here, still alive, still ours to protect and love.
“Who’s standing watch here?” Zane lowered his voice, although I doubted a hurricane could wake her now. “And who’s coming with me to help Harker torch that place?”
I knew he needed to do it; destruction was his catharsis, after all. And Cas and I wanted to, but to leave her? Even behind Evermere’s extensive wards, even with Mrs. Wentzel’s surprise talents and Addison’s whirling meat cleavers, even with Brummy at her side, the idea made my stomach twist.
“We could…” The words shriveled in my throat like salt on a snail, and I swallowed hard. “We could ask him to stay with her again.”
“No.” Zane’s head snapped toward me.
Cas didn’t speak. His face gave nothing away, which usually meant he was thinking through ten scenarios at once.
“We already owe him one for the last time,” Zane whisper-hissed. “I’m not stacking debts to him!”
“He didn’t ask anything in return.”
“Yet. That’s the keyword. Yet. With Lucian Ro?u, the bill always comes due.”
“You have a better option?” Cas said at last. “We’ll be hours away. She’s Dark sick and more vulnerable now than she’s ever been.”
“I didn’t say I had a better option. I said I don’t like this one.”
“I’m not thrilled about it, either,” Cas admitted, “but we’re not choosing between ideal and uncomfortable. We’re choosing between safe and dead.”
That landed with a thud.
Even in the sunshine pouring through the window, our girl looked pale. Hollow. There was a faint purplish bloom beneath her eyes, the kind that didn’t come from sleep deprivation. She’d pushed herself past the edge. And I knew she’d do it again. For us.
Just as we would for her.
“I don’t trust him,” I growled. “Not with her. Not with anything that matters.”
“You’re the one who suggested it!” Zane glared at me.
“I know.” I scrubbed one hand over my face. “But if something happens while we’re gone, if big evil comes knocking, I want the deadliest bastard we know standing between her and it.”
Zane began to pace, too restless to stay still.
“Sanguine mortis, if he breathes weird around her—”
“He won’t.” Cas’ tone was sharp. Final. “He didn’t last time. He won’t this time.”
“She said he threatened to have her beheaded for speaking to him in a certain tone!” Z huffed.
“She also said he was teasing her,” I reminded them, “and Sebastian confirmed that. All but gleefully, I might add.”
“All right, all right!” Zane threw up his hands. “But only because there’s no one else who can get here as fast and is actually powerful enough to throw down with nearly anything!”
We all knew it was true, and yet none of us moved.
It was Brummy who broke us out of our paralysis. He leapt up onto the bed and laid against Seri’s side, one paw draped over her arm. The gesture was heartbreakingly similar to how they’d slept together that first day, when they were two surviving pieces of a trauma puzzle.
I guard. Alphas hunt. Alphas burn. Burn all Dark.
“Oh, we will, Agent Fuzznuts.” Zane’s smile turned sharp after he’d shared Brummy’s words.
Leaning down, I brushed my lips against Seri’s forehead.
“Mahalo,” I breathed, closing my eyes for just a moment as I sent up a silent thanks to the ?aumākua, to the moon, to whatever forces had helped bring her back to us.