Chapter Twenty-One
Cliff
I woke in the late afternoon, refreshed from our time of lazy sex and passionate rutting. The soreness, not since our first few times, didn’t stick around. In fact, I felt rejuvenated. He was mine, and I his, our love as natural as could be.
I nudged him as I sat up, waiting for his sleepy green eyes to flicker open. I loved watching his dark lashes fan and flicker as he came to, but he didn’t this time. “Buck?”
His steady breath made his shoulders rise and fall, but he made no motion to move as I shook him with a warm chuckle. “C’mon. Let’s go clean up and get Jacque.”
No response.
I shook Buck more firmly and slid from bed, glancing over my arms and legs to decide how much time I owed the gym. I couldn’t get over how easily I could maintain my body with my powers. “Buck, come on.”
I sank back into bed and flipped him onto his back, moving to straddle his hips. Something perverted petered out over my lips as his eyes half-lidded, fluttered open for a second. In doing so, he revealed not his warm green eyes but solid blackness. And his color, rich terracotta hues, had paled into something ruddy and sickly. “Buck?”
I shot out of bed, throwing on pants as I shouted at him to get up.
I thought about calling Rayne or Storm, hesitating. Rayne was so new to everything, and Storm may not want to be involved when it came to his mate’s brother post heat. Lacking anything else, I called Brook. I’d long since learned not to text or call River. His responses yo-yo’d from bizarre, to nothing at all. He frequently forgot phones were a thing.
Brook answered on the third ring and I sighed in relief when his pleasant tones greeted me. “Hallo?”
“Brook, I kinda need… Buck won’t wake up and his eyes are all black. Is this a bad thing, or is it something normal for gods or—”
“Is he breathing?” Brook’s tone went hard as the line went silent.
“Yeah. Barely, and he’s all pale.” I cursed myself as I grew aware of the shaking in my voice.
“Give us permission to be there. Say it.” River’s sharp demand cut through the phone. “Say you give permission for us to reside in your territory.”
“I give permission for you to reside in our territory?” I wasn’t sure why he demanded it, but a grunt of satisfaction made me fearful I’d done the wrong thing. “What’s going on?”
“Fuck. I feel it.” River’s voice grew distant as he paced, snapping at Brook. “We’re on our way, sweetie. Stay inside, and don’t leave Buck. I’ll make sure Storm and Rayne know. It’ll be okay, I promise.”
The line went dead, but I didn’t have to wait too long until the front door rattled and River came barging in right as I’d pulled a blanket over Buck’s body, obscuring his— River ripped it off, the fabric slipping from my fingers. His dark blue eyes traversed Buck’s body.
“Well, isn’t that nice? Good for you, dear.” River’s sweet tone silenced as he prodded Buck and lifted one of his eyelids.
“What’s wrong? River?” I ignored his comment and tugged at my shirt, unable to restrain that same shiver in my voice.
“Lemme find out.”
Brook followed into the house a few minutes later as River shook and prodded Buck futilely. He shook his hands, the form of them dissipating and reforming as he did so. “Yeah, the land’s poisoned. No followers. Witch’s marks on the trees.”
My heart clenched, and a whimper escaped my lips. “Poisoned? What…”
“Got any idea who?” River ignored my question. His face hardened as his power surfaced. In his form swam the ghosts of a thousand creatures, many with more teeth than I could count.
Brook held up a note between two fingers, lips twisted as River marched up and snatched the worn paper. “Tagged to a tree. Boars.”
“They don’t have Grim anymore. He settled the debt. How are they—” I shouldered past them to shake the bed once more, trying to wake Buck by calling his name again. “Get him up, please.”
“It’s not that simple. A god’s power flows through the land. Sometimes the power can be changed, especially when there’s no worshipers and our dearest moron doesn’t move the center of his power to new lands!” River’s tones went sharp as the blue in his eyes went pale; a vicious cold swept through the room that made me shudder. “He knows better.”
“How do we fix it? Do we—how do we?” I paced the floor toward the door, ready to step outside when Brook blocked me.
“We don’t know how this will affect you. Give River some time.” Brook rested a hand on my arm in a friendly way, but the stiffness in his body told me he’d happily tighten his grip to keep me there.
“Be quiet. Sit down. Let your bestie handle it and we’ll all be good.” River offered me a sharp-toothed smile. In his place, where the twinky little god stood, flickered the image of a similar-looking male with dark lines painted over his face and teeth sharpened to points.
I wasn’t afraid of him though. My heart was more focused on Buck. My sense told me that River was a friend.
Brook, hand still on my arm, guided me away as River swept his way back outside, the door slamming behind him so hard the windows rattled. He took me to sit at the small table in the kitchen area, making himself at home with some herbal tea and water that he made hot just by touching the rim of the cup. “Sit and relax. It might be simple to reverse.”
I didn’t think it would be though. I glanced over toward the bed at Buck’s supine form, the black in his eyes barely visible as his lids fluttered. “Why?”
“Because Grim couldn’t muster the testicular fortitude to kill the alpha of the drove or barter neutrality. He had to jerk his power back, take his toys and go home—no offense to your sister. I hear lovely things.” Brook rested his face in the palm of his hand and sighed heavily.
River slipped in by the time I’d taken my first sip and offered only silence until he approached Buck and kicked the side of the bed. “Death bringer! Bloodletter! A dozen years prior and I’d have let you wane and drift, you fool.”
That sweet form of River’s wavered in his steps, the young male with the black markings on his face, adorned with crocodile leather and feathers as blue as his eyes.
“Hjartk?r?” Brook rose from the table to approach River, whispering old words to him that River answered with in kind, his voice sharp and low, a different voice than the body I knew, that old form taking over.
“Basically, our dear boar king has spent a good amount of money hiring a witch to tear Buck down. She’s drained the land. Trees are dying, all of them infested with some sort of beetle.” River glanced toward the windows and gritted his teeth. “We need freezing rain, and I need to share. A lot. Or we’re going to lose the both of you.”
River gave me a glance up and down, something like jealousy in his eyes before he stared at Buck once more.
Brook eyed me for a long moment. Tears pricked at my eyes, but he spoke quietly. “I’ll call Sal and have the pack start praying and giving offerings if they can. You’re strong enough to do it, my love. I trust you.”
River closed his eyes and leaned his head back, shaking as he took a deep breath. “If anyone asked me if I’d ever give two shits if the fucking bloody plinth of a god died, I’d have laughed until streams ran over with my tears.”
“But those tears will still fall.” Brook put his phone to his ear and stepped away, whispering urgently to whoever was on the other end.
I tried to listen, but only a few words came to me as Brook’s face hardened. “I’ll still be there, and if we do it right, there’ll be enough of him left, but it’ll take time, and he won’t be the same.”
All that I’d gone through just to have a few months with him. Whatever they did, I hoped he’d still be mine, be my Buck.