Chapter 4
FOUR
Ismelled verbena, lavender, honey, and mint, and thought…my grandmother.
Opening my eyes, she was there, Enedina Corey, standing over me. She looked as radiant as I remembered, and taller from where I was lying on the cold ground.
“Oh,” was all I could think to say.
“My darling child, what have you done?”
I sighed deeply. “It’s so good to see you.”
“And you,” she agreed, even with the worry creasing her beautiful features. “Though I’d prefer you not be bleeding to death to do so.”
“I don’t want to leave Lorne.”
“Well, no, of course not,” she said drolly, kneeling beside me and putting her warm hand on my forehead.
“I was so glad to see you and Gramp at my wedding.”
“You couldn’t have kept us away.” She said happily. “Now listen. You know as well as I that you have no choice but to wake the land, as you need to heal. Be on your guard when you do so, as all is not what it seems.”
“The time, you mean. The cottage and the land not matching.”
Big smile for me. She was clearly relieved I was paying attention.
Though it was hard to focus—I suspected that having one foot in Summerland and one in the waking world wasn’t helping, nor was the reason—I could still ask questions. “Tell me how it’s possible that they’re not aligned.”
“There’s a spell over Corvus.”
“Meaning?”
“It is, and it isn’t, your land.”
Over Corvus, she’d said, not on. “I have to go deeper.”
“Very good,” she praised me before shifting to rise.
“Wait, I want a hug.”
“You’re a ghastly shade of gray. I want you to return.”
“Hug,” I insisted.
“If I must,” she said, like I was putting her out, but the mischievous grin gave her away. She had been, and remained in the afterlife, crazy about me. I was the same. Wrapping me in her arms, she hugged me tight.
The tears were immediate and no surprise. I would never stop missing her. The grief had become easier to carry over the years, a stone in my pocket now, no longer a boulder on my back, but still, it remained.
“I love you,” she stated, touching my hair. “You could drag a brush through this mane of yours once in a while.”
I chuckled, but it hurt.
“Move the slip, save our family.”
And because I wasn’t stupid, I knew she meant all of us. Giles was messing with time, and that could be disastrous. “I hate him.”
“Hate requires so much energy, my love,” she said, then hugged me again.
The warmth, the love, the tenderness, all of it was overwhelming, and then there came a hint of cinnamon, musk, and male.
Jolting, I opened my eyes that I hadn’t realized were closed, and there was Lorne, staring down at my face, his own streaked with blood.
“Are you hurt?” I gasped, instantly terrified for him.
“Oh God, I thought I—I thought I lost you,” he said, catching his breath. “There’s blood all over you.”
So not his blood, just mine. That would always be preferable.
“Did the wolf bite me or claw me?”
“It bit through your shoulder,” he barely answered. “I…I was sure you were…Xan.” His voice cracked.
He was scared, and I knew why. We would never make it to the hospital one town over before I bled to death.
On top of that, there was the snow and the lack of a car to transport me in.
To Lorne, things appeared dire. Little did he know, the near-death experience was necessary to get the direction I needed.
“I was gonna run back to the house to get my shotgun, but I only have iron bullets, and I didn’t want to take the chance that the lore was true and I couldn’t save you because they’re not silver.”
I needed to gather my strength before I could speak to him again, so I smiled.
“And also, I have no idea if either of my weapons are in the cottage. I want to think they are, but I don’t know.”
“I’m glad you stayed with me,” I husked. “Thank you.”
“I couldn’t do anything else,” he said, smoothing the hair out of my face.
“Where are Giles and the wolf?” I managed to get out.
“Giles is behind me holding up a circle of fire, and the wolf is pacing the perimeter. Giles doesn’t think he can hold it long.”
None of that made sense. Giles was a powerful witch, so why was he performing protection magic on something of flesh and blood when he could have simply obliterated the threat?
And yes, werewolves were terrifying, but again, why was he scared?
Me? Yes. I should have been scared. Unless I called on the land, I was as susceptible to being mauled to death by a gigantic wolf standing on two feet as the next person.
But Giles needed to call on nothing. All his magic was contained within himself.
So why wasn’t he destroying the shapeshifter threatening him?
Unless all the magic he’d performed to alter the cottage, and the land, had taken a toll on him.
“Okay,” I said. “You’re gonna have to help me, because I must speak to Corvus.”
