43. Micah
MICAH
O f three things, I was certain.
Barrett was Thalia’s mate.
Thalia and Barrett—no matter how much they tried to hide it from the world, tried to ignore it—had harbored feelings for one another for centuries.
I would do everything in my power to ensure they had the chance to be together, and I would be more than willing to share if it meant I could give Thalia everything she could ever want.
Some males might have felt jealousy, but there wasn’t a scrap of it festering within me. There was only the sadness and utter adoration I felt for her, knowing she would choose me over her mate, her fated—the one her soul was created for by Celestia.
That she had chosen me.
I loved Barrett dearly, had grown close to him in the centuries since we’d met, and there wasn’t anyone in all the realms I would love more to bring into our relationship than him.
Barrett halted at the edge of The Outpost’s training yard, his skin slick with sweat from the hard run he’d just put the new recruits through.
The way they slumped the moment he halted, their heaved breaths rattling their bodies, made it clear they were completely unprepared for how hard the training had been.
That, or he had gone particularly hard on them, for he’d been in a foul mood all morning.
Thalia glanced over her shoulder at him, her eyes immediately averting before their gazes could meet as she focused all efforts on throwing her own recruit to the ground.
I grimaced at the way he hit the dirt. It was a bit harder than she probably needed to, but Barrett hadn’t been the only one in a foul mood.
She blinked when it took a moment for the recruit to rise, pain plastered across his features, and she seemed to realize how hard she’d thrown him in her desperation for a distraction.
Gods, could they be more obvious?
I approached them, offering Thalia’s recruit a hand to pull him up. “You’ve gotta stay aware of your opponent’s movements. You didn’t even try to avoid that, let alone counter it.”
“I didn’t expect her to throw me,” he rasped as he rose to his unsteady feet before brushing the dirt from his training gear.
Thalia cleared her throat and crossed her arms. “Do you expect the darklings to go easy on you?”
“No, ma’am,” he said stiffly as he tried to straighten his posture, like a rickety house threatening to collapse. I had to give the male props for toughing it out; I might not have been so quick to get up after being thrown like that.
“You’ve got them terrified of you,” I whispered with a laugh as he slipped away for a much-deserved drink of water.
“Do you expect me to coddle them?” she asked, sighing as she checked her hand wraps.
“No, but they’re new. You could give them a break every so often.”
She gave me a sidelong glance and shook her head before moving to the next recruit. Her steps faltered as Barrett approached, and the dark bags lingering under his eyes left me wondering if he had suffered as little sleep last night as Thalia had.
Before he could get any closer, she turned, brushing past me. “Can you take over this group? I need to see to something.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but she was gone before I could get the chance, and Barrett frowned when I turned to him.
“She all right?” he asked, his eyes tracking her hasty retreat, and I shrugged.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” I lied, thankful he didn’t harbor Nous abilities to see through it .
She wasn’t all right, not by a long shot.
Guilt twisted my gut as I remembered how I’d remained quiet the night before as she opened the box Lucia had left for her, disguising that I’d awoken.
The scent of her emotions had flooded the room with such panicked intensity, it would have awoken me either way.
I wasn’t sure what exactly was in the box nor what the note had said, but it had shaken her.
Barrett let out a huff and stalked off to get a drink of water alongside the recruits he’d just drilled into the dirt. Whatever task Damien had dumped in his lap, it was taking a toll on him. I took the chance to slip away, eager to see where Thalia had wandered off to.
What could Lucia have left for her that could have her so messed up?
My steps slowed, suddenly innately aware of the way Thalia had been avoiding Barrett all morning.
Did it have something to do with him? If so, what?
My mind reeled as I continued in search of her, rounding the corner of the building, only to halt and dip back out of sight when I found her leaned back against a tree, head tilted back as she seemed to try and compose herself.
Her eyes then fell on a small scrap of fabric in her palm.
She closed her fingers around it, and her head fell back against the trunk of the tree once more as she let out a heavy sigh.
The breeze danced through the trees, catching her hair and dragging her scent toward me.
My heart twisted at the look in her eyes, so torn by whatever Lucia had dropped in her lap so long after her death.
I stilled as another scent reached my nose, so faint, I almost couldn’t smell it.
I’d know it anywhere, had become so used to it that it had become something of a sense of home I’d found in my best friend.
