Chapter 26 Willow #2
“Willow, wake up.” I open my eyes, not realizing I’d even fallen asleep. Lifting my head, I look up at Hawk, who smiles at me. That sight causes my heart to swell with love for this man. A man who rarely gives out smiles, but does so easily now, just for me.
“We’re here,” he says quietly, nudging his head in front of him.
I glance over my shoulder and gasp, my arms quickly finding their way tightly around his neck. In front of us, a couple hundred feet away, must be over a hundred people. It takes me a moment to recognize the area as the start of the Mating Hunt.
We’ve made it.
The people are divided in half, just like they were when I first arrived here, leaving a place for us to walk between them. But they don’t look happy to see us. The closer we get, the louder their voices become. I can hear the anger and disbelief without even understanding their words.
“They don’t seem happy to see us,” I say, as Bo and Ronan move closer to our sides as the three of them march forward in a line.
“It doesn’t matter,” Ronan reminds me. “We’ve won fairly, and these are not our people. Their opinion matters not.”
I glance over Hawk’s shoulder as we near the finish line, expecting someone to try to stop us at the last second. I can feel the tension radiating off my mates as well, and I know they must feel the same way.
None of us says a word as we close in on our destination. I look at the faces of the men gathered, and plenty of them look angry, but they do nothing as they watch us approach.
The man who announced the start of the games is standing on the same small platform he was on when I last saw him. He watches us approach, a frown etched on his face. I watch him, afraid he’ll stop us somehow as I cling even tighter to Hawk.
“It’s okay,” he whispers in my ear.
Several moments later, we’re stepping past the man and across the finish line.
“The last woman has been claimed!” The man yells behind us. “That concludes this year’s Mating Hunt!”
We did it. It’s actually over.
Relief fills me, but I don’t let go. Hawk reaches over his shoulder, somehow attaches his spear to his back, then he wraps his now free arm around me, and I press myself even closer to him in happiness.
As we start to move down the path between everyone, a loud, angry voice yells out, “They should be disqualified!”
I turn to look down the path ahead of us and see several older men stepping out from the crowd to block our way.
“Who are they?” I whisper.
“I don’t know,” Ronan says as he steps in front of us, blocking me from their view.
“On what grounds?” the organizer calls over our heads.
“They don’t deserve a woman. Everyone knows they are dirty cannibals. They’ll probably eat her as soon as they breed her.”
The crowd starts to whisper around us. I cling tighter to Hawk, terrified that someone will try to take me from them.
“Come now,” the organizer says, surprising me with his calmness. “There is no proof of that. And they won fair and square.”
“No, they cheated!” one of the older men yells out. “They told her she’s their fated mate, so she wouldn’t give anyone else a chance.”
Anger fills me at the thought of them reducing what we have to such lies.
“How would you even know that?” Bo asks from my side. It’s a good question. If the guys hadn’t told anyone, how would they know?
“Our allies told us, before you slaughtered them,” the man in front says in anger. I take a second to look at him and his friends. They look far too old to be participating in the Mating Hunt. They must be in their sixties. A lightbulb goes off in my head in realization.
I know who they are.
I unhook my legs from Hawk, and he takes the hint and lowers me to my feet. I step around Ronan, but he immediately wraps an arm around my shoulders, holding me against his front as I stare at the old men.
“You are the cheaters,” I say, pointing a finger at them. Their heads reel back a little in shock as several people in the crowd gasp. “You hired trackers to capture me since you knew you couldn’t do it yourselves.”
“Is that true?” the man organizing the Mating Hunt asks from his platform.
The old man sputters for a second, giving himself away before he tries to deny it. “Of course not! I don’t know what she’s talking about.”
“It shouldn’t matter if they told me I’m their fated mate or not,” I tell them, wanting this matter put to rest so we can get the hell out of here. “They won, and they did it without breaking any rules.”
“I have to agree with her,” the organizer says. “They haven’t done anything wrong. You four, however, we’ll be having a discussion about your future involvement in any Mating Hunts.”
The older man’s face pales and relief starts to fill me.
“I can’t believe she’d willingly want to go with them. They’re barbarians,” someone whispers from the crowd, loud enough for me to hear. I turn my head that way as Ronan’s hold tightens on me.
“Let’s get one thing straight,” I say loudly, eyeing the crowd as the anger starts to build again.