“I don’t under—”
“It’s gonna be all right, love,” I soothed him. “Sit me up.”
He was trembling, partly from fear for me and partly, I was sure, from cold. It was utterly freezing.
Once my legs were tucked under me and I was settled on my haunches, Lorne continued to hold his T-shirt, that used to be under his sweater, to my back.
“I’m sorry you had to strip down out here,” I whispered.
“Like it matters,” he muttered. “Just please don’t leave me.”
He meant don’t die, and it was kind of him to phrase it that way. “Not doing that,” I promised, then bent forward despite the pain running through me that almost made me puke.
My shoulder muscles had been shredded, and the pain was searing, excruciating, all encompassing. I cried a bit as the snow around and beneath me flew away and the dirt softened to the consistency of potting soil. My hands sank into the earth as I sent out my call.
Hear me and help me.
Unsurprisingly, there was no response. This was midwinter after all. I should not have needed anything from Corvus.
I need aid.
Nothing.
I know you sleep. Forgive me for waking you. This was not my intention.
It was hard to make the land hear me, and the horrible growling from close by did nothing for my concentration. I pleaded three more times but finally couldn’t do anything but fall forward onto the patch of snow-cleared ground.
“Xan…” Lorne was calling my name, but he sounded, strangely, far away.
It took the last of my strength to roll over on my back, and with my arms limp at my sides, I turned my hands so my fingers, which was all I could move, slipped back into the dirt.
Protect my love when I am gone.
I closed my eyes against the pain I would see on Lorne’s face, against the cold, and hoped that when I opened them, I would see my grandmother again.
He needs no protection.
I jolted at the sound because it was so loud in my head. Different from the sound I’d always heard, and I wondered if this was what happened when the land woke from its hibernation or if this was the effect of the spell. What had Corvus been like long ago?
You will not die.
It was nearly shouting.
Opening my eyes, I found myself looking up at teeth lowering toward me. The ravenous maw was there, terrifying, readying to end me, and I closed my eyes. Lorne was yelling, and then…silence.
It took me a moment to realize I was underground.
Roots were squeezing me in a vise, and I would have howled in agony if I could have.
I didn’t dare open my eyes, thinking, this is the transition. I’m dead. But the pain driving through me told me I was still very much alive.
It was selfish, and I felt bad, but I still wished Giles had gone somewhere else, to any time that wasn’t mine.
It would have been better if another of my ancestors had to deal with him.
The reason it was me, though, was simple.
He thought I was weak—which most of our line was, compared to him—so he came in midwinter to attack Corvus under my protection.
The sound of churning brought me out of feeling sorry for myself, and then I was shaken…and saw flashes of trees backlit by the moon. I saw the inky-black sky before I was lifted from the cold earth and high into the frigid air. I wondered then if I would ever be warm again.
“Xan!” Lorne yelled, and when I turned my head to see where he was, it didn’t hurt. My muscles responded, and I saw him below me, so far down, a good fifty feet, standing with his arms lifted, as beside him, buried to their necks in the dirt, were Giles and the wolf.
When I felt the roots begin to drop, I thought fly, my clothes falling away, raining on Lorne, and instead of plummeting down beside him, or maybe being yanked back into the earth, I circled as a flock of ravens.
The moon was the sole light in the sky, and when it went behind clouds, it was again pitch black.
This wasn’t the deep indigo sky of summer with its soft air; this was the glacial dark with no light coming from anywhere, and it was scary to think I was alone.
But then the clouds parted, and when I glanced at the ground, I saw Lorne on his knees, clutching my clothes, staring up at me.
He was there. My anchor was there.
Circling for a moment, I then landed near him and was instantly back, a man again, stumbling forward and collapsing into his arms.
“That was amazing,” he husked, clutching me tight. “Let’s get you inside so you don’t freeze to death.”
Purposely, I didn’t look at Giles or the werewolf, instead wrapping my arms around Lorne’s neck, closing my eyes, trying to soak in his warmth.
Through the snow, Lorne trudged closer to the back door, and when we were almost there, I had him put me down so I could thank my land for saving my life.
We care for the guardian, and now the guardian will rest.
The abruptness, the command, surprised me, but it was starting to feel more like winter was influencing the land, not a spell.
Once I was on my feet, Lorne quickly scooped me up and carried me into the house that had somehow become again the 1799 version of our home.
“What the hell?” Lorne said.