The subtle scent of smoky oak. Barrett. I frowned as her eyes fell back to the scrap of fabric, and I stilled at the familiarity.
A part of me doubted she remembered I was the one who had pulled her from the hell of The Pits.
We never really talked about it, not in a way that truly mattered, and I honestly didn’t care whether she ever knew.
I didn’t need to hear any sort of thank you for what I’d done; I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
I couldn’t have left her behind even if I’d tried.
I had nearly written off the scrap of fabric, though, all but forgotten its existence.
I grabbed the female’s arm, her skin slick with sweat and blood, the sight of the scars painting every inch leaving me craving blood in a way I never had.
She whipped around to look back at me, her stormy eyes wild, promising a swift, painful death to any who challenged her.
I lifted my gaze to the tunnel walls as they trembled, dirt and rocks falling loose and hitting the ground around us.
“It’s gonna cave in. We have to get out! ”
“No!” she cried out, turning back to look at her friend who had slowed to a near stop further behind us, her back turned.
What was she thinking? Why had she turned back?
I stilled as a group of fae warriors drew closer, the sound of their boots pounding barely audible over the rumbling of The Pit.
I glanced back at Lucia leading the group further up the cave, leaving us behind.
She pulled against my hold, her strength waning, arms trembling from the exhaustion that held us all in its clutches.
Even my magic was depleted, too weak to call forth so much as a single bloom in this desolate place.
Her friend turned back to us, her hand resting against the wall of the tunnel.
A pained smile crept across her face, and my heart stilled.
The female pulled harder against my hold to get to her, her pleas turning into screams, but I couldn’t bring myself to release her, could do little but stand there, frozen. Why couldn’t I fucking move?
“Kish! Stop!” she cried out.
I sucked in air as the walls rippled beneath her touch, earth magic winding its way through rock and stone like an earth wyrm, commanding the tunnel to collapse on her and the men pursuing us.
She was gone. In a matter of seconds, she was gone, and she had not only halted our enemy’s pursuit but had taken them out with her.
An agonized scream tore its way from the female I still clung to, echoing through the tunnel as her knees met stone, her eyes latched wholly on the wall of rocks that had devoured her friends.
The damp scent of freshly fallen rain poured into my lungs as she cried, the saltiness of her tears overpowering the scent of earth and damp rock, melding with her sorrow so potently, I couldn’t find the words to try and comfort her.
I lowered myself beside her, my lips parting to offer her any comfort I could muster, but I stilled as I watched the tattoo inked into her skin start to fade, the inscriptions receding like a creature retreating from a destructive flame.
She tore from my hold and ran for the cave-in, crashing against it with every shred of remaining strength she harbored—as if she might force the stones to unearth her friend, reverse the destruction she’d brought down on herself and the males tailing us.
Her sobs filled the tunnel as she sank to her knees, her body wracked with tremors as she cried out, crying for her fallen friend over and over again in a way that I feared might haunt my memories.
“Micah!” Marcus called out. “Come on! This tunnel could come down any minute!”
I nodded to him and shoved to my feet to rush to her side, scooping her into my arms and hurrying after them as the ground quaked beneath my feet, the ceiling collapsing around us until I feared we might not make it out either.
“See she’s taken care of,” I ordered one of the healers as I approached a tent outside of The Pits, the female clutched tightly in my arms.
“At once, sir,” she said, dipping her head.
It took everything in me to release her into the healer’s care, her body still wracked with sobs, quivering as the mountain had. Some strange part of me wanted to tend to her myself, but I forced myself to ease her onto her feet and give her space.
The healer nodded to me, brushing the dust from her white robes as she rose to guide the female to a nearby bed. The female didn’t respond, didn’t say anything didn’t even acknowledge me as she stepped numbly toward the bed .
I turned to look for Lucia, but I froze as something slipped from the female’s pocket, a tattered scrap of fabric that looked as if it had been through Tartarus and back. It landed on the ground, and I frowned as I ducked to pick it up. Her clothes didn’t seem to be falling apart.
“I’ll take that,” Lucia said at my back, startling me, and I sucked in a breath.
“Fates spare me, Lucia. Why do you always sneak up on me like that?” I said, hand pressed to my chest as if to prevent my racing heart from punching out of it.
She snickered and held out her hand. “I’ll see she gets it back.”