“These three have treated me with far more kindness than anyone else I’ve met.
They are kind, caring, protective, and generous, and I know that I am the lucky one in this relationship.
No man on earth could live up to any of them.
And if you truly believe them to be cannibals, then maybe you better shut the hell up before they decide to eat you just for spite. ”
I tilt my head back to look up at Ronan, and I can see the pride shining in his eyes. “Can we go home now?” I ask him. He nods then scoops me up in his arms and marches forward.
“Oh, by the way,” Bo says, turning to walk backward as he calls to the organizer on his platform. “There are around thirty bodies out there you might want to deal with, unless the grimclaws have already gotten to them.”
The man’s eyes widen and his jaw drops open in shock as a pleased Bo turns back to us and jogs closer to catch up. He winks at me and lets out a deep breath.
“Let’s go home.”
Stepping into the cave, my eyes widen as I take in all the giant birds. They look like eagles, only much larger.
“They’re so big!” I say in awe as we move closer.
“They have to be, to take our weight,” Bo explains as he starts to look around, as if looking for a particular bird. “I don’t think ours are in here,” he says with a frown.
“We knew they’d probably find somewhere higher on the mountain while they waited,” Ronan reminds him.
I notice several men and a woman tending to a couple of the birds, and as Bo starts to move past me, out of the cave, I step toward the group of people, something about them captures my attention.
It could be that they are the first group I’ve actually seen of a woman and multiple men, but somehow I don’t think that’s what’s piqued my interest.
The woman is beautiful with wavy red hair and a huge smile on her face as she talks to what must be her mates.
The blond man beside her reminds me of Bo, a permanent smile on his face.
And the way he looks down at her, you can tell he cares for her.
The man at her back reminds me of Hawk, silent and large and holding her with an arm around her waist, not joining in the conversation but seeming content just to be there with her.
“What is it?” Ronan asks quietly as he steps up beside me.
“I think they’re fated mates,” I say, the thought suddenly coming to me.
He looks at them a moment before speaking. “Perhaps.”
The woman glances our way, and when she sees me staring, she stands up straight and looks back at me. We stare at each other in silence for a second before she approaches, her men right beside her.
“Hi, I’m Penny,” she says with a smile and wave, coming to a stop about ten feet away with three men surrounding her.
“Willow,” I say, feeling weird. I’m not even sure why I’m still standing here.
“Do I know you?” she asks, tilting her head.
“No, I don’t think so,” I say, shaking my head. “I just arrived here when the Mating Hunt started.”
A small frown pinches her brow as she asks, “Where are you from?”
I don’t really want everyone in this world to know I’m an outsider. I’m not sure if people will even believe me, but with no other answer in mind, I find myself answering honestly. “California.”
Her eyes widen and her jaw drops open. “Holy shit, you’re not from here either?”
“Either?” Ronan and Bo ask in unison.
She and her men glance at my guys before looking at me. It’s as if she’s only now taking in the way we stand together—Ronan’s arm wrapped around my waist, my hand held in Hawk’s.
Then a smile pulls at her lips and she nods. “They’re your fated mates,” she says knowingly.
“Yes,” I say with a little surprise. “And they are yours.”
A huge smile covers her face and she laughs. “I can’t believe this! After all these years, someone else came through! Was it the pink-haired lady who sent you too?”
My eyes widen and I quickly nod. “Yes! And you’ve been here for years?”
“Yup,” she says with a nod of her head.
“Do you know…” I start before glancing up at my guys. I hold onto them a little tighter as I ask, “Do you know how to get back? To our world?”
She frowns at me and then looks a little sad as she shakes her head. “Sorry, hun. It’s a one-way ticket. There is no going back.” She must see the sadness in my face because she asks, “Why would you want to go back? You seem happy with what you’ve found here.”
“I am. It’s just… my sister, Izzy. She won’t know what’s happened to me. She was trying to help free me from our father’s cult, but I managed to escape on my own and ended up here before I could tell her. She’ll be worried sick.”
“If it’s any help,” she says gently, “I came here in search of my only family—my best friend, Ria.”
“Did you find her?” I ask in surprise, and she nods, looking happy.
“Yep. By the time I found her, she’d already hitched herself to a trio of pirate captains and had a child of her own.”
