16. Dax
Chapter sixteen
Raelle was here. It had to have been her that led me to the cave entrance. She led me to my body, but as hard as I’ve been trying since the feeling of her presence left me, I can’t return to it. Instead, I’ve been sitting here wracking my brain about what I can do to either get back to myself or find whatever it is within this godsdamned tunnel system. It has to be possible . The night that I was in her bed must have been real too. I don’t understand how, but I projected out of this cave. To her .
My head falls back against the stone wall, and I let my eyes follow suit. There is no point in having them open just to look at the husk of the man I used to be. I don’t know how long I’ve been here like this. I reflect upon all the time I have wasted being stuck in similar feelings. Time inches on forever, and like no time has passed at all. A limbo of nothingness. Days and nights bleeding into one another. Sleeping and awake many times over, and sometimes just so I don’t have to think consciously.
When all I see is darkness, it’s hard to think there was ever any light.
The cave my body lies in looks the same as it did before. It’s what is outside that has changed. Scorch marks paint the ground with devastation. The downed trees are burned to coal, along with the surrounding brush. Ash and ruin litter the ground, and more floats away with each gust of wind from the otherwise calm sea.
I could say the same for my sanity. A little more gone with each wave of wakefulness, but the time between doesn’t last long. Already, I’m tired again.
Numbly, I replay the events of the evening that I left them here. Hoping I notice something, anything, that will help me get out of here and back to them. Something that might tell me how long I have been shadow projecting. The sky is curtained with the gray of winter, just like when we arrived, and other than the wreckage of the land…there is nothing. My worry outweighs any other thoughts. I don’t know what happened to cause the devastation outside of the cave, much less if anything happened to the Fae I came here with.
Forcing myself to stand with a grunt, I drag my feet to the mouth of the cave and feel the magic radiating from the exit, and my body stiffens. The magic doesn’t feel right. Sickly and thick, it radiates a heavy sense of darkness. My shadows respond to my anger, curling around my hands like a storm.
This has to be Cano and Soren.
I stand there like a statue, thinking about the possibilities… What could have happened to my mate? My friends and the Fae I should have been taking care of… but I shake my head. I had to do this. Didn’t I?
I still need to find what we came here for. I can feel it. Something trying to tug me back into the darkness of the cliffside. Something pulling me into the labyrinth at my back. Lost in thought, my eyes flick to the right when I think I hear something. Cocking my head to the side, I wait. It could very well have only been seconds, but the time between then and now feels like ages as I wait, listening for what I thought I heard.
My eyes snap forward, looking out to the ocean. The sky turns a darker shade of purple as the sun finally retreats from the sky. Then my ears perk up as I hear it again. Boots crunching, snapping twigs, and then my heart sinks. My fists clenched into tight fists as I grind my teeth.
“Stop fucking complaining, Flynn. If I knew you were this soft, I’d have pushed you harder in training.” I hear Cano chastise his guard.
“It’s easy for you to say! You’ve been essentially sleeping with a magic healing tonic coursing through your system for weeks. I have not been so lucky.” Flynn grunts, out of breath.
“Make your excuses, but healing from what I went through… it took more energy than you can imagine,” Cano responds. Every muscle in my body recoils at his voice. The need to see him bleed causes an inferno of fire to rage within my veins.
“Both of you just need to quit bitching and keep moving your feet.” I hear another voice say, and my confusion cuts a deep groove into my forehead as I place the voice as Alaric’s. My mind races at hearing them together. Could he be working with Cano? The fucking bastard I left my wife, my mate, my entire life in the hands of. With a snarl on my lips and a rumble building low in my throat, thinking that the bond they shared meant that she would be safe with him near, even when I couldn’t be… But when another voice booms from a little further away, my mouth falls open. My jaw unable to keep it closed as even more confusion slams through me.
“I don’t understand why we couldn’t have just shifted and flew up here. We had to fucking hike the whole way?” I hear the most familiar of voices ask. My brother? I stand there in a stupor trying to understand what I just heard. The jarring revelation of betrayal causes my stomach to flip and sour, as it simultaneously causes my raven to stir and my flames to angrily roar within me. Shaking my head, I take a step back. Away from the magic that blocks me from leaving. Blocks me from running to my brother and killing the bastard beside him who I once called my best friend.
“I told you the wind up here is unpredictable, plus, do you want to carry the mutts?” Alaric laughs, and I hear muffled curses coming from what is likely Cano and Flynn, but I stumble when I hear another voice among the group.
“All of you have been complaining this whole trip. Please do me a favor and just stop speaking altogether.” Ambriel groans. So many emotions and thoughts are spiraling through my head at why they would be coming here together. Why they would allow Cano to just be walking alongside them?
But every warring thought stops when I see him standing at the mouth of the cave. His dark eyes unable to see me standing here looking right at him. Cano looks up at the top of the cave, his eyes trailing the entire length of it before they bore inside again, still unseeing the shadow that lurks in the darkness. My heart is raging in my chest with a visceral need to maim and murder the Fae who stands before me.
My eyes locked with his; I don’t even notice as Alaric comes up gripping Cano by the shoulder and wrenching him backward as he is reaching out with fingers that look as though they have been dipped in ink… That’s new.
“Don’t fucking touch it.” Alaric growls. “You don’t know anything about this magic—or what it could do.”
“And what, you do, ghost?” Cano spits out, shrugging out of the grip he has his shoulder in.