“Wow,” I whisper, wondering how many more women there are like us in this world.
“If she didn’t tell you it was a one-way ticket, did she tell you anything else about this place before you came?” Penny asks.
“Just that it’s worked out for every other woman she’s sent here.”
She lets out a deep breath. “Wow! She really sent you in here without any help, huh?”
“I was sort of in a rush to get away,” I admit, feeling a little foolish.
“Okay, well, the gist of it is, you and I were born in the wrong realm. Or, more accurately, our souls were born into the wrong bodies. Ria, you and I, we should have been born into bodies in this world, Dyconia, but we ended up in the bodies of our doppelgangers in the other world instead.”
My jaw drops open, unable to form a response as she continues. “That pink-haired woman—”
“Aribella,” I say with a nod, and this time she’s the one who looks surprised.
“She wouldn’t give me her name. She called herself my fairy godmother.” She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter now. Aribella said it was her job to switch people who had been born in the wrong realm.”
“That’s what happened to me!” I exclaimed. “A woman who looked just like me came through the portal right before I left through it.”
“She also told me that Ria and I had probably been so close in the other world, because we were both destined for this one. So maybe, if you and your sister are really close, there is a chance she’ll come here one day too.”
I stare at her in disbelief. “Do you really think so?”
She shrugs. “I mean, I don’t know for sure, but it’s definitely possible. I’m proof of that.”
I glance up at Ronan before asking her, “But what if I’m not here when she arrives?”
She laughs a little and shakes her head. “You and I might have started our journeys here, but that’s only because this is where our doppelgangers were. If your sister’s is in a village in the North, that’s where she’ll come through. Or an island to the East. She could come through anywhere.”
“So how do I help her find me?” I ask in worry.
She shrugs. “You don’t. That will be in her hands. You just have to hope that Aribella sends her through with enough information to help her navigate her way to you. She didn’t tell me much, but it was enough to get me to Ria.”
The blond man beside her laughs, speaking for the first time. “Yeah, right. You almost got yourself killed a dozen times.”
She rolls her eyes at him. “You’re exaggerating.”
“Did you, or did you not, jump on a skyreacher with no saddle on your very first day here and nearly plummet to your death?”
“Well, you were there to save me, weren’t you?” she asks with a raised eyebrow.
“You seem happy,” I blurt out.
She looks back at me and nods. “I am. I’m beyond pleased I found Ria, but her life is on the sea with her pirates. We are much happier on land. We actually have a home near the base of these cliffs,” she says, gesturing out of the cave. “My other mates are home now with our girls.”
“Other mates?” I ask, eyeing the men with her.
She laughs. “Yeah, seven is a lot, but it makes things a lot more fun too.” She winks at me and I’m unsure what she means but decide to skate over it.
“You don’t miss the other world?”
“Sometimes I miss TV and my cell phone, but I wouldn’t give this life up for anything.”
Her larger mate pulls her back against his chest and kisses her head.
I glance up at my own mates and smile. “Yeah, me neither,” I say, even though I never had a television or phone before, so I don’t really know what I’m missing. “But if you ever see my sister, Izzy. Tell her I’m in Redmere.”
Her eyebrows raise in surprise as she glances at my men. “Isn’t that…”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “They aren’t cannibals. That’s just a rumor.”
“Oh,” she says, not looking like she completely believes me as her mates press in a little closer to her. “Right, well, yes. If I see her, I will definitely tell her that. We have to get going. We’re taking these birds home and finding them new owners,” she says, gesturing to the skyreachers.
I wonder if their previous owners were men who my Vikings killed in the Mating Hunt, but push that thought aside as I say goodbye. “It was nice meeting you, Penny.”
“You too, Willow.” We wave goodbye, and Ronan guides me toward the cave entrance.
“Would you like me to bring your riding gear outside?” a young man asks, or perhaps he might even be a teen.
“Yes, please,” Bo says with a nod of his head, and we follow him out of the cave to the large clearing. He stands in the middle and lets out the loudest whistle I’ve ever heard.
The boy comes over and gently places some saddles on the ground near Bo, who then tosses him a small bag that clinks when he catches it. It sounds like coins. I realize there is still so much I don’t know about this world. Do they have money? How do my guys even have any if they live on an island?
“Now we wait,” Bo says as he places his hands on his hips, and the three of them search the sky.