“What are they?” Trent asks, looking up, in the same direction that Cano had his eyes trained.
“Runes. It’s not magic that is practiced here anymore. It used to be widely used…” Ambriel starts, but Alaric finishes her sentence.
“When dragons were here and the fire goddess blessed the land with those who tamed them were still around.” Trent and Alaric make eye contact. Something passing between them I don’t understand. Then I see Ambriel come to a stop between them. Trent looks down at her, and she smiles coyly before twining her fingers with his and then looking up at her brother.
“Well, what now?” She asks him.
“Now you fuckers need to let me think.” He says, running his hand along his jaw.
“We need to set up a perimeter. I’ll take some of the men Maki provided to do that.” Cano barks out, yanking his head to the side, indicating for Flynn to follow him. Trent narrows his eyes on the duo.
“Can I just have a minute… to be alone here? Maybe you could go command the regime for a minute, so Cano doesn’t get any ideas.” Trent asks of Alaric.
“We shouldn’t wait too long.” Alaric responds, stepping forward and clasping my brother’s forearm in his. They part ways with just a nod, and Alaric juts his chin out. “Come on, sis, let’s go make sure the dogs don’t fuck things up.” Alaric laughs as he begins his trek of the charred land.
Surprising me, she doesn’t immediately follow her brother and instead walks over to Trent, placing her hand over his heart and looking up at him. His face softens immediately into a look I’ve never seen on my little brother. He wraps an arm around her waist, pulling her into him, and at the same time, he drops his head, capturing her lips into a kiss. Well, that’s also new…
“I just need a minute. I want to say a few things to my brother before we try to do this.” He says to her. “Stay with Alaric.” He levels his eyes with hers, and she smiles, then he pulls her close again and kisses the top of her head.
“I will be fine. We will only be right through the trees. Plus, it’s not me you’d have to worry about.” She winks, cupping his jaw, and then turns away from him. She and Alaric climb beyond my vision, leaving just my brother alone.
Trent watches her a little longer, then lets a heavy sigh fill the silence as he turns back to face the cave… to face me. For a moment I think he sees me, but as his eyes fall on the body that lay on the ground behind me, I know he doesn’t. I’m nothing more than a shadow, eaten up by the darkness within the cave. His eyes track up above the cave, and he takes in the runes that are there again. No doubt causing the magic I see walling the cave shut and trapping me within.
“I hope you can hear me.” He says, pursing his lips.
“I’m here, brother.” I take a step closer to the dark, glimmering magic.
“All the things I said before… I didn’t mean them.” He continues.
“You did, and it’s okay. What you said was true. I’m sorry, too.” I respond solemnly, though I know he can’t hear my words, I speak them anyway. Needing to say them just as much as he does.
“You just—Fuck, Dax. I’ve always looked up to you. I’ve always seen you as someone everyone likes. Despite the asshole persona you tried to play off when you were hurting. The Fae of Ravendene respected you in a way that no one else I’ve ever met has demanded.” He laughs, but the sound hurts because of the pain that coats it. “And you tried to get them to think the opposite.” He shakes his head, turning and sinking to sit with his back pressed against the cave wall and his eyes trained on the horizon.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t a better man. I thought I was doing the right thing, hoping you and the Fae around me wanted to stay away from me.” I let my back slide along the stone, until I too am sitting and facing my brother. I can see his profile from this angle. His brows are furrowed into a deep V and his eyes; sadness clouds his features before something else overtakes them. Something almost like relief.
“You have missed some pretty important moments in my life, Dax.” His lips thin into a line as he tries to hold emotion in, talking to the man behind his back.
“The gods blessed me with a mate.” He smiles, “Ambriel. She’s everything, Dax. Everything and more. I understand your actions a little more now. Everything that has led up to this moment. I guess I just wanted to say that… I understand. I’m not a boy anymore. I just—get it. And I love you more for it. I’ve never thought less of you, but now that I have a mate, a future to look forward to for more than myself… the loss of Mel… Life is too short and it’s taken too much… Pain and loss, grief and anger, and just time for me to figure that out. I hope that one day you get to make that realization too.” He rests his head on the stone wall behind him and wipes his hand down his face, quietly sitting there with those words hanging in the air.
I feel his words wrapping around my heart and squeezing so hard it’s painful. He’s right. My little brother, the sweet baby Trentikins from our childhood, has evolved before my eyes over the years. I wish I could tell him that he need not look up to me and the man I was because the man he is now is far superior.
“I’m proud of the man you have become. Our parents would be proud, and you should be proud of yourself. I love you, Trent.” As though he hears my words, he tilts his head, his eyes searching the darkness just where I’m sitting.
“I love you, brother.” He whispers, his vision lingering for a moment longer before he pushes from the ground and climbs from my view in the direction that Ambriel and Alaric went. A burning pain sears my chest watching my kid brother walk away from me. So bad, do I want to yell for him to come back. I want to pull him in close and squeeze him in an unyielding hug and never let him go. Even though I feel desperate and broken, I have to stay positive.
My brother is here; granted, he brought Cano with him, but there must be a reason. Alaric and Ambriel too. They must have a plan, and I have to trust them. Though, even as I think it, I wonder about Raelle. Where she is… and why is she not here with them?
My gaze is pulled to my body, still unmoving on the dirt floor. My brow furrows the longer I sit there, staring at myself lying there. Thinking of why I am here. I’m not a betting man, but if I were, I would bet that what they came looking for is also the key to my